Primo contributo allo studio delle cavità sotterranee nascoste sotto il Parco di Centocelle nell'area urbana di Roma

The park of Centocelle, whose name originates from the Latin Centum Cellae otherwise one hundred rooms, is a green area of 120 hectares located in the territory of the V municipality on the eastern suburbs of Rome. The name could also derive from the high presence of underground environ- ments in that area which were already known since the con- struction of the Centocelle military airport in the early 1900s. Furthermore, archaeological researches discovered that the area was subject to cultivation before the construction of the Roman villas in very old age. Many underground cavities were discovered, even recently, as a result of sinkhole collapses. In 2016, the first collapse highlighted a tunnel that from Via di Centocelle borders the park and reaches a pagan hypogeum. Last January a second collapse highlighted a network of cavities that extends from Tor de Schiavi and Casilina roads. However, the underground cavities in the area are not yet fully known, it is conceivable that in the area crossed by the Casilina road other tunnels occur as confirmed by the numerous morphological depressions in the park area, as well as by the sinkhole collapses recorded over time in the neighbouring roads. This work pres- ents the first results achieved in the framework of the Moscas Project (Models and Instruments for the Characterization of Underground Cavities) funded by Ministry of the Environ- ment (MATTM).