28 SPRING 2019 • POPSCI.COM by Kate Morgan / photograph by Gianni Ciprianooversees preservation and curates exhibits. And, as the sci-
entific director of the Metro C project, an effort to extend
Rome’s outdated subway, Rea safeguards treasures that
might otherwise be lost. “Some moments are for digging,
some are for building, some are for teamwork,” she says.
As excavators go, Rea’s more fascinated by the land-
scapes of cities than with single artifacts. Childhood visits
to Pompeii sparked her passion for the past. Since begin-
ning her career in 1979, she’s become a local authority on
everything from gladiators to ancient public works, serving
first as an archaeologist at the Ministry for Cultural Heri-
tage and eventually rising to direct the Colosseum. When
Metro C first consulted her nearly 30 years ago, Rea im-
mediately grasped the stakes. “It’s vital to take the time to
understand the way the city evolved,” she says, “but it’s
also true that Rome needs this subway up and running.”
The City of Seven Hills is long overdue for a subterra-
nean makeover. Until recently, there were only two routes,
Metros A and B, forming a giant X. In the ’90s, officials
started planning Metro C, which would intersect the two
lines and reach the eastern suburbs. Construction began in
2007, and trains started running on the first stretch in late
2014; the last few stops should open in 2022. Some criticsblame the pace on Italy’s strict conservation
laws: When you dig, you find important stuff,
and then your site becomes Rea’s domain.
But she doesn’t mind crews going deep
to install stations, entrances, and ventila-
tion shafts. In fact, she sees their efforts as “a
great tool of knowledge.” Before the first bull-
dozer even showed up, she used a technology
called electrical resistivity tomography to peer
into the ground. Electrodes her team places in
boreholes along the proposed route measure
how easily current flows through the strata.
The data tells scientists where they can find
clay, stone, and tile. Using this technique and
others, they’ve located dozens of sites, among
them an Aeneolithic necropolis, an Imperial
Age reservoir, and 2,000-year-old barracks.
They struck pay dirt in 2007, while survey-
ing for the station at Piazza Venezia in the
middle of the city. The team found Hadrian’s
Athenaeum, a well-documented but previ-
ously elusive arts school where poets, scholars,
and politicians debuted literature and de-
bated issues. In historical significance, only
the Forum is its equal. “We couldn’t possibly
move it,” Rea says, “so instead we worked with
Metro C to move the station down the street.”
While many of her finds end up in storage
awaiting exhibition, some will remain in
Metro C stations as functional museums.
Fully automated trains will whiz past the base
of the Aurelian city walls, as riders wait among
1,800-year-old mosaics. Rea hopes the stops
will inspire other aging cities as they mod-
ernize. “This methodology, of archaeologists
and engineers working together for the public
good, is proof,” she says: “What’s ancient and
what’s modern can belong together.”HISTORY ON
THE LINE
THE WORLD BENEATH ROME’S COBBLESTONES HAS A
rhythm. Under a freshly raised canopy of steel beams nearly
30 feet below the hum of Vespas and buses, Rossella Rea,
in a hard hat and neon-orange safety vest, watches as her
team brushes dirt off a medieval sauce pot. A few feet away,
crews in identical uniforms go to work in an area they’ve al-
ready cleared, erecting the walls of a new subway station.
Rea deconstructs; they construct. It’s a tempo they’ve per-
fected over the past decade. ¶ In a city that’s been layering
on top of itself for nearly 3,000 years, there’s enough to
keep someone like Rea, 64, busy around the clock. She’s the
archaeological superintendent of the Colosseum, where sheIN PROFILE / ROSSELLA REASOME
MOMENTS ARE
FOR DIGGING,
SOME ARE FOR
BUILDING,
SOME ARE FOR
TEAMWORK.”
—ROSSELLA REA