The tour
Roman domus
The city of Catania was founded in 679 B.C. on the hill of Montevergine, coinciding with the current area bounded by Piazza Dante, Via Crociferi and Via Vittorio Emanuele. This original foundation was then maintained over the centuries as the starting point for the expansion of the city and its reconstruction whenever it was destroyed by earthquakes or eruptions of Etna.
For this reason, although a discovery of this magnitude was not expected, when the remains of the domus were discovered during work on the construction of the ticket office, it was decided to leave the excavation exposed by building a glass staircase.
Wonderful Catania!
A Roman domus inside a seventeenth-century convent?
Multiple rooms of
Roman domus
Despite the fact that the excavation is still incomplete, it is possible to distinguish the different rooms that make up the domus: the pantry, identified by the presence of a sink in good condition, the external paved courtyard raised above the level of the inhabited area, and a third room whose use has not yet been identified due to the unfinished nature of the excavation.