Diocletian's Cellars

The vaulted underground halls beneath Diocletian's Palace are the best-preserved Roman subterranean structure in the world. Originally used as storage and service rooms for the palace above, they mirror the floor plan of the imperial apartments exactly — giving archaeologists a precise map of rooms that have since been built over many times.

The cellars are entered from the Bronze Gate on the sea wall, and the main hall runs the full width of the palace. They are regularly used for exhibitions, markets, and cultural events — a pleasantly odd combination of ancient Rome and contemporary city life. The side corridors branch into darker, rougher-cut passages; the whole complex is much larger than most visitors expect. Budget 45 minutes to an hour for a thorough visit.

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A story
The cellars served as Split's main rubbish tip for several centuries — residents simply threw refuse through trapdoors in the floor above. By the 20th century they were completely filled with compacted organic material. The excavation that cleared them, completed in the 1950s, recovered an enormous quantity of medieval artefacts alongside the Roman structure — an accidental archaeological archive created by centuries of domestic life directly above.

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