Gli effetti dell'acqua nell'interramento e nel disvelamento delle aree archeologiche. Pompei, Pozzuoli e Nola: casi a confronto

The archaeological area of Pompeii is known throughout the world for having been submerged for sixteen centuries and for still being the subject of excavation works to highlight it, as well as to ensure that rain and rainwater can conceal or damage what has emerged from the subsoil again. Pozzuoli and the entire Flegrean area since ancient times have a constantly evolving geographical outline. The phenomenon of bradyseism mainly affects the relationship between land and sea. The raising and lowering of the water and the consequent human intervention over the centuries lead to focus the attention on the current actions to safeguard the several testimonies of the past exposed to these risks. Instead, more recent is the casual discovery of traces of a prehistoric hut settlement, on the suburbs of the ancient city of Nola, during the excavation phase for the foundations of a shopping centre. The cavities identified in the preliminary geological investigation phase, have made possible to obtain the shape and size of some huts and the connection spaces between them. Again, the burial of the entire village would have been caused by water. The aim of the contribution is to investigate these three cases, in the Neapolitan metropolitan area, where large parts of ancient architectural sites had been obliterated due to or with the help of rainwater, as for Pompeii. The conditions that generated the burial of the three sites will be compared with those that the discovery has produced, highlighting the problems and critical issues as well as the solutions adopted to prevent water from damaging the undisclosed assets. The issue of water governance in archaeological sites is therefore considered crucial to ensure the protection and to contain the degradation of the assets highlighted and the solutions adopted up to now will be presented.