The lions' den returns to the Colosseum

08.06.2015 15:30

Archaeologists have built an exact replica of the lift that was used to move lions and bears into the centre of the Colosseum 1,500 years ago - where they would be pitched against gladiators and other animals in a bloody battle to the death.

Now, for the first time in over a thousand years a wild animal, a wolf, has been released into the centre of Rome's most iconic ancient landmark using the ingenious wooden contraption.

The replica lift was built using ancient Roman technology by a team of archaeologists and engineers in the centre of the amphitheatre.

It can lift a cage carrying 300kg up to a height of 24ft using a complex system of pulleys - all the while ensuring the cage's lid and the trap door above can open simultaneously to release the animals.

It took the experts more than a year and a half to build the timber lift - ensuring they only used materials that would have been available to the ancient Romans.

It will now remain in the Colosseum as a permanent feature.

'It will help people understand exactly what the Colosseum was like,' Francesco Prosperetti, a senior Rome cultural heritage official, told The Telegraph.

It would have taken eight slaves to manoeuvre the lift by using their combined strength to turn the huge wooden shaft at its centre.

The amphitheatre was the scene of tens of thousands of deaths - both human and animal.

The €20m budget for the project, which was revealed on Friday, was paid for by Providence Pictures, who are making a documentary about the reconstruction.

Gary Glassman, the producer of Colosseum: Roman Death Trap, told IBT that during the making of the documentary a wolf was placed inside the cage and hoisted up to the amphitheatre.

He said: 'It was the first time that a wild animal had been released into the Colosseum in 1,500 years.

'I would love to have used a lion, but there were obvious safety issues involved. In the end, we chose a wolf because it is the symbol of Rome.

'One of the reasons we are attracted to the Colosseum is because of the incredible violence that went on here.'

Tens of thousands of animals died in the arena, carried there from the hypogeum, the basement where lions, tigers, leopards, bears, wild boar and condemned criminals were housed.

'The number of lifts here was more than in any other Roman amphitheatre and Roman sources talk of 100 lions appearing together,' Rossela Rea, director of the Colosseum told the Times.

'The wooden life we have rebuilt is for the public, but is to be studied, too. This is experimental archaeology that worked brilliantly.

'Condemned prisoners, probably including Christians, were devoured by the animals.'

But it is far from certain that any Christians were put to death in the Colosseum.

In their book historians Mary Beard and Keith Hopkins said there are no records showing Christians were killed in the ancient amphitheatre.

They said: 'It was only later that Christian writers invested heavily in the Colosseum as a shrine of the martyrs.'

(dailymail.co.uk)