The Cellars of Diocletian’s Palace, sometimes referred to as the Diocletian’s Cellars or the Basement of Diocletian’s Palace, are a set of substructures within the palace and are known as one of the best preserved complexes of this kind in the world. The emperor’s chambers were located above the cellars, and they were also used as storage areas for the palace.
The ground plan of the cellars mimics the layout of the emperor’s chambers that used to be directly above them but have mostly been erased by residential buildings during the middle ages, so the cellars enabled the researchers to reconstruct what the emperor’s chambers used to look like.
During the middle ages, the cellars were mostly used as water wells, waste pits, and septic tanks, which resulted in the fact that they were mostly filled up with waste up until the middle of the 19th century, when they were cleaned up by a couple of large-scale archaeological projects.
The cellars can be accessed directly from the Riva using the Bronze Gate or from the Peristyle. The upper part of the cellars can be accessed for free, while the rest of the complex requires payment to enter. The complex was used as a filming location for the HBO series Game of Thrones.
