The well was in the middle of a small town square, known as a Baglio. A Baglio such as the one we visited is a group of houses that has been organized to prioritize defense of people, water, produce, and any other stored resources. There is one entrance to the neighborhood, and the walls and buildings are quite tall -- the ground floor was typically used for storage, and people lived on the top 2 floors. (We also learned that Baglios on the coast have a somewhat different organization, and were created to protect materials for trade, such as wine and oil.)
Unfortunately, a number of modern pumps had been installed in the top of the well. These made it difficult to drop the ROV into the water, but we still managed it successfully. The well turned out to be a simple rectangle, which only required one sonar scan to map.
Toto was kind enough to point out a few historical land marks around the site. These included the outline of an ancient stone archway, other old stone walls, and a date marker.
The second site was in the basement of a modern hotel that is a restored paper factory, originally founded in the 1700s: the Hotel Baglio Conca D'Oro at Cartiera Grande (http://www.hotelbaglioconcadoro.com/).
We used an opening in the kitchen’s basement to access a small rectangular chamber that was connected to other chambers by small tunnels. The first tunnel was very long, and we ran out of cable before we reached the end of it. The second tunnel might have been equally long, but a few meters in, it narrowed in width preventing the ROV and us from continued exploration. We will return to this site tomorrow and access the waterways from another point.
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