The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hypogeum \Hyp`o*ge"um\, n.; pl. Hypogea. [L., fr. Gr. ?, ?, subterranean; ? under + ?, ?, the earth.] (Anc. Arch.) The subterraneous portion of a building, as in amphitheaters, for the service of the games; also, subterranean galleries, as the catacombs.
Wiktionary
n. An underground room or cavern (qualifier: also used figuratively).
Wikipedia
Hypogeum or hypogaeum (plural hypogea) literally means "underground", from Greek hypo (under) and gaia (mother earth or goddess of earth). It usually refers to an underground temple or tomb.
The later Christians built similar underground shrines, crypts and tombs, which they called catacombs. But this was only a difference in name, rather than purpose and rituals, and archeological and historical research shows they were effectively the same. Werner Jacobsen wrote,
Like other ambitious Romans, the bishop-saints of the third and fourth centuries were usually buried in hypogea in the cemeteries outside the walls of their cities; often it was only miracles at their tombs that caused their successors to adopt more up-to-date designs. In Dijon the saint and bishop Benignus (d. c. 274) was buried in a large sarcophagus in a chamber tomb in the Roman cemetery. By the sixth century the tomb had long since fallen into disrepair and was regarded as pagan, even by Bishop Gregory of Langres."
Hypogea will often contain niches for cremated human remains or loculi for buried remains. Occasionally tombs of this type are referred to as built tombs.
Hypogeum can also refer to any antique building or part of building built below ground. A series of tunnels under the Colosseum held slaves and animals while keeping them ready to fight in the gladiatorial games. The animals and slaves could be let up through trapdoors under the sand-covered arena at any time during a fight.
Usage examples of "hypogeum".
A large square niche at the far end of the room was identical to the one in the Hypogeum on Malta.
The niche was virtually identical to the one in the Hypogeum on Malta, the one excavated by his great grandfather Sir Themistocles.
The next morning Hethor had been taken, and at that time, it seemed, Beuzec had bolted from the praetorians, who had been given keys by the steward so they might search the hypogeum for him.
Indeed, as the reader will recall, the seismological work carried out at Giza in the early 1990s by the American geophysicist Thomas Dobecki did indicate the presence of a large and apparently man-made hypogeum in the bedrock beneath the Sphinx.
In the Roman necropolis, along the Kairwan road, several interesting discoveries were made, among them a hypogeum containing several frescoes in fair preservation, containing curious figures and inscriptions, and also some inscriptions on marble or stucco.
But Fidelma had turned and was already leading the way to the hypogeum of the abbey.
Only after she had circumvented the buildings and was assured that no one was observing her did she hurry her pace, slipping back into I 212Peter Tremayne the abbey building and moving to the entrance to the hypogeum, the vaults that ran beneath the abbey building.
She had gone some way before the scent of wine, mixed with the bitter-sweet stench of stale cooking from the great abbey kitchens above, told her that she was nearing the section of the hypogeum reserved for the storage of wine.
They have no need to be in the hypogeum at all unless they work in the kitchens.
The concrete walls of the overpass were drained and grey, like the entrance to a hypogeum.
He would not deign to examine even the masterpieces of Elephanta, or the mysterious hypogea, concealed south-east from the docks, or those fine remains of Buddhist architecture, the Kanherian grottoes of the island of Salcette.