Archaeologists believe they may have unearthed the fabled banqueting hall Emperor Nero built to impress guests at his Golden Palace.

A four-month dig has revealed what experts think are the remains of the dining room and the famed rotating platform that kept festivities rolling in time with the sky.

"This cannot be compared to anything that we know of in ancient Roman architecture," said Francoise Villedieu, the dig's lead archaeologist, during a tour of the excavation yesterday.

The partially excavated site, on top of the Palatine Hill, is part of Nero's Golden Palace.

Nero was famed for his cruelty and hedonism and ruled from 54 AD to 68 AD.

About 60 years after his death, the Roman historian Suetonius described the dining room in his chronicle Lives of the Caesars, saying it revolved "day and night, in time with the sky".

The archaeologist Angelo Bottini said that the ceiling of the rotating room may well have been the same one mentioned by Suetonius, who also wrote of ivory panels sliding back and forth to shower flowers and perfumes on the guests below.

"The heart of every activity in ancient Rome was the banquet, together with some form of entertainment," said Mr Bottini. "Nero was like the sun, and people were revolving around the emperor."

The dig so far has turned up the foundations of the room, the rotating mechanism underneath and part of an attached space believed to be the kitchens.

Experts said that the dining area of the palace — which was sprawled across four of Rome's seven ancient hills — offered a panoramic view over the Roman Forum and a lake, which was later drained by Nero's successors to build the Colosseum.

Nero did not enjoy his Golden Palace for too long. It was completed in the same year he committed suicide amid a revolt.

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