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Excavation

  • Carsulae, Area Archeologica Demaniale
  • Carsulae
  • Carsulae
  • Italy
  • Umbria
  • Province of Terni
  • San Gemini

Tools

Credits

  • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

    MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

    ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

    AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

  • AIAC_logo logo

Summary (English)

  • The 2014 excavation opened a considerable area: twelve 2.5 × 2.5 m. quadrants, a season total of 75 sq. m. (Fig. 1). Another three quadrants, previously opened, were deepened down to the paved floor of the structure. The excavated area has more than doubled in two years and has now reached the limits of the roof’s protection. The baths appear now to be considerably bigger than could have been anticipated from U. Ciotti’s published plans.

    Our goals this season were to follow the clues, offered by last season’s excavation, to identifying the phases of construction and use of the baths as well as the various hands that have dug and pillaged the site. The discovery last year of five furnaces, at least two of which had been blocked up, revealed changes in the functions of the rooms over the period of use of the structure. Almost everywhere that we have dug, we have encountered remnants of Ciotti’s distinctive concrete repairs, but we have now found evidence in several places of another, more destructive hand.

    This season’s excavation yielded some unanticipated results. We had always assumed that the three-meter difference in the ground level between the north and south sides of the building was due to runoff and fall from the cliff above. To our surprise, the quadrant to the NE of Furnace 4 yielded a vault in situ. We now have the original height of the bath structure preserved on the north side.

    We knew that the heights of the hypocaust floor in the apse and in the small south room were lower than that of the tepidarium, and we assumed that these areas held pools or plunge baths. Excavation this year revealed that there was a lower level of floor within the tepidarium itself; this may explain the presence of marble revetments found in 2007 in situ about a third of the distance into the room from its western wall.

    The large eastern room, which had originally been heated before its furnace, Furnace 4, had been blocked up, extends considerably farther east, beyond the cover of the roof. Its southern wall revealed an opening, which may have served to draw the hot air across the distance from the furnace; it, too, was blocked up at some time.

    We exposed all of Furnace 1 this season. Its asymmetry, both in its own construction and with respect to the curve of the apse, is surprising and puzzling. Also surprising is its lack of resemblance to Furnace 4, the only other furnace of which we have exposed the chamber.

    These five furnaces have revealed two distinct building phases of the existing Carsulae baths. In the first (Fig. 2), the baths were composed of two heated rooms: the square one that we have been calling the tepidarium, which was heated by Furnaces 2 and 3 and drafted by openings in its south and west walls; and the East Room, heated by Furnace 4 and perhaps a twin, and drafted through its south wall.

    In the second phase (Fig. 3), Furnaces 2 and 4 were blocked up along with their draft openings, and the apse and South Room added, with their accompanying furnaces. The second phase thus establishes a pattern of rooms heated to three different temperatures, as is canonical in Roman Imperial baths. This reorganization may shed light more generally on the development of the Roman bath typology in central Italy.

    More than 112 fragments of mosaic have been uncovered and numbered. Those that were small enough were removed and consolidated in the laboratory and are now stored in the Albergo Duomo. Some of the larger ones and those lying upside down were stabilized in the field and left in place. The large fragment with red stripes that was excavated in 2007 showed such deterioration that the conservator, Massimiliano Masseri, with the aid of two interns in conservation, detached it from its matrix and removed it. Its rudus was broken up and also removed; more large sections of mosaic were found lying beneath it. The yellow patches on the plan in Figure 1 show the mosaics newly found this season.

    While the excavations this season have revealed the extent of the bath structure, they have also revealed the complexity and delicacy of the ruins that must ultimately be consolidated or restored. Our first priority for next season will be to put in place a plan for the conservation of the site.

  • Jane K. Whitehead - Valdosta State University Foundation Dep Modern and Classical Languages College of arts and Sciences, Georgia, USA 

Director

Team

  • Massimo Cardillo
  • Nikos Vakalis - ICR
  • Ellen Stewart
  • Joanna Mundy
  • Shawna Hyland
  • Wendy Hallinan
  • Bianca Fossà - ICR
  • Elena Lorenzetti

Research Body

  • Valdosta State University Foundation Dep Modern and Classical Languages College of arts and Sciences, Georgia, USA

Funding Body

  • University grants

Images

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