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Excavation

  • Egnazia
  • Fasano
  • Egnatia
  • Italy
  • Apulia
  • Province of Brindisi
  • Fasano

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)

  • In 2014 the ‘Progetto Egnazia: dallo scavo alla valorizzazione’ continued excavations in the area south of the forum which included the baths, and in the area of the sanctuary on the acropolis.

    South of the forum, the area next to the baths was seen to be densely occupied, from the 2nd century B.C. onwards, by high-quality residential structures, characterised by a well-organised plan. The best-known building was constructed in this period. Already partially excavated in recent years, it presented a longitudinal central open space with ambulatories on the long sides, connecting a series of t symmetrical rooms on both sides. The open area identified during the previous season can now be attributed to this domus. It presented numerous circular and rectangular cuts that suggest this could have been a plantation laid out in the manner described by Varro in De re rustica (1, 8, 1-3) for a pergola vineyard, which required alternating vines and trees, so that the vine shoots could grow around the branches thus forming the pergola.

    In the early imperial period, the domus was obliterated by a public building that maintained the longitudinal space, closing the central area with a quadrangular apse built in opus quadratum using large blocks.

    Despite the fact that the late antique structures have largely been razed by modern agricultural activity, there was substantial evidence of a construction site relating to a building with three naves, which used the earlier longitudinal structures as foundations. The wider, central nave ended with a new quadrangular apse built on top of the earlier one. The early imperial monument was therefore transformed into a religious building, which can be added to the already large number of ecclesiastical structures of the period in the diocese and that indicates an invasive transformation of the residential sector near the forum.

    In the acropolis area, the latest investigations revealed new evidence for the sanctuary’s most monumental phase, probably relating to the town planning intervention carried out in Trajan’s period. The podium temple (already excavated) was the hub of a vast sacred area, extending for c. 1550 m2 and bordered by a quadriporticus with two large quadrangular exedra at the centre of the long sides. The wall closing the portico was abutted by rooms built immediately outside the monumental enclosure, perhaps functioning as tabernae. The walls of one of these, in the south-east corner, were completely preserved to a height of c. 2.70 m as they were incorporated into one of the towers of the Byzantine castrum that encircled the acropolis at the end of the 6th century. For the first time, the construction technique used for this tower was revealed; a double curtain with a nucleus of stones and sand, the wall with a characteristic scarp profile, of which one end was preserved.

    A containing structure for the new installation was built in the form of a bulwark that would also form a first line of defence. A house distinguished by its plan with six rooms arranged around a central atrium from the others residences in the sanctuary area, probably dates to this period and probably belonged to a high-ranking individual garrisoned in the fortification. The collapse of the house and other residential structures in this area towards the end of the 7th century may have occurred during hostilities linked to the gradual advance of the Lombards in Puglia, culminating in this period with the conquest of Brindisi and Taranto.

  • Maria Raffaella Cassano - Università degli Studi di Bari, Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia 

Director

Team

  • Assunta Cocchiaro
  • Gianluca Mastrocinque - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Marco Campese - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Maria Domenica De Filippis - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Michele Cuccovillo - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Vincenzo Berloco - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Alessandra Vivacqua
  • Gabriella Gramegna

Research Body

Funding Body

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