The fourth excavation campaign of the Gabii Project, inside the Archaeological Park of the ancient Latin town of Gabii, took place between June and August 2012. The excavation continued of the archaic levels, already partially investigated in 2011, and work began on a large Republican building.

The sequence excavated in the area of the archaic house revealed a new occupation phase datable to the beginning of the 6th century B.C., as well as evidence relating to the Orientalizing period. The house stood inside a sort of enclosure constituted by a wall built of large stone chippings/fragments and is looking increasingly like an elite compound. The presence of an infant burial with a very rich assemblage of pottery and bronze vessels, datable to the Orientalizing period and similar to that found in 2009, provides new evidence for the reconstruction of Gabii in the period preceding the Republican urban re-organisation.

The large building was identified in a new area, extending the excavations to the west and bringing the total area excavated by the Gabii Project to over a hectare in four years, including another insula of the ancient town’s uniform urban layout.

A new road was excavated, running north-south perpendicular to the main road crossing the town and adjacent to the large building on two levels with monumental walls built of local stone. The focal point of this building was a massive wall in opus quadratum visible between the lower and upper terrace. This was probably a public structure, datable to the Republican period. The full extension of this complex remains to be defined.

The 2012 excavations provided fundamental new evidence relating to the history of urban development and architecture at Gabii, improving the understanding of the site’s settlement dynamics between the Orientalizing period and the end of the Republican period – beginning of the Empire.