The 2014 season of the Gabii Project was the sixth consecutive campaign within Gabii Archaeological Park. Excavations took place in area D and area F, corresponding to distinct startigraphic cont exts clearly delimited by walls and particular topographical elements

Area F, situated along the western edge of the excavation area, includes an entire insula. In this zone, the excavation was extended to the south and west in order to find the limits of the large building partially excavated in 2013, and link these structures to the remains facing onto the main road through the town. The building was arranged on three levels delimited to the east by a monumental wall in opus quadratum of tufa blocks, and connected by a perfectly preserved flight of steps, which also formed the break between the east and west parts of the large building. The upper terrace appeared to be completely open, while the eastern part of the lower terrace presented a series of rooms facing onto a vast atrium-shaped courtyard paved in tufa slabs. The rooms were on a north-south axis corresponding with the porticoed entrance on the main road. The large courtyard was closed to the north by three large square rooms paved in opus signinum decorated with geometric motifs. The central terrace was occupied by a series of rooms paved in tufa slabs and opus signinum that faced onto open areas. This zone of passage to the upper terrace was not marked by the opus _quadratum_wall, but by a possible water feature associated with a viridarium.

The original phase of this monumental building can be dated to between the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. During the course of the imperial period, it underwent various transformations, with a progressive shrinking towards the south, that is the zone facing onto Gabii’s main road. The next campaign should provide further details regarding the function of this part of the complex and its later phases.

Area D, situated along the southern edge of the excavation area, was extended to the west revealing more parts of the archaic complex of structures investigated from 2011 onwards. The area was mainly occupied by a building delimited by a wall of tufa slabs and fragments. Within this area, there were two axial rooms on a different alignment from that of the town plan. The rooms had two occupation phases datable to the beginning and second half of the 6th century B.C. The clear definition of the area occupied by these rooms suggests that it was a compound, probably elite, perfectly defined in its spaces. This would seem to be confirmed by this season’s discovery of a rich infant burial in the north-west corner of the building with walls built of tufa fragments. This season also began to look at the stratigraphy relating to two huts of the Orientalising period, the bottoms of which partially identified in 2013. The occupation of the hut settlement can certainly be associated with the discovery of three rich infant graves of the Orientalising period, similar to the one found in 2009.

The 2014 campaign acquired new data for the reconstruction of the earliest phases of Gabii in the Orientalising period and further defined the plan and chronology of the monumental Republican complex.