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Excavation

  • Vignale
  • Vignale
  • loco ubi dicitur Viniale
  • Italy
  • Tuscany
  • Province of Livorno
  • Piombino

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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 2018 campaign concentrated on the area of the late antique baths, in the north-western part of the site, and on the imperial baths in the south-eastern part.
    In the area of the late antique baths, the excavations were extended to the north, where the large semicircular pool identified last year was completely exposed. The pool appeared razed to the level of the ancient floor surface, but the heating system of tubuli within the semicircular wall, the hypocaust structures, with suspended floor resting on pillars, and the mouth of the praefurnium were all visible. A wide pit cut in the floor in correspondence with the praefurnium seemed to relate to the removal of a part of the water heating system, perhaps a testudo, which may have occurred following an overall restructuring of the way in which the baths functioned.

    A thick rubble layer was partially excavated outside the pool, which did not seem to be directly correlated with a structural collapse, rather a dump of materials resulting from the functional reorganisation of this part of the site.
    In the south-western part of the site (trench 37) the baths were almost completely uncovered. The complex seemed to be organised in the canonical sequence of rooms from north to south: vestibule/_apoditerium_, tepidarium, laconicum and caldarium, with two praefurnia on the east side to heat the caldarium and the laconium (Fig. 4).

    None of the functional structures were preserved, except for a few traces showing where the hypocaust pillars abutted the perimeter walls. Some of the rooms contained a uniform fill, in which complete artefacts, reconstructable or in large fragments were present. This seemed to be material dumped within the abandoned and robbed structure, which came from areas that were occupied for a long period of time, indicatively from the Augustan to full imperial period.

    The area of the caldarium did not appear to have been filled, or it could have emptied in a later period. In fact, there was a small kiln (probably for tiles, but the investigations continue) in the eastern part of the room, which made use of the mouth of the praefurnium as a draw flue. Other traces, probably relating to postholes in the original floor, suggest that a small production area was set up in this part of the abandoned and robbed baths, whose type and chronology remain to be determined.

  • Enrico Zanini-Università degli Studi di Siena, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche e dei Beni Culturali  
  • Elisabetta Giorgi-Università degli Studi di Siena, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche e dei Beni Culturali  

Director

  • Enrico Zanini- Università degli Studi di Siena, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche e dei Beni Culturali

Team

  • Elsa Pacciani- Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali
  • Samanta Mariotti-Università degli Studi di Siena
  • Elisabetta Giorgi- Università degli Studi di Siena, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche e dei Beni Culturali
  • Pasquino Pallecchi- Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali
  • Francesco Ripanti
  • Nina Marotta
  • Andrea Bellotti

Research Body

  • Università degli Studi di Siena

Funding Body

  • Azienda Agricola Tenuta di Vignale s.r.l. - Piombino
  • Camping Pappasole s.p.a. - Piombino
  • Comune di Piombino - Quartiere di Riotorto
  • Direzione Nazionale Unicoop Tirreno – Piombino
  • Villaggio Baia Etrusca - Riotorto
  • Villaggio La Madonnina - Follonica

Images

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