This season’s excavations concentrated on exposing the walls and floors along the corridor between the bath complex, denominated balneum 1, and the cisterns with the aim of consolidating the structures and beginning restoration work.
The main objectives of this campaign were to understand the extension, topographical layout, and architecture of the great complex during the period of its use between the mid and late imperial period (2nd – 4th centuries A.D.), as well as eventual reuse and transformations that took place during the late antique period (5th – 7th centuries A.D.). In the church area, the aim was to uncover evidence of a church pre-dating the Romanesque structure (12th century).

Between the late 1st/early 2nd century and the 4th century A.D., there were two coeval bath complexes on the site of Santa Marta, whose presence can be justified by suggesting that the settlement was situated along an important route between the coast and inland. The need to build two complexes, which probably covered over 900 m2, could have a twofold explanation: the co-existence of private baths alongside the public structure or two public baths, one for men and the other for women. Both balnea had rooms with hot air and hot, warm, and cold water, in addition to reception and service rooms. An area of at least 160 m2 was probably covered by mosaic floors, of which a part survives.

The exceptional nature of Roman and late a ntique Santa Marta was confirmed by the finds study. The faunal analyses revealed a local community that between the 1st and early 7th centuries A.D. had a privileged diet with large amounts of protein provided by pigs, cattle and sheep/goat. The use of game was also substantial, at least between the 1st and 5th centuries. The pottery shows this to have been a privileged site: the only one in inland rural southern Tuscany that had access to Mediterranean imports until the 6th and 7th centuries. These included tablewares made in Tunisia, wine and oil in amphorae from the Eastern Mediterranean and southern Italy. Lastly, the presence of wine amphorae produced in the hinterland of Santa Marta and well-documented on this site attests the importance of viticulture in the area even in the Roman period.

The excavations in area 5000 concentrated on the exterior of the Romanesque church, along its northern perimeter revealing, below the layers relating to the construction of the 12th century church, part of an earlier religious building. This church, datable to between the 8th and 10th centuries A.D., had at least two apses, possibly even three. Interestingly, the interior of the smaller apse was faced with red, ochre, and blue painted plaster. The first burials belonging to an early medieval cemetery were intercepted around the church. Some of the tombs were in privileged positions.