This campaign also concentrated on the Domus of Europa and the Domus of the exotic animals.

Domus of Europa

The investigation of the rooms identified in previous years, situated north of the triclinium (F) continued, and excavation began at the entrance to the house situated on the west side of the “Via dei Severi”.

In Room O room O4 was completely excavated, revealing the praefurnium constituted by a small simple room in opus vittatum with two steps leading down to the entrance to bath structure O2.
Excavation of room U continued, where in 2009 the high-quality painted wall plaster depicting the myth of Perseus and Andromeda, originally decorating the room’s north wall, was found. A further section of the wall plaster from the east wall was uncovered which had also collapsed uniformly onto the floor. The presence of the painted plaster attests the room’s importance within the domus. The exposed plaster measured about 2 m in length and 1.50 m in height. It was almost completely decorated with red, with some vegetal motifs surrounding a female figure, about 50 cm high, which decorated the centre of the wall. The figure was nude with a transparent drape at the waist, and seemed to be dancing.

Below the painted plaster some elements from the roof were found, in particular two almost intact imbrices. The excavation of the room, inside which fragments of fallen wall plaster are visible, will be completed in 2011. In this context the presence on site of a conservator led to the timely retrieval and conservation of perishable finds such as painted plaster and bone and metal artefacts.

At the entrance to the domus a trench was dug in Room K, characterised by an elongated rectangular plan and interpretable as passageway leading to the inner and most important rooms of the house, such as the cubicula and triclinium. A substantial layer of collapsed terracotta roof tiles came to light inside Room K. The excavation will be completed in 2011.

Domus of the exotic animals

Excavation of the domus situated on the Via del Forno continued alongside conservation of the walls and floor mosaics. Work was also undertaken on the information panels for visitors to the site.

The excavations concentrated on the southern part of the domus, occupied from the 3rd century A.D. onwards by a productive structure. Two large fragments of a lava millstone were found in this area in previous years, and about one hundred carefully stacked tiles were also uncovered. Several of the trenches inside the room revealed the presence of an opus signinum facing on the inner wall surfaces and the existence of a small drainage channel immediately outside the room, along the west side of the opus vittatum wall. This excavation will also be completed in 2011.

All the work undertaken on the two domus is aimed towards their opening to the public. In fact, the roofing was completed of the two rooms in which the two mosaics lifted in the 1920s will be placed. The work is part of a project agreed with the Archaeological Superintendency of the Marche within the context of the activities to safeguard and enhance the Archaeological Park of Forum Sempronii which the University of Urbino has been carrying out since 1974.