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Excavation

  • San Martino del Piano
  • Fossombrone
  • Forum Sempronii
  • Italy
  • The Marches
  • Pesaro and Urbino
  • Fossombrone

Tools

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 2014 excavations at Forum Sempronii concentrated on Temple A beside the forum and the shops/workshops abutting the large baths immediately north of the decumanus minor.
    Shops/workshops. In this area the constituent elements of several rooms directly connected to the shops/workshops themselves suggest they can be identified as the owner’s residence. In particular, to the rear of shop/workshop G three passages lead into three separate spaces: at the centre a corridor (I) which leads to the house, flanked by two probable store-rooms (K and AC), linked to the corridor itself.

    To the north, the corridor leads to a large open air space, paved in slabs of local limestone. At the centre is a circular hole 52 cm in diameter that gave access to a well. A statue of a man, cloaked in a himation and holding a small volumen in the left hand, was found by the north wall of room AE. Made of good quality white marble, the head, feet, and right arm are missing.
    Two symmetrical rooms were present on the east and west side of corridor I, accessed exclusively from courtyard AE. They were paved with very well-preserved mosaics: in the west room the mosaic had a central emblem with a pair of dogs, in the east room with geometric motifs.

    FORUM AREA: TEMPLE A. The interpretation of aerial photographs and magnetometer survey results led to the identification and excavation of a probable temple building situated north of the forum area.

    The building’s entire perimeter, measuring 9.45 × 17.15 m, was uncovered. It was an imposing building, divided into two rooms (a pronaos and large, long cella), however only preserved for the most part at foundation level. The pronaos was 6 m wide and 2.85 m long; the cella was 6 m wide and 8.90 m long. The construction technique using opus vittatum, used in almost all the walls excavated at Forum Sempronii, is datable to the early Imperial period (1st-2nd centuries A.D.). Due to the precarious state of preservation of the walls it is not possible, at this stage, to provide a precise plan of the sacred structure.

    Within the temple, several walls came to light that were cut by its foundations and continued outside the temple to the west. It was thus possible to add further detail to the plan (incomplete) of an earlier structure, on a slightly different alignment to the temple, by a few degrees to the south. The particular plan (curved and meandering walls) could at first suggest that this was a bath building or however a structure linked to the use of water, but no traces of channels or pipes that would confirm this idea were found. However, the discovery inside the circular structure of a small limestone foot with an oriental type sandal makes it plausible to suggest, with due caution, that this earlier building was also used for cult purposes.

  • Oscar Mei - Università di Urbino, Dipartimento di Scienze del Testo e del Patrimonio Culturale 

Director

Team

  • Filippo Venturini
  • Laura Invernizzi
  • Lorenzo Cariddi
  • Massimo Gasparini - AION Soc. Coop.
  • Chiara Delpino - Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici delle Marche

Research Body

  • Universita’ di Urbino

Funding Body

  • Comune di Fossombrone
  • Universita’ di Urbino

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