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Excavation

  • Prato Felici
  • Orto dé Cunto, Segni
  •  
  • Italy
  • Lazio
  • Rome
  • Segni

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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 excavation at Prato Felici continued the investigations begun in 2012 of a large structure identified above Porta Foca on the south eastern side of the acropolis at Segni. The previous year’s clearance work revealed a structure, measuring 12.62m in width, built in opus signinum with a thick cement floor (c.0.40m) with a fabric of medium to small sized fragments of limestone and sporadic fragments of tile and pottery. The aim of the 2013 excavations was to identify the full internal extent of the structure and externally to establish its construction technique and chronology.

    A trench was excavated immediately to the south of the building where the previous year’s investigations had revealed a stratigraphy dating back to the late Bronze Age. The trench was further extended to understand the immediate wider context, which revealed that the material was washed down the steep slope, and lay immediately upon the limestone bedrock upon which the structure was built. The trench confirmed the construction date of the building in the second half of the 2nd century BC with material also illustrating frequentation of the area in the 4th century BC, possibly associated to structures found immediately to the north of the building by an earlier rescue excavation by the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio.

    Within the structure a 3m wide trench was excavated the full length of the eastern wall with the aim of clarifying the buildings function and length. The internal floor revealed an uninterrupted length of 36.7m. The 2012 excavation led to the hypothesis of the use of the structure as a cistern, supported by the thickness of the southern and western walls (0.70 m) and a depth of 2.5m. The absence of supporting lateral pillars around the structure, as well as internal dividing east-west walls suggests that the structure was an open cistern or pool, rather than covered.

    The final area investigated in 2013 focused upon a dividing north-south wall, built with no bonding material, discovered within the structure in 2012. The excavation revealed that, in its western half, the structure was deliberately refilled in the 2nd century AD. To the east of the dividing wall, the area was abandoned until the 9th century AD when the area was reused, including the construction of a small hearth.

  • Stephen Kay – The British School at Rome 

Director

  • Christopher Smith – The British School at Rome
  • Francesco Maria Cifarelli – Museo Archeologico Comunale di Segni

Team

  • Arianna Salustri - Museo Archeologico di Segni
  • Chris Siwicki - University of Exeter
  • Deborah Halliday - Durham University
  • Dimosthenis Kosmopoulos - "La Sapienza" Università di Roma
  • Flora Graham- Oxford University
  • Helena Besley - University of Leicester
  • Ilaria Frumenti- Università di Roma “Torvegata”
  • Imelda Gergely- University of Szeged
  • Jacob Moore - University of Leicester
  • John Schiepers - Oxford University
  • Katie McCann- Trinity College Dublin
  • Laura Gizzi - Museo Archeologico di Segni
  • Lily Withycombe-Taperell – University of Royal Holloway, London
  • Maria Antonietta Molle - Museo Archeologico di Segni
  • Monika Koroniova - University of Prague
  • Rebecca Salem – University College London
  • Stefania Valenta - Museo Archeologico di Segni
  • Tomas Jirak - University of Brno
  • Marco Navarra - Museo Archeologico di Segni
  • Federica Colaiacomo - Museo Archeologico Comunale di Segni
  • Alice James – The British School at Rome
  • Camilla Panzieri – The British School at Rome
  • Letizia Ceccarelli – University of Cambridge
  • Matthew Berry - The British School at Rome

Research Body

  • Museo Archeologico Comunale di Segni
  • The British School at Rome

Funding Body

  • Comune di Segni

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