This season’s research was limited in both time and area explored due to problems associated with the Covid 19 pandemic. It was decided to organise the work using a small team and to examine only one area where last year two sondages produced some promising results. The area in question is the Allende park at S. Ilario d’Enza where a magnetometer survey was carried out prior to the 2019 excavations, which revealed several long linear anomalies. Last year one of these traces was investigated, situated in the northern part of the park, and a cobblestone surface was uncovered that extended across the entire trench. A substantial amount of material was found attesting a long occupation (early imperial to the late antique period). This year it was decided to open a trench at a right-angle to the one excavated in 2019, in order to identify the edges of the surface, thought to be a cobblestone road about 3.86 m wide and running east-west. The alignment and lack of finds at its sides suggest that it was a road associated with the Roman land divisions and was probably the continuation of a similar cobbled surface found during the 1800s by Gaetano Chierici at “le fornaci”. According to my reconstruction, this locality was situated just east of the area investigated by this mission.
A second trench was opened in the southern part of the park, which was also in correspondence with two anomalies revealed by the geophysical survey. This revealed a long well-made dry-stone wall built of cobblestones, with other walls joining it both to the south and north. Although it was not possible to investigate further, it may be suggested that this was a rustic structure, given the construction technique, which in the late antique period was partially used for funerary purposes. In fact, three burials were found that were badly disturbed perhaps by agricultural activity or nearby building work in the 1970s. The burials were positioned, partially demolishing the structure, after the building was abandoned.

Despite the limits imposed by the pandemic, this season’s results were positive given that they seem to confirm that this area was not within the urban area of Tannetum, which in our opinion probably lies further north-west near the Milan-Bologna railway line.