The principal objective of the recent excavations in the Forum of Trajan within the modern city was to extend our knowledge of the urban complex desired by the emperor and carried out by the architect Apollodorus of Damascus (A.D: 107-112). Only a small part of the forum had been revealed by previous excavations: by now 40% of the entire area has been uncovered. The Forum, which originally covered 29,000 square metres, comprised the piazza, the Basilica Ulpia, the historiated column and the two libraries, Greek and Roman, adjacent to it. We are still trying to establish the position of the Temple of Divine Trajan, known only from the sources. The recent excavations have allowed us to understand the stratigraphic sequence extending from the Roman period to the present day in a central area of the city and to clarify much of the plan of the Forum itself. This includes the foundation trench for the equestrian statue of the emperor, allowing us to place this monument correctly for the first time inside the open piazza. The bronze statue, so admired by ancient authors, must have been at least half again as large as that of Marcus Aurelius. The piazza itself was completely despoiled of its marble paving slabs around the middle of the ninth century. We have also recovered innumerable fragments of the decoration of the porticoes that surrounded the piazza, among which figured two colossal statues and the splendid head of a Dacian prisoner in white marble. The south wall, originally supposed to have been semicircular, is now revealed as composed of three straight segments, one parallel to the north wall, flanked by two oblique segments. These were decorated with gigantic engaged columns. (Roberto Meneghini)