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  • Via Vernelle e via Mallardera
  • Alife
  • Alifae
  • Italy
  • Campania
  • Province of Caserta
  • Alife

Credits

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Monuments

Periods

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Chronology

  • 320 BC - 60 BC
  • 1 AD - 200 AD
  • 2300 BC - 1700 BC
  • 1000 BC - 500 BC

Season

    • Interesting results regarding the road network within the territory of Roman Allifae were obtained from the trenches excavated in via Vernelle and via Mallardera. Three roads were uncovered, two with gravel road beds and a third in beaten earth, with small channels on one side. On the basis of the materials comprising the make ups they can be generically dated to the Roman period. Another road with a gravel make up, on a north-south alignment, was connected to an arched bridge. The southern pier, two smaller piers and the collapse of the related arches built of robust cement piers contained by walls of limestone blocks were uncovered. The construction technique and the distance between the piers, which can be measured in Roman feet, suggests an Imperial date for the bridge. Several cemetery areas, often associated with the roads mentioned above, were also investigated. Both inhumations and cremation burials were present in the “a cappuccina” tombs. In trench 2 in via Mallardera fourteen tombs datable to between 30 A.D. and the 2nd century A.D. were investigated. Worthy of note from the point of view of ritual were the obol for Charon (female burial) and the constant association (in three tombs) of a coin inside a small plain buff ware jar. Trench 12 revealed an alluvial layer with a large quantity of impasto material datable to between the end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Eneolithic period, which at present cannot be linked to any settlement structure.
    • In via Mallardera, in trenches 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 22, traces came to light of occupation dating to the early Bronze Age (1700 B.C.) The few finds of Iron Age and archaic date were mainly residual with the exception of site 4 (trench 11 in via Vernelle) where the remains of a burial were found. This comprised an earth grave surrounded by a circle of stones inside which was a sort of low tumulus which had been disturbed in antiquity. On the basis of its typology it probably dates to the archaic period. In this regard the lack of evidence of classical date (5th and 4th century B.C.) is notable: the earliest burial in via Mallardera (tomb 23, trench 20) dates to the end of the 4th century and is the beginning of a series of finds of cemetery and settlement areas dating to the 3rd to 2nd century B.C. Trench 35 revealed a cemetery of Imperial date, with eight burials in graves lined with tiles. Four were infant burials whose simple tomb groups were distinguished by the coins present, of which those of the Neronian period were particularly fine, and by the presence of wooden caskets with metal finishings (tomb 8).

Bibliography

    • V. Sampaolo 2005, L’attività archeologica a Napoli e Caserta nel 2004, in Atti del XLIV Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia (Taranto 2004), Taranto: 663-705.
    • F. Zevi 2004, L’attività archeologica a Napoli e Caserta nel 2003, in Atti del XLIII Convegno di Studi sulla Magna Grecia (Taranto 2003), Taranto: 879-880.