The archaeological investigation undertaken in June 2001 examined the area beside the keep with the aim of establishing the date of its foundation. According to the scant historic sources this would seem to date to the Norman period. Three sectors were investigated, situated to the south, south-east and north-east of the tower. Firstly the tree cover was removed and surface cleaning was carried out on the walls, visible above ground, and the layers of collapse in order to make the first plans of the walled structures. The tower is largely preserved to a standing height of over six metres. It has a square plan with a rather varied and interesting exterior facing which clearly shows the reuse of materials probably from a pre-existing aqueduct. In fact, numerous spout elements were inserted upright and upside down in continuous horizontal rows. In more than one point the walls probably belonging to houses or rooms within the castle were still visible. Tracts of the irregular line of the curtain wall were still preserved. These were constituted in several points by very large squared blocks, probably also reused. An overall analysis of the stratigraphy of the walls identified three building phases: the first represented by the central tower (11th century) and two subsequent phases which were undatable due to the scarcity of the archaeological deposit. The tower was constituted by an external facing, well preserved on the south side, and an internal nucleus of irregular stones bonded with abundant mortar. A first investigation of the area to the north-east of the tower identified a wall on a north-south alignment, whose internal surface was faced with waterproof mortar. It is suggested that this may have been a cistern.