The first season of excavation in the area of Prato Felici at Segni forms part of the wider Segni Project, launched in 2012 by the Archaeological Museum of Segni and the British School at Rome. Over the course of the next 3 years, the project will explore three areas within the town: Prato Felici, Piazza Santa Maria and Piazza San Pietro. The area of Prato Felici lies towards the summit of the acropolis, and is defined by a large open field, where the fieldwork focused in particular upon two parallel walls, approximately 30m apart, visible on the surface. Following a gradiometer and georadar survey conducted by the BSR and APSS, the surface clearance involved the removal of a significant amount of topsoil that had accumulated on the terraces of the steep field directly above Porta Foca. The excavation revealed evidence for a large cistern or pool, the construction of which can be dated to the second half of the 2nd century BC. The walls were constructed in opera cementizia, with the floor surface constructed in a thick layer of cocciopesto (40cm). The structure appears to have gone out of use in the 2nd century AD, and was later reused in the late antique period as revealed by a small hearth and associated material. Immediately to the south of the structure, as well as beneath the cistern, the excavation revealed several stratigraphic layers which contained material associated to the earliest phases of settlement in the city, dating to the late Bronze Age. Furthermore, to the east of the structure, as well as underneath the cocciopesto, the excavation recovered material dating to the end of the 7th century BC amongst which was bucchero and a fragment of a head of a votive offering.

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.