Fasti Online Home | Switch To Fasti Archaeological Conservation | Survey
logo

Excavation

  • S. Domenico
  • Sora
  •  
  • Italy
  • Lazio
  • Province of Frosinone
  • Isola del Liri

Tools

Credits

  • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

    MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

    ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

    AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

  • AIAC_logo logo

Summary (English)

  • A rescue excavation undertaken during the extension and restructuring of the site of Sora Exhibition Ground revealed masonry structures belonging to a funerary monument and its enclosure and cemetery area.

    The funerary monument

    Of the funerary monument only the foundations and footings remained, together with a few decorative elements in the collapse. The absence of architectural elements, due to robbing and reuse, meant that no attempt at reconstructing the monument’s elevation could be made.

    The monument had a square plan (4 × 4 m), the burial chamber being circa 2 m wide. In its eastern corner two limestone funerary cippi were recovered. The first, in situ, bore an inscription indicating the area occupied by the tomb: in agr(o) pedes XVI. The second cippus had a rectangular base with four spiral volutes at the corners and pyramidal elevation terminating with a pine cone. The front face was decorated with vegetal elements echoing the pine cone.

    The inhumation burials

    In the proximity of the funerary monument were two inhumation burials, one inside imbrices, the other inside a tile built coffin. Both were infant burials.

    The ustrinum

    Between the inhumations and the monument a sub-rectangular pit came to light, with walls and floor of baked clay. Below the level of baked clay was a make up comprising lumps of limestone that had been calcinated by exposure to fire. The structure, interpreted as an ustrinum, was only 15 cm from the funerary monument and its long axis, measuring circa 1.40 m, was on a north-east/south-west alignment. The shorter axis measured 1.10 m. Small fragments of semi-burnt bone mixed with lumps of charcoal were found in the bottom.

    The cremation burials

    The area west of the monument was occupied by a necropolis of cremation burials: four burials in jars with lids (T. V, T. VI, T. VII, T. XII) and two in small pits (T. VIII, T. IX) were found.

    Tomb VII was found below a coarse ware lid which closed the pit housing the cremation jar, resting directly on its rim. It probably functioned as a sema, which allowed the reopening of the pit for funerary rituals involving offerings. Inside the jar was a second lid in direct contact with the cremated remains. The burial lay beneath a thick lens of charcoal which attests the remains of a funeral pyre or of fires lit when ritual offerings were made over the burial.

    Tomb IX, an incineration placed directly in a pit. was the only burial with grave goods: a glass unguentarium and a coin on which only AGRIPPA was legible as the coin requires cleaning. However, it provided a date of within the first years of the 1st century A.D.

    South-west of the cemetery area a fragmentary funerary limestone cippus was found, of the pine

  • Manuela Cerqua - Terrezza s.r.l. – Archeologia e Territorio 

Director

  • Sandra Gatti - Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio

Team

  • Giorgio Troja - Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio
  • Terrezza s.r.l. – Archeologia e Territorio

Research Body

  • Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio

Funding Body

  • Comune di Sora

Images

  • No files have been added yet