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Excavation

  • Carsulae, Area Archeologica Demaniale
  • Carsulae
  • Carsulae
  • Italy
  • Umbria
  • Province of Terni
  • San Gemini

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)

  • The fifth season of excavation of the baths at Carsulae took place in a six-week program from June 13 to July 24, 2010. It focused on three separate areas: the southwestern exterior of the bath building itself, and on two arms of the polygonal wall, the northern extension where it heads toward the cistern in opus caementicum, and the eastern extension where it leads toward the Via Flaminia. All three areas yielded surprising and significant results.

    Two of these areas provided evidence for building phases that very likely date to the time of the Roman Republic, and support this director\‘s hypothesis that the baths were integral to the purpose of Carsulae and were built at the founding of the city, if not before: 1. In deepening our probe to the south of Wall E on the exterior of the baths, where in 2008 we had found shards from a large window pane and in 2006 we had found evidence of a drain, we uncovered an L-shaped deposit of mud brick at a level lower than that of the brick-faced concrete structure\‘s foundation.

    2. The northern arm of the polygonal wall, we discovered, was extended by a very different type of masonry, consisting of large, dry-laid stones with only an exterior face; traces of yellow clay and carbonized wood appeared in the fall along this stretch, and suggest a superstructure a graticcio, of wattle and daub. This one wall thus displays three distinct chronological building phases in its diverse masonry forms.

    The third area explored the series of five steps that appear to lead down from the Via Flaminia toward the eastern extension of the polygonal wall, where in 2008 we uncovered what then appeared to be a platform in cocciopesto built against the massive boulders of the earlier wall. It is now clear that the platform is a basin, and with the steps, it perhaps forms a large public fountain or nymphaeum at the southern entrance to the city.

    All three of these areas opened this season have contributed significantly to our understanding of the chronology of building phases at the site. The transitional wall a graticcio between the polygonal wall and the Imperial cistern does establish a clear chronological sequence in its superpositions. The fact that the traces of its clay superstructure resemble the traces of clay walls underlying the baths may be a clue to connecting the building phases in the two areas to each other as well as to the history of the rest of Carsulae. The area of the shallow pool, paved as it is with diverse masonry techniques, nonetheless rests upon the polygonal features, which must be earlier. All areas have also adduced more evidence for the traditional 3rd c. BC date of the city’s founding.

  • Jane K. Whitehead - Valdosta State University Foundation Dep Modern and Classical Languages College of arts and Sciences, Georgia, USA 

Director

Team

  • Massimo Cardillo
  • Bianca Fossà - ICR
  • Elena Raimondi - ICR
  • Nikos Vakalis - ICR
  • Joanna Mundy - Emory University
  • Wendy Hallinan

Research Body

  • Valdosta State University Foundation Dep Modern and Classical Languages College of arts and Sciences, Georgia, USA

Funding Body

  • Private funding

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