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Excavation

  • Egnazia
  • Fasano
  • Egnatia
  • Italy
  • Apulia
  • Province of Brindisi
  • Fasano

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 2009 excavations undertaken as part of the ‘Progetto Egnazia: dallo scavo alla valorizzazione’ demonstrated that the public baths situated in the eastern sector of the town, in the monumental nucleus probably linked to the forum, were used until the end of the 4th century A.D. and were later converted to house a well structured craft working installation. The workshop produced the building materials for which there was great request from the numerous building sites active in the town. This was a period of intense rebuilding favoured and conditioned by the ecclesiastical authorities. To this end a brick kiln and two limekilns were built in the rooms of the ancient balneum. The latter were also used to dispose of architectural materials from the baths themselves as well as basoli from the via Traiana, by then out of use and covered by a roadbed that followed its line.

    The zone between the baths and the civil basilica also seemed to have been used for craft working, and was thus even closer to the presumed forum area. In the space of a monumental Imperial structure, probably a portico, this period saw the creation of a workshop for metalworking, in particular the production of nails, many of which, including unfinished examples, were recovered.

    At a short distance immediately south of the basilica another lime making structure was also active from the end of the 4th century A.D. onwards. This was characterised by a particularly large lime-kiln (diam. 4.80 m) and provided for the building requirements of a church that was continually enlarged until the 6th century A.D.

    In the area of the so-called ‘acropolis’ research concentrated on the temple and in particular on a number of sectors excluded from the 1966 excavations. New data was gained regarding the architecture and chronology to which structures and materials, known from previous investigations and to date only partially studied, can now be linked.

    Two walled structures belonged to the earliest building phase but only visible at intervals due to later transformations. The material recovered was of votive and ritual nature dating to the Messapian period, in particular the 5th century B.C.

    The construction of a quadrangular structure dates to between the end of the 2nd and the 1st century B.C. Numerous architectural fragments from the earlier excavation can be attributed to this building. In correspondence with the front of the structure, on the same axis as the entrance, a mass of animal bones relating to an ox, a pig and a sheep were found inside a purposely made cavity. The bones were in association with pottery also datable to between the end of the 2nd and the first half of the 1st century B.C. On the basis of numerous documented examples, this find suggests a ritual sacrifice in connection with the foundation of this second temple.

    In a subsequent phase of monumentalisation, for which the chronology will be clarified by the continuation of excavations, a new and larger structure was built on a podium. This temple was entered via a wide staircase flanked by two foreparts, on which there may have been statues, and was fronted by an altar of which traces of the foundations and robbing remain.

    During the last excavation campaign the extreme north-eastern sector of the town, situated immediately inside the city walls, was investigated for the first time. The area was not very urbanised in Roman and late antique times as it was destined for the exploitation of water resources via pools fed by the water-table and wells, structures which were able to compensate for the lack of an aqueduct. This water supply also appeared to be connected to the nearby monumental sector, in particular the baths, standing only 300 m away.

  • Maria Raffaella Cassano - Università degli Studi di Bari, Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia 

Director

Team

  • Assunta Cocchiaro - Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Puglia
  • C. Silvio Fioriello - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Anna Mangiatordi - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Gianluca Mastrocinque - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Marco Campese - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Maria Domenica De Filippis - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Massimo Caggese - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Michele Cuccovillo - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Rosa Conte - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità
  • Vincenzo Berloco - Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità

Research Body

  • Università degli Studi di Bari – Dipartimento di Scienze dell’Antichità

Funding Body

  • A.Di.Su.
  • Comune di Fasano

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