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Excavation

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

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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 research undertaken in 2011, as part of the ‘Progetto Egnazia’ showed that the baths, mainly known for the 3rd century A.D. construction phase, were built in the Augustan period in an area formerly used for metalworking activities in the late Republican period. From their origin, the baths were closely linked with the forum area, the latter also laid out at the beginning of the principate, together with the buildings, such as the basilica, forming its monumental nucleus.

    The topographical and functional link between the baths and forum was reinforced by the important urban planning intervention connected with the building of the via Traiana. The new stretch of road, investigated for 25 m, was adapted to the layout of the balineum – also restructured at the time of the road’s construction – and forked to consent access to the apodyterium, to then continue towards the forum.
    This stretch of the via Traiana, which reached the forum, is at present the only section that does not have an orbitae tensarum, as it was reserved for pedestrian use. Along the main part of the road, the earliest pair of cart tracks was later replaced by another pair in a slightly different position, due to wear caused by the heavy volume of cart traffic in the proximity of the main public urban space.

    From their construction, the baths were also linked to the adjacent building, already partially exposed on the opposite side from the road. In the 2nd century A.D., and therefore in concomitance with work on the road, this building was organised as a series of rooms arranged around a peristyle and provided with an articulated water supply and drainage system. This was probably a public building, a meeting place, directly connected to the balineum and linked to the forum.

    As regards the best-known phase, the 3rd century A.D. restructuring, the heating system for the baths was seen to be well-preserved. In particular, the caldarium hypocaust was paved with brick tiles and supported on a dense system of suspensurae, small pillars of calcarenite, in the central zone, and tile pilae with circular and quadrangular sections, at the sides. The height of these supports, the depth of the hypocaust, the thickness and technical characteristics of the marble slab floor show the application of the highest building standards of the Roman period as attested by the archaeological evidence, as well by the literary sources in particular Vitruvius, who lived during the period of the baths’ construction.

    On the ‘acropolis’ the excavation clarified the layout of the sacred area in the imperial period. The porticoed temple enclosure was documented further, characterised by two quadrangular niches on the long sides and a back wall in opus quadratum built of large blocks. Very little remained of the portico’s stone paving – similar to that preserved at the front of the temple – most of it had probably been removed in the late antique period during a general reorganisation of the area.

    For this period, the extension of the excavation to the western sector of the portico clarified the changes in the function of the complex. By this time, it was no longer a sacred area but was mainly destined for production activities and storage, relating to the fortifications dating to the second half of the 6th century A.D., whose bastion cut into the edge of the ancient cult area.

  • 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
  • Alessandra Vivacqua - Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
  • Francesco Modugno - Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
  • Gabriella Gramegna - Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
  • 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

Funding Body

  • Comune di Fasano

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