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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)

  • In 2017, research took place in the form of a field school as part of the ‘_Progetto_ Egnazia: dallo scavo alla _valorizzazione_’. The investigation continued of the atrium domus situated in the large insula south of the forum, whose imperial and late antique phases are already known. Work also continued in the building in the area south-west of the forum, from which it is separated by the via Traiana_.

    In the area of the atrium domus, more of the substantial Messapian remains were uncovered. They formed a large sacred area containing three enclosures arranged on the south, west and east sides of an open space, built at different times as part of the gradual monumentalisation that took place between the 6th and 4th-3rd centuries B.C.
    The same construction technique using carefully-built opus quadratum was used, with foundations of large flat slabs on top of which part of the first row of squared blocks are preserved in some case. These structures were then obliterated by the later buildings. The best-known architectural nucleus presents a rectangular space (4.90 × 4.35 m) preceded on the east side by a smaller space (1.56 × 4.38 m), perhaps functioning as a vestibule. In fact, it was possible to pass from the latter into the larger space via a threshold positioned at the centre of the structure that functioned as a diaphragm between the two.

    Despite the invasive interventions during the construction of the atrium domus between the late 3rd century and the 2nd century B.C., and later for the construction of the church at the beginning of the 5th century B.C., a ‘stratigraphy’ documenting the entire life of the sanctuary is preserved. For the archaic period several depositions, usually a single animal (mainly Sus scrofa sp.) including newborn examples, were found in association with a cooking surface. Comparison with the rich repertory of cult contexts in Apulia, studied in detail particularly for the Messapian period, suggests the prevalence of pigs, moreover very young examples, to be a distinctive element of the cult of Demeter, well-attested at Egnazia in the Hellenistic period. Therefore, this may be the earliest evidence for the cult of Demeter at Egnazia, moreover in a collective sanctuary, never before documented for a Messapia.
    The period between the late 4th and the 3rd century B.C., is represented by the enclosure on the east side, where the rituals included depositions of sheep/goat (in addition to pigs), associated with recurrent pottery forms, primarily black glaze concave-convex cups and single-handles cups with internal red bands, also in association with cooking deposits.

    The most complete reading of the archaeology relates to the construction of the domus, where in addition to defining the chronology, it was possible to check, across the history of this aristocratic residence, a large part of the building’s surviving plan and water supply-drainage system.

    Evidence of the cult of Demeter is even documented in the Roman house. In 2015, a sculpture of the divinity with torch dating to the early imperial period was found. This marks an unusual continuity that provides new information about rituality at Egnazia between the Messapian and Roman periods, when Demeter is associated with Cybele to whom the city dedicated a significant space in its monumentalised area.

    In the area south-west of the forum, continuation of the excavations began to reveal an equally clear stratigraphy, beginning with a partially visible room dating to the Messapian period, outside of which there was a ritual deposition of a sheep/goat, again associated with a single-handled black glaze cup with red bands on the interior. The deposition can be dated to the late 4th-3rd century B.C.

  • : Gianluca Mastrocinque, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro 

Director

  • M. Raffaella Cassano – Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro

Team

  • Annalisa Biffino
  • Gianluca Mastrocinque, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
  • Adriana Sciacovelli- Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
  • Alessandra Vivacqua- Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
  • Marco Campese- Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro
  • Vincenzo Berloco-Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro

Research Body

  • Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro, DISUM – Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici

Funding Body

  • Comune di Fasano
  • Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro

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