Index for 2015
- 346 - Fabrizio Mollo- Dipartimento di Civiltà Antiche e Moderne, Università degli Studi di Messina. 2015. Una fornace brettia nel territorio di Cetraro (CS): rapporto preliminare. This paper is a preliminary report on the excavation of a kiln that produced bricks at Cetraro (CS), on the northern Tyrrhenian coast of Calabria. The kiln can be linked to the Brettian presence in this locale. It is a well preserved installation, which is datable to the end of the 4th century B.C. and may have been used outside an urban context. This kiln also gives us information about Brettian productions in a territorial context for which there is significant evidence of widespread Italic settlements - small farms and necropoles - that we have investigated through surveys and excavation in the last twenty years. A recent project of surveys has allowed us to better understand how this area situated at the edge of the Brettian homeland was occupied in the Hellenistic period. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 345 - Nicoletta Cignini . 2015. Civita Castellana (VT). Le emergenze archeologiche presenti nella valle del Fosso dei Cappuccini . In 2013 the works for the construction of the new sewerage network in Civita Castellana allowed the "rediscovery" of the “Ninfeo Rosa”, sacred area discovered in 1873 in the valley of the Fosso of the Cappuccini in the suburbs of Falerii Veteres. The famous sacred areas of Celle and Sassi Caduti are situated near the confluence of the Fosso dei Cappuccini in the Rio Maggiore and the aforementioned "Ninfeo Rosa" is located in an intermediate position between them. Its vestiges and its placement have been gradually forgotten. The votive materials recovered in the nineteenth century attest the continuity of use of sanctuary since the Archaic period until the Imperial period, while the discovery of prehistoric artefacts shows that the area was already frequented in very ancient times. The Ninfeo Rosa, although it was not directly affected by the new sewer system, with the opportunity has been cleaned from the infesting vegetation and therefore for the first time it was possible to examine it in its fullness and insert it in ancient topographic context. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 344 - Alessandro Mucciante. 2015. La domus di Palazzo Melatino a Teramo (TE). This article presents the results of the a rescue excavation conducted by the Archaeological Superintendence of Abruzzo inside Melatino Palace (Teramo). The excavation uncovered a Roman house with various phases of occupation from the first century BC to late antiquity; during this period numerous changes took place in the house, which was furnished with rich floors. Other phases continued into the early medieval period until the construction of the original nucleus of the Palace of the ancient Melatino family. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 343 - Gabriella Barbieri. 2015. Il colore nelle architetture funerarie di Sovana La tomba dei Demoni Alati e altri monumenti policromi . The recent discovery of the Demoni Alati tomb in Sovana has revealed the essential role of polychromy in Etruscan archi-tecture and underlined an aspect which has not yet been the object of much attention. In fact, in the figurative program of the funerary monument, polychromy must not have had an unimportant role, considering the fact that it was an architecture intended to be visible from far away, created to express the richness of the dominant aristocracy. As with other Hellenistic monuments in the necropolis of Sovana, carved out of tufo stone, it gives an important sample of the sensitivity of Etruscans towards polychromy. This article contains an investigation on the painting techniques and a study on the colours documented in Sovana, with spe-cial attention to the Demoni Alati and Ildebranda tomb. Our research makes it clear that it is possible to discover and analyse coloured areas, even when highly decayed, and even when dealing with measures of millimetres. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 342 - Marco Cavalieri - Universitè Catholique de Louvain, Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, Département d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’Art, Giulio Bigliardi , François-Dominique Deltenre- École française d’Athènes, Sara Lenzi- Università degli Studi di Firenze, Antonia Fumo - Collaboratore dell’Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) , Chiara Leporati- Fondazione Dià Cultura. 2015. Nuove ricerche archeologiche presso il sito di Cures Sabini: attività, ipotesi e prospettive . This paper is a report on what is actually known about Roman Cures Sabini. It gathers a review of previous works and a report of new non-invasive interventions including geophysical analysis and the cleaning of a previously-excavated thermal bath complex. Beside this activity, a new and complete orthophotogrammetric and 3D relief of the architectural structures of the thermal baths and the so-called “north-west building” has been carried out. The latter one is a composite structure identified in the 1980s that has never been studied specifically. Thanks to the new reliefs and a careful revision of the historiographical, archaeological and epigraphic data, an attempt has been made to reconstruct part of the monumental and urban landscape of the city. This has led to the hypothesis of a less important crisis regarding the settlement during the high imperial phase on the contrary on what has been suggested previously. In this sense, the hypothetical replacement on the city map of the urban temple (which has been identified and drawn by the archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani in 1875) that has been possible thanks to geophysical prospections and a review of the written and graphic documentation of the excavations led during the 19th century, complete and support the hypothesis that Cures Sabini has been different from other “central places” of central Italy during the historic age. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 341 - Giovanna M. Fabrini, Roberto Perna. 2015. Pollentia - Urbs Salvia (Urbisaglia, MC). Indagini di scavo nell’area forense (campagne 2011 - 2014) . The paper deals with the archaeological investigations conducted by the University Macerata in the site of Pollentia-Urbs Salvia (Urbisaglia) in the V Regio (Picenum) between 2011 and 2014. Among the most significative results of the investigations conducted in the civil area of the forum, structures belonging to the earliest phases of occupation of the area have been brought to light. These can be referred to the colonial constitution dated between the end of the II century BC, in the Gracchus period probably, with the name of Pollentia. Data from the investigations in the urban centre are supported also by the individuation in the territory of traces of centuriation previous to those known from the sources of Gromatici of triumviral age. During the same years, in the religious sector of the Temple-Cryptoporticus, a series of rooms arranged toward the south in the southern gallery of the complex and facing the South road of the Cryptoporticus have been identified. The excavation in the rooms 7 and 8 brought to light a system of small kilns producing cooking ware in particular: the knowledge of the urbanistic context and the analysis of the pottery allowed to formulate a hypothesis for their dating and their historical background. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 340 - James G. Cooper, John J. Dobbins. 2015. New Developments and New Dates within the Sanctuary of Apollo at Pompeii. The Pompeii Forum Project presents four previously unreported design features within the Sanctuary of Apollo at Pompeii that contribute to a fuller understanding of the sanctuary’s architectural history. These are (1) a precise design relationship between the pier wall that marks the eastern temenos of the sanctuary, and the colonnade within the sanctuary; (2) differences in construction technique, materials, and alignment between the two southernmost piers of the pier wall and the rest of the series (the third from the south is anomalous and is treated separately); (3) evidence indicating that the exterior of the present temple podium wraps around and conceals an earlier podium, now encased within the present structure; and (4) details of the form of the encapsulated temple can be reconstructed on the basis of the cella’s pilasters. Points 3 and 4 are discussed below under the subheading A New Phase of the Temple of Apollo. These four different architectural conditions dovetail perfectly with each other and with the ceramic evidence from the excavations by the Pompeii Forum Project that date the sanctuary’s monumentalization, including the pier wall, to the Augustan period . The Pompeii Forum Project remains grateful to the Soprintendenza speciale per i beni archeologici di Pompei, Ercolano e Stabia and to the Direzione degli Scavi for facilitating our research. The authors are grateful for the assistance and observations of Zach Jones. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 339 - Elisa Bonacini - Soprintendenza BB.CC.AA. di Catania; Università degli Studi di Catania; IEMEST Istituto Euro-Mediterraneo di Scienza e Tecnologia di Palermo, Maria Turco. 2015. L’insediamento rurale di Contrada Franchetto a Castel di Iudica (Ct). Un sito rurale tra età repubblicana ed età imperiale . The archaeological excavation in Contrada Franchetto, near Castel di Judica (province of Catania) has been conducted in 2011 by the Superintendency of Catania and has unearthed the remains of a rural settlement evident by repeated previous surveys in the area. This settlement seems to be in life between 3rd-2nd centuries BC and 3rd century AD, with a higher concentration and homogeneity of findings between 2nd BC and 2nd AD. A new phase of life would be around 5th and 6th centuries AD. Archaeological investigations come to fill an important gap in the knowledge of settlements’ dynamics in this area in the Republican Age and Roman settlement of Contrada Franchetto confirms, according to the dynamics of agricultural practice and social evolution, the transition from free hellenistic epauleis to the extended fundi dominici that devel-oped during the Imperial age. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 338 - Marco Valenti- Università di Siena. 2015. Santa Cristina in Caio a Buonconvento (Siena): un bilancio interpretativo dopo la sesta campagna di scavo . This text is the synthesis of the first six years of excavation (2009-2014) on the site of Santa Cristina: in addition to the evidence of excavation we try to contextualize the material culture within the trading system of Tuscany, lines of penetration from the coast to the inlands of the goods through the streets and river routes. In this context acquires particular importance the role of the river Ombrone, which is certainly a factor of economic development of the settlement of Santa Cristina in Caio. A further subject matter within the text is that of the reuse of the thermal implant, completely re-calibrated on the basis of weighted averages of individual finds. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 337 - Valentina Limina . 2015. L’“acropoli” di Casalvecchio presso Casale Marittimo (PI): risultati da uno “scavo d’archivio” . Casalvecchio is located on a hilltop site (Casale Marittimo – Pisa, Lower Cecina Valley), overlooking the mouth of the Cecina river and Populonia in the south. Since the Orientalizing period the whole district was controlled politically and economically by the urban aristocracies of Volterra/Velathri. Excavations and surveys were organized on the area during the 1960s but they lack of scientific method and documentation. A final interpretation appears anything but certain. Due to the sequence of events in the years between 1959/60 - 1998 and a lack of publication concerning the material found at Casalvecchio “acropolis”, a clear understanding of the “late-Etruscan” or “Hellenistic farm” could not be properly established. In 2013 - 2015, thanks to archival research, the analysis of archaeological materials found during the excavations of the 1960’s allowed us to re-discover Casalvecchio. Five different phases in development of structures were defined: I: late 10th B.C. - early 9th B.C./ 9th B.C. – first half 8th B.C.?? II: late 7th B.C. - late sixth B.C. III: late fourth B.C. - early first B.C. IV: second half first B.C. – mid second A.D. V: late third A.D. - fifth A.D. – medieval period (?) PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 336 - William van Andringa, Thomas Creissen, Henri Duday. 2015. Scavo 2014 della necropoli romana di Porta Nocera a Pompei: il settore 26 OS . The project forms part of the research program of the École française de Rome in collaboration with the University of Lille 3 (Centre de recherches Halma), the archaeological society Éveha International and the Soprintendenza archeologica di Pompei with the participation of the Anthropological Laboratory of Bordeaux, the Società Archeodunum and the AGRUMED Program, under the direction of William Van Andringa (Université de Lille 3), Thomas Creissen (Éveha International) e Henri Duday (Université de Bordeaux). The 2014 campaign was the first of the new research project on the necropolis of Porta Nocera at Pompeii. The excavations have focused on a fairly limited area of about 60m2, situated just on between the enclosure 23 OS to the east and the monu-ment 27 OS to the west. In order to develop an adequate strategies for the coming years, the main objective was to characterize the archaeological potential of the sector, especially the funerary structures (tombs, cremation areas, necro-soils, etc.). PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 335 - Beatrice De Rosa, Marco Rendeli, Paola Mameli. 2015. Ceramica comune dall’abitato nuragico di Sant’Imbenia (Alghero, Sardegna). Alcune osservazioni sulla tecnologia di produzione di manufatti dell’età del Ferro. The Nuragic site of Sant’Imbenia in Alghero (north-western Sardinia, Italy) was inhabited approximately between the 14th and the 7th century BC. During the last centuries of its life, Sant’Imbenia lived a population of locals and foreigners; it is obvious that as well as goods and raw materials they exchanged ideas, knowledge and technologies. The aim of the work is to identify the development of this settlement through the analysis of the ceramic technology. The study takes into account the results of the archaeometric analyses of the nuragic pottery produced during the VIII and the VII century BC, found during the excavations carried out in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. Ceramic samples were studied under a stereomicroscope to observe the decorations and the surfaces; a portable Minolta CM700d spectrophotometer was used to determine the chromatic coordinates of ceramic fragments and to detect possible differences between samples in terms of their composition or production process. Later, the artifacts were studied by X-ray fluorescence, X-ray powder diffraction and optical microscopy to analyze their chemical, mineralogical and textural features. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 334 - Alessia Savi Scarponi. 2015. Sepolture ad incinerazione ed inumazione di età imperiale nel territorio di Farnese (VT) Risultati delle indagini in loc. Chiusa del Belli . During preliminary archaeological research required from Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Etruria Meridionale in Farnese near Viterbo, five roman imperial tombs and a section of a country road have been found. The findings are probably related to an area of pottery fragments, maybe a villa, located 400 meters away. The tombs have been damaged by illegal excavations, sometimes seriously; despite the ravage it was possible to date two burials through the burial implements left: the Tomb 1, a cremation with covering “alla cappuccina”, can be dated to the second half of the I century AD, the Tomb 2, a cremation with covering “alla cappuccina” and a concrete structure, can be dated to the II century AD. The other graves are typologically similar to the Tomb 2, might therefore be coeval. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 333 - Paola Palazzo. 2015. Brindisi. Palazzo Guerrieri . In the historic center of the town of Brindisi, during the renovation of Palazzo Guerrieri, an eighteenth century building, located a few hundred meters from the quay of the inner harbour, archaeological investigations were conducted within the complex on several occasions between 2001 and 2010. These revealed traces of Roman and Medieval urban settlement. Below the modern layers were found structures in opus mixtum of a Roman building dated from the early imperial period; they consist of walls delimiting rooms with vaulted ceilings and arched openings in brick, with a few traces of cocciopesto flooring collapsed from an upper storey. These structures are partially integrated into the body of a medieval building of which there were found rectangular rooms arranged around an open space, and an area for productive activities, documented by the presence of a small furnace and surfaces with traces of combustion. In the layers related to this phase fragments of pottery dating from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century were found. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 332 - Paola Palazzo. 2015. Brindisi. Casa del Turista. The excavations conducted in the years 1999, 2000 and 2011 in the courtyard of the complex of the Casa del Turista, a building that overlooks the waterfront of the inner harbour of the town of Brindisi, made it possible to reconstruct the sequence of use in the complex that, because of its strategic location, had an important historical role in the town from the Roman period to the present day. The oldest phase, from the Roman period, is documented by structures of the imperial period, when it was probably a commercial building. The destruction of the building, documented by layers of collapse, is dated between the third and fourth centuries AD. Between the fifth and seventh centuries AD, on leveling layers, spaces for productive activities such as metalworking, were created. The medieval occupation of the site is documented by structures, layers and ceramics dating from the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. In this period are found structures of a church and a cemetery area. Until the fourteenth century the history of the site and the church itself is related to the properties and the influence of the monastic order of the Knights Templar. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 331 - Paola Palazzo. 2015. Brindisi. Via Lauro 32 (proprietà M. Cazzato) . In Brindisi, during the renovation of a flat on the ground floor of a building in the historic center of the town, structures and pot-tery of roman and medieval age were found. The oldest structural traces relate to a wall in tuff blocks that delimits a Roman insula and a road of the urban network, of which the earthern pavement and the sidewalk remain. The structure in blocks borders the south-east side of a space in front of the entrance of a domus whose floors were found beyond the perimetral wall of the building, below the adjacent medieval temple of S. Giovanni al Sepolcro. A phase subsequent to that of the construction of the road and the insula is documented by a sequence of layers of leveling that raised the level of road and of the floor inside the insula. The occupation of the site during the Middle Ages is documented by a wall built on the layers of obliteration of the domus and by the pottery found in a pit. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 330 - Paola Palazzo. 2015. SAVELLETRI DI FASANO. Località Masciola. In 2010 in Savelletri of Fasano (Brindisi) a preliminary archaeological excavation was conducted in a wide area destined for a parking lot along the coastal road to Monopoli in order to establish the presence of structures of archaeological interest in a high risk area in the immediate vicinity of the necropolis and the walls of the Roman town of Egnatia. The area selected for the project was investigated through the excavation of three parallel trenches and a more extensive trench in the eastern sector. The excavated surface led to discovery, for a distance of 75 meters, of a road oriented NS, parallel to the coastline and characterized by parallel grooves carved into the bedrock. Along the road were highlighted traces of a settlement characterized by the presence of structures (huts with postholes) and pits used as cisterns, channels, walls made of stones and limestone blocks, and concentrations of pottery fragments that document the use of the road between the third century B.C. and the first century A.D. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 329 - Fabrizio Slavazzi, Elena Belgiovine – Archeologa specializzata, Daniele Capuzzo . 2015. Sperlonga (LT): indagini nella “Villa della Grotta”. Campagna di scavo 2014 . In September 2014 the University of Milan, under the direction of Prof. Fabrizio Slavazzi and in collaboration with the Superintendency for Archaeological Heritage of Lazio, conducted new excavations on the site of Sperlonga (LT). The activities were concentrated in the so-called "Villa della Grotta", especially in the hilly portion called Area V. In this part, in correspondence of Rooms V12 and V15, the excavation allowed the identification of an important sequence of transformations that, between the first and the fifth century AD, characterized this part of the villa. We are now able to qualify the area at a functional level, and re-define the northern limit of the original phase of the complex. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 328 - Steven J.R. Ellis, Allison L.C. Emmerson, Kevin Dicus, Gina Tibbott. 2015. The 2012 Field Season at I.1.1-10, Pompeii: Preliminary report on the excavations. This article provides a preliminary report on the 2012 field season of excavations undertaken by the University of Cincinnati’s ‘Pompeii Archaeological Research Project: Porta Stabia’. This was the eighth – and final – season of excavations for the project, during which four trenches were excavated within four separate properties across insula I.1. As the last of a series of preliminary reports published with FOLD&R, this article anticipates the final publication of the project’s research in a series of forthcoming monographs; the preparation of these volumes are currently underway. The focus of the present report is on the stratified sequences uncovered in each trench. It also outlines the phases of activity and how some of these relate to the development of other parts of the buildings already excavated by the project throughout insula I.1, as well as to the results from our excavations on the western side of the via Stabiana at insula VIII.7. The earliest sequence of activities begins in the 6th century BCE, with major developments occurring in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE (the establishment of the standing buildings, one of which operated a pottery production facility), the Augustan period (the replacement of production spaces with retail, as well as some significant quarrying activities), and the last decades of habitation (the structural recovery from the earthquake/s). PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 327 - John D. Muccigrosso, Rangar Cline, Sarah Harvey, Elena Lorenzetti, Stefano Spiganti. 2015. The 2011 Excavation Season at the Site of the Vicus Martis Tudertium (PG). In summer 2011 a fourth season of excavation at the site of the Vicus Martis Tudertium was conducted in the area to the north of that already investigated. Building remains exhibited similar preservation as that already found to the south, and small finds were also consistent with those from previous seasons. The earliest material found pushes back the site’s date slightly, into the late second century BCE. Despite a rising ground level, excavation again reached the water table. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 326 - Luigi Pedroni – Consorzio Mediterraneo Sociale scarl. 2015. Il tempio romano di Cales. Campagna 2013. An excavation campaign has been recently conducted in the area of the ancient city of Cales, in Northern Campania, where a temple of the Augustan age have been investigated. It was peripter, had brick columns covered with white stucco, and marble Corinthian ones, whose fragments have been found. New data have been collected about the shape of the cell that appears accessible only through two small doors. The cell was paved with a fine black-white tessellatum. The brick podium of the temple was covered with thick marble slabs, resting on large, molded blocks of limestone, partially plundered in antiquity. The structures of the temple were used already in late antiquity to host some simple burials, covered by a vast layer of ruins in ancient times, but disturbed by recent very incisive agricultural activity. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 325 - Hilary Cool - Barbican Research Associates, Nottingham UK, David Griffiths - University of Leicester, UK . 2015. The miniature vessels of Insula VI.1 Pompeii. New evidence for neighbourhood cults. This paper describes the miniature votive ceramic vessels found during the excavations in Insula VI.1 Pompeii. It reviews the dating evidence for the types emerging from stratigraphic excavations more widely within the city which augment the data presented by Grasso. It is suggested that the small handled cups (calice) and the lid-like vessels (coperchi) were used in different rituals. The use of the latter in ceremonies around the well at the tip of VI.1 are described and it is suggested that they may not have functioned as vessels. This area was to become a formal cross-roads shrine (compitum), but the votive deposition uncovered shows that the area was already a focus of a neighbourhood cult prior to the establishment of the Roman colonia. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet
- 324 - Antonia Arnoldus Huyzendveld, Cinzia Morelli, Patrizia Turi. 2015. Il paleoambiente di Monte Giulio e della parte nord-orientale del bacino portuale di Claudio. This publication focuses on the site of Monte Giulio (Fiumicino, RM, Italy), the complex that makes up the internal (eastern) delimitation of the harbour basin of Claudius, investigated through a series of cores, trenches and excavations between 2007 and 2009. We recognized various natural and anthropical phases, from the construction of the structures on Monte Giulio in the Trajanic period until the end of the occupation of the area, dated not beyond the beginning of the fifth century. Hypotheses are put forward as to the extension and the limited depth of the interdunal lagoon located in pre-imperial times behind the coastline north of the future harbour of Trajan, and on Monte Giulio as a complex functional for small-sized boats, constructed on a natural dune ridge in this lagoon. Moreover, hypotheses are put forward on the general environmental conditions of the area in pre-Roman and Roman times, and on the probability that Claudius did not dredge the entire lagoon, but may have done so only locally through the excavation of channels in the bottom; he then cut through the coastal barrier to let the sea enter, and concentrated the maritime traffic on Portus through the creation of harbour structures along the original coast line. On the basis of the excavation data, the sea level in the second century AD results to have been more than one meter below the present level, and rising continuously in the centuries thereafter. Integration of new radiocarbon datings with those known from literature has confirmed that the shift of the Tiber mouth from north to south has occurred most probably in the eight century BC or slightly later. PDFpermalinkRecord Sheet