Season Team

• AIAC_3612 - Ostra - 2015
  The Roman city of _Ostra_ is situated in the northern Marche, in the middle Misa valley, on a river terrace on the left side of the river, along the road that linked _Sena_ _Gallica_ to _Sentinum_ and, through the Sinclinale Camerte valley to Rome. Its birth as a _praefectura_ is linked to the land allotments of the _lex_ _Flaminia_ _de_ _agro_ _gallico_ _et_ _Piceno_ _viritim_ _dividundo_ of 232 B.C. During the course of the 1st century B.C. Ostra, like many of the _praefecturae_ born out of the _lex_ _Flaminia_, was transformed into a _municipium_ governed by _duumviri_ and it kept its city status until the 6th-7th century, when it became the seat of a dioceses. The Graeco-Gothic war and then the Lombard invasion led to the city’s gradual abandonment, and the movement of the population to the highlands situated along the ridges separating the valleys in search of new defendable sites. In this way the settlement of Montenovo was founded, which, at the end of the 19th century, changed its name to Ostra Vetere and in whose territory the Roman city lies. The first excavations on the site of the ancient city, significantly named “Muracce” (Fig. 2), date to the early 20th century and were undertaken by the landowner Cav. Giuseppe Baldoni di Montalto. In 2005, a convention was stipulated between the Superintendency, the town council of Ostra Vetere and the University of Bologna’s Department of Archaeology, and new excavations began in 2006. These concentrated on the forum area, in a sector not excavated by Baldoni, where numerous public buildings were uncovered. The 2015 excavations also investigated this sector (Fig. 3) in order to check the stratigraphic and chronological relationships of several structures and complete the exploration of the area. In particular, the excavations further defined the structure and chronology of the circular temple (STR 29) and of temple STR 27, identified in 2014. Both buildings belong to the first phase of the forum datable to the second half of the 2nd century B.C. Another trench was excavated inside the city’s main temple. This intervention showed that it was built in the early imperial period in a sector that was previously occupied by metalworking furnaces and that in the second half of the 1st century A.D. the original temple podium was substantially raised in height. Important new evidence was discovered in the area of the _saepta_ where two bases built of sandstone blocks were uncovered, which showed how a system of winches housed on these bases was substituted for the original system of posts for the divisions of the voting. Lastly, the excavation of the road bordering the north and east of this sector of the forum was completed, which led to the identification of a public fountain at the crossroads.