AIAC_2899 - San Lorenzo – Santuario di Giunone Sospita - 2011The area at East of the Juno Sospita Sanctuary in Lanuvio was known in the local cartographic documents as Frediani Dionigi olive grove, because it was property of this family up to 1939. The area has been indagated with some excavation campaigns carried out between September 2006 an September 2010 and it has never been excavated before.
Excavation campaigns brought to light a massive supporting wall in _opus incertum_, which runs straight to North for about 48 metres, and a cement terrace 6,30 metres wide and about 60 metres long.
The massive supporting wall in _opus incertum_, built with small/medium size tuff polygonal pieces, is leaned against the hill and belongs to one of the first building stages of the Sanctuary's area. It is possible to suggest a dating beetween the end of the II century B.C. and the biginning of the I century B.C.
A series of small arches should begin transversally from this wall, set apart at distances of about 5,20 metres each other. The arches probably made up a small inside corridor between the opus incertum wall and a following parallel wall in _opus reticulatum_, which is about 60 cm distant from the wall in _opus incertum_.
The narrow passage between the two wall has been completely empted for almost all hits length and the dig uncovered a cocciopesto floor with a frame, clarifying the hydraulic function of this corridor. This element and the relations between the different building stages of this section were not clear before.
The dig of the corridor's filling brought to the discovery of a precious marble head of young male, probably belonging to the period of the Giulio-Claudian family, a late imperial coin and many amphora's fragments belonging to the first imperial age.
The wall in _opus reticulatum_ had three openings that gave access to the upper terrace. A dig behind the central terrace gave an interesting discovery: the opening later curtained off, in ancient times provided access to stairs with peperino steps, which allowed to go up to the upper terrace of the Sanctuary.
Here the archaological surveys carried out in September and October 2009 uncovered a series of square tuff blocks that made up a structure whose purpose is unclear, but they belonged to the Medium Repubblican Age.
In a second phase the entrance was closed by a wall in _opus reticulatum_, creating new stairs in place of the previous ones; these second stairs were shorter than the first ones and were available only from the top area, going down up to a kind of landing, where there is a small balcony leaned against the inside wall.
The cement plane area shows different phases with a series of pavements in opus coementicium with earthenware basis, mixted basis, mosaics and a plane with many remakes and different uses of architectonical pieces, from the I century B.C.to the IV century A.D.
In the plane area, in particular, four rooms have been indentified, with different floors at the same altitude, preserved only in the upstream section. The first space is surrounded on three sides by _opus reticulatum_ walls and covered by a cocciopesto floor rich in ceramic dots.
In the second space are only preserved pavement's pieces in _opus coementicium_ with earthenware basis (cocciopesto) and the related preparation, made by grey mortar and brick and ceramic fragments. Walls are not preserved, except their print on the ground.
The third wall is better preserved than the other ones because it shows the Eastern and Western walls, made with tuff blocks covered inside by cocciopesto, and floor remains, originally made with a series of lunensis marble tiles probably with different shapes. Some fragments are preserved and it is possible to reconstruct the esagonal shape of one of the tiles. The last space is paved with a black tiles mosaic and is delimited by walls which are partially preserved.
The four rooms, in spite of small differences in building techniques and pavements' altitudes, have the same orientation of the western walls and the same distance from the _opus reticulatum_ wall behind them. This could allow to think about rooms built in the same period and maybe with the same purpose of use.
In the South-West section of the plane area a black tiles mosaic was uncovered. On the mosaic's surface (except a strip in each side) was built an enclosure or a square balcony made with friable mortar and stones (also reused _cubilia_ ). Near the mosaic, 4,5 metres over its altitude, there is a cement plane, which looks quite recent considering that the western edge is made with tuff irregular blocks and architectonical pieces reused. There are also a doric semi-capital in peperino stone and a little denticulated marble frame, placed upside down.
AIAC_2899 - San Lorenzo – Santuario di Giunone Sospita - 2015Nel luglio 2012 una brillante operazione di indagine del Gruppo di Tutela Patrimonio Archeologico della Guardia di Finanza ha portato al rinvenimento di un importante e consistente deposito votivo nel territorio al confine tra Genzano di Roma e Lanuvio, circa 30 km. a sud-est di Roma.
Il successivo, immediato intervento di scavo, reso possibile da un finanziamento del Comune di Lanuvio e dalla collaborazione dell’Università “Sapienza” di Roma, del Museo Civico di Lanuvio e della Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio ha permesso il recupero di diverse centinaia di ex voto inquadrabili in un arco cronologico compreso tra il IV e il III-II sec.a.C.
L’area situata a sud e sud-est di Roma è caratterizzata dalla presenza diffusa di luogo di culto, che testimoniano una religiosità legata al territorio.
Sembra essere probabile l’eventuale, possibile rapporto tra questa stipe votiva e il vicino santuario di Iuno Sospita, divinità poliade di Lanuvium, situato sull’acropoli della città, in considerazione del fatto che alcuni recenti ritrovaventi archeologici farebbero propendere per identificare la stipe di Pantanacci come la famosa grotta del serpente sacro a Giunone Sospita menzionata da Properzio (IV 8, 3-14) e da Eliano (Nat. anim. 11, 16).
L’aspetto importante della stipe di Pantanacci è che costituisce uno dei rari esempi di deposito primario e non di rideposizione di oggetti di culto.
Particolarmente interessante il rapporto tra i materiali votivi (alcuni dei quali riferibili a patologie particolari, come quelle del cavo orale) e il luogo di deposizione: una grotta con un bacino d’acqua alimentato da una serie di cunicoli, in parte naturali in parte lavorati; tale situazione conferma quanto già rilevato in diversi depositi votivi, anche nella vicina pianura pontina, ovvero lo stretto rapporto tra cunicoli di drenaggio e “sacralità”.