Season Team

• AIAC_132 - Foro Romano - 2005
  Il progetto di ricerca, iniziato nel 2003, ha indagato i rapporti tra lo spazio commerciale, religioso e monumentale dell’area compresa tra il tempio dei Castori, l’Oratorio dei Quaranta Martiri, l’Aula domizianea, il vicus Tuscus e gli horrea Agrippiana. Due saggi di scavo sono stati aperti negli horrea, lungo i lati occidentale e meridionale, dove si era conservata stratigrafia antica al di sotto dei livelli raggiunti dai lavori di sterro degli inizi del XX secolo. Tra il tempio e il portico dell’Aula domizianea e lungo il Vicus Tuscus si è cercato di capire le fasi e la funzione delle strutture già investigate da G. Boni ed è stata scavata la stratigrafia intatta risparmiata dallo studioso. La campagna di scavo ha restituito una gran quantità di dati, attualmente in corso di elaborazione per la pubblicazione. Tra i risultati principali possiamo annoverare: 1) evidenze per l’occupazione originaria ad ovest dell’Oratorio dei Quaranta Martiri a sud del tempio dei Castori (pavimenti arcaici, buchi di palo, fosse con rifiuti, occupazione successiva con strutture di cappellaccio). 2) Due fasi di strutture repubblicane in opus quasi reticulatum al di sotto delle strutture occidentali degli horrea Agrippiana. 3) Evidenze di un edificio monumentale con corsi di conci disposti su una fondazione in calcestruzzo ad ovest and in parte al di sotto dell’Oratorio dei Quaranta Martiri. 4) Fondazioni pre-domizianee e canalizzazioni sottostanti il portico settentrionale dell’Aula domizianea (abitazioni augustee e almeno due fasi relative a strutture monumentali giulio-claudie). Questi resti non sono compatibili con la teoria che il frammento 18a della pianta marmorea di Roma rappresenti una sistemazione dell’area pre-domizianea. 5) Un canale entro cassa in calcestruzzo e soprastanti strutture in calcestruzzo tra l’Aula domizianea e il tempio dei Castori, che si appoggiano al podio del tempio. 6) Evidenze di un’occupazione tarda degli horrea, costituite da strutture lignee (alloggiamenti per pali ricavati nelle lastre pavimentali del cortile), attività edilizie tardo-antiche (innalzamento del livello pavimentale) e strati di incendio il cui termine post quem è il 588-602. (Annalisa Marzano, Andrew Wilson)
• AIAC_185 - S. Pietro di Villamagna - 2009
  In the winery, excavation aimed at determining the limits of the building. To the south of the winery the search for the entrance to the imperial stair – designed to allow the emperor’s litter to be carried up to the press room – revealed a long corridor connected to a bath suite with, so far, a small peristyle court leading to a round _laconicum_. The corridor was as elegantly decorated as the stair, with veneers in Portasanta and Numidian marble and moldings in Luni marble. On the other three sides of the building vaulted substructures were explored, probably intended to hold the _dolia_ in which the wine was fermented. While it had long been known that the site was reoccupied by the medieval village of Villamagna, new this year is the discovery, based on abundant Forum Ware, that this dates to the ninth century. A small oven was found in one of the subterranean vaults, while a series of huts, first sunken-floored and then timber-built, occupied the area of the peristyle from the ninth through the twelfth centuries. Excavation at the site of the barracks was completed, two blocks of rooms opening onto a small alley with a central drain. Along with the _dolia_, hearths and querns discovered last year, a number of infants buried under the floors can be taken as proof of the occupation of the space by family units; in two cases these were multiple burials separated by tiles. X-rays of the bone mass suggested that the infants were notably undernourished. The building collapsed around the time of Constantine. A reoccupation towards the end of the fourth century came to a close by the middle of the fifth. At the monastery, excavation of the cemetery brought the total of burials to over 400: anthropological work on these has begun in earnest, with a team of four and the participation of Janet Monge of the University Museum as consultant. Under the cemetery and the remains of the monastic garden is emerging a large paved courtyard dating to the beginning of the villa. The church was constructed directly on top of this, probably in the sixth century, over the foundations of a Roman building. Also fronting onto the piazza is what we interpret as a façade of the imperial residence, whose extension to the north is covered by the monastic buildings. Here again, reoccupation appears to date to the ninth century A.D., although its exact form will be established in the final excavation next year. The form of the thirteenth-century cloister has now been firmly established: built over a cistern with funnel-shaped inlets into its cross-vaulted roof, it combines a cloister courtyard with a substantial _impluvium_.
• AIAC_185 - S. Pietro di Villamagna - 2010
  The full season covered June and July, and aimed at the completion of all the catalogues. Only two weeks were devoted to digging. At Site B, where the church and monastery of S. Pietro di Villamagna has been excavated by Caroline Goodson, the Roman and Late Roman hases were revealed beneath the cemetery and monastic deposits. The earliest deposit is a paving of white paving stones covering almost the whole area of the excavation. This was clearly a courtyard in front of one of the buildings on the estate, whose facade is visible in the section of the trench. Into this paved area in the third century was constructed a brick building with the same plan as the later church. Too early to be identified as a church, with a beaten-earth floor and without decoration, it was probably a cella vinaria, replacing the earlier, marble-line building at site A. However, a series of burials, including two flanking the door, suggest that during the mid-sixth century it was transformed into a church. The building was removed to foundation level, and a new church built on the same plan, although with three doors in the front facade rather than a single central one. Within the portico surrounding the great court a cella vinaria was established with at least eight large dolia whose pits are visible in two rows: pottery and coins allow us to attribute both events to the second half of the sixth century, probably under the Byzantine emperor Justinian. South of the Hadrianic winery the excavation of the dense sequence of huts that covered atrium the bath building was completed. Although little was left of the decoration, the collapsed marble from the monumental corridor of the baths excavated last year was reconstructed by Dirk Booms to give a complete reconstruction of the wall veneers. The water supply of the villa was also investigated, both in a small cistern that served as a castellum divisoriu and at a monumental fountain between the slave barracks and the villa. Finally, an amphitheatre, clearly visible on a RAF air photograph was investigated by magnetometry, with ambiguous results. The over 500 individuals from the cemetery have now been catalogued, aged, sexed and measured: they are stored in Anagni for future research, the preliminary catalogues of the architectural fragments, sculpture, pottery and other finds are also complete. We hope to complete the publication of the site within a few years.