Civita Castellana (VT). Indagini archeologiche di emergenza nel suburbio di Falerii Veteres

In 2013 the works for the construction of the new sewerage network in Civita Castellana have allowed to find a stretch of ancient road paved in via Roma in the suburb of Falerii Veteres. The street was not yet known by archaeologists. It is characterized by a pavement with small lava stones. We know that the Roman conquest of 241 B.C. entailed the abandonment of the Faliscan city and the foundation elsewhere of a new town, called Falerii Novi. However this new discovery joins to other known archaeological evidence documenting the continuity of attendance after this date both the sanctuaries - frequented until the end of II - beginning of I century B.C.- and Falerii Veteres plateau, on which there arose a small Roman burial ground. These testimonies are certainly evidence of the frequenting of the site (although limited) even after the conquest by Rome. A subsequent earthy street with edges in tuff blocks has overlapped on the ancient street: it probably was made when the eastern access to Civita Castellana was built, under the pontificate of Pope Pius VI.

Copio (Baschi-Montecchio, Terni). Un avamposto etrusco sulla sinistra del Tevere Presentazione dei risultati delle indagini di superficie (maggio - giugno 2015)

This paper attempts to demonstrate the importance of the archaeological area of Copio, in province of Terni (Italy). Discovered for the first time in the 1980 by the local historian then mentioned in 2001 and in 2003 in two different archaeological publications, the site of Copio started to arouse interest for its position, lying on a hilltop above one of the most interesting pre-Roman necropolis of Umbria (Vallone di San Lorenzo). The link between the well-known necropolis and Copio is today well-accepted. The aim of this paper, based on a field-walking survey and the analisys of the archaeological finds, is to demonstrate the importance of this area during the pre-Roman period as a commercial bridgehead linked to Volsinii. Strategically lying only one km to east from the Tiber, it should have enjoyed this important and commercial path for the local trade moving goods in incoming and outcoming.

Telesia Archaeological Project: Indagini nella basilica e nel foro (2014-2015)

The Telesia Archaeological Project is an initiative that will make a significant contribution to thi historical and archaeological knowledge of the urban area of the Roman city of Telesia, located near Benevento (S. Salvatore Telesino). The first and second season of the Telesia Archaeological Project (2014-2015), conducted under the supervision of the Archaeological Superintendence, and thanks to the indispensable collaboration of a private landowner, provided results of great scientific interest. There was the possibility to investigate part of a significant building of imperial age, richly decorated, identified with the basilica of the city. It was possible to establish, in addition, that this large building (36 by 21 m ca) was opened, through a great brick colonnade, to the forum, localized in summer 2015 with certainty for the first time. The extraordinary large double colonnade (porticus duplex), 9 meters wide, covering the entire façade of that public building, was erased in the fifth century AD, probably after two earthquakes that seriously damaged the city in 346 and 375 AD.

Il «Castellazzo» di Monte Iato in Sicilia occidentale (PA) Quinta e sesta campagna di scavo. Aggiornamenti dal territorio

From May 15th to 30th and 15th to 30th September 2015 took place the fifth and sixth excavation campaign at the Castellazzo of Monte Iato. The presence of 15 participants made it possible to deepen the research significantly and ex-pand the surface area of investigation. It is completely emptied a room already identified in previous campaigns and provided new information about the relationship with the existing cemetery. Part of a burial in a supine position was destroyed by the installation of wall 20. Traces of another turret projecting from the walls have been discovered in the east and another section of the inner walls (15) was fully exposed. A gate, between two towers, is the first entry traced so far, on the north-eastern side of the plateau. The archaeological materials found confirm the characteristics and type of construction. Being a military camp of ephemeral nature, although active at least 30 years, objects such as arrowheads and crossbow quarrels, knives, buckles and harnesses for horses have been found. One of the environments has been interpreted as an area where gaming took place because of the presence of four dice in ivory, glasses and different coins, in addition to the greater extent than the other environments found. Among the findings are reported a glass weight with a cufic inscription dated to the mid-twelfth century and two bronze coins dated in 15th centu-ry.

The Herculaneum Graffiti Project: Initial Field Season, 2014

This article describes the goals and activities for the first field season of The Herculaneum Graffiti Project. Our project fo-cuses on documenting and digitizing to make more broadly accessible the first-century handwritten wall-inscriptions, also called graffiti, in Herculaneum. Following an overview of the presence of ancient graffiti in Herculaneum, this report details the methodology we used to locate and document the inscriptions and the preservation status of ancient graffiti in each insula, or city-block, of the excavations. We further describe the preliminary results of the project’s documentation efforts. We are currently studying, processing, and digitizing these inscriptions and contributing them for inclusion in the Epigraphic Database Roma and EAGLE, the Europeana network of Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy. We conclude with a brief mention of development of The Ancient Graffiti Project, the digital resource and search engine devoted to ancient handwritten inscriptions.

Preliminary Notes on Two Seasons of Research at Oplontis B (2014-2015)

The complex known as Oplontis B lies in the shadow of Vesuvius, about 3 kilometers west of Pompeii and 300 meters from the well-known Villa A. Since its first excavation and reconstruction in the 1970s and 1980s, Oplontis B has languished in abandonment ―virtually unstudied. The Oplontis Project, led by John Clarke and Michael Thomas, began investigating the site in 2012 after completing its work on Villa A. The documentation of the complex is a primary task. In the past few years members of the Project team have cataloged the previously excavated materials, recording over 1200 wine amphorae as well as a variety of other artifacts. At the same time, Marcus Abbott has laser-scanned the building to produce a detailed plan of the site. The excavations have similar aims: to record the 79 CE level of the complex and to investigate its development. This paper discusses the preliminary results of the last two seasons of excavations and cataloging efforts which build on our previous work conducted in 2012 and 2013.

Preliminary Report on the 2014 Field Season of the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP)

This article provides a preliminary report on the 2014 excavations carried out by the American Excavations at Morgantina (Sicily): Contrada Agnese Project (CAP). The 2014 season was the second year of this multiyear research and excavation project aimed at investigating both the urban planning of the city and the lives of its residents, with a specific focus on the periods of occupation and cultural transformation from the third to first century BCE. During the second season, three trenches were excavated in the area corresponding to Lot One of the urban insula W13/14S. This preliminary report presents the significant stratigraphic units and material finds encountered in each trench, along with a provisional outline of the phases of activity, setting the developments observed in each trench within the broader historical and archaeological context of the urban center at Morgantina. The discovery of several rooms with similar architectural features suggests that they belong to a single building, the so-called Southeast Building, the function and dimensions of which will be investigated in future CAP excavations.

La lunga diacronia di un sito archeologico toscano: il complesso di Pava (Siena) dal II al XIII sec. d.C.

The paper is centred on southern Tuscany on the archaeological complex of Pieve di Pava where archaeological research have been conducted since the 2000 by the University of Siena. The parish church is first mentioned as the baptisterium Sancti Petri in Pava in a document of AD 715 part of a long dispute between the bishop of Siena and the bishop of Arezzo. But the archaeological excavation revealed a longer history of the site that start from the Roman period with a villa dated between the second to the fourth century BC. The villa continued to grow in Late Antiquity since it was transformed by a church. The paper is centred on these fluctuations of the site and on the implications of the transformations on the landscape. One of the stronger element of the Pava site, in addition to the very particular plan of the early church (built with two opposing apses) was the huge cemetery around the church that was used from the seventh century BC until the Middle Ages. The 900 excavated graves make this one of the largest and most long-lasting late-Roman to medieval cemeteries excavated in Europe.

The Apsidal Building of the Vicus Martis Tudertium (PG)

Over the course of the past three seasons (2012-2014) at the putative site of the Vicus Martis Tudertium near the church of S. Maria in Pantano (Massa Martana, PG), excavation has focused on a large structure first observed in crop marks in fall 2008. We have uncovered a large building oriented along the putative Via Flaminia and possessing an apse at its eastern end, the precise function of which remains unclear. Excavation has also uncovered a series of early-medieval burials located just east of the structure.

Stratégie muséale de la mise en valeur de la "Rachidia": scénographie et ethnomusicologie pour la sauvegarde du patrimoine e musical tunisien

A Associação da « Rachidi » trabalhou muito para preservar e valorizar a música Tunisiana desde o seu período de criação em 1934. Ela teve uma importante participação na educação musical, na disseminação do conhecimento musical e na organização de grandes concertos, assim como na elaboração de materiais escritos e na gravação das antigas canções. Nos dias de hoje, após 80 anos de trabalho, a Associação precisa que sua história e memória sejam preservadas. Desta forma, será apresentado um estudo sobre a "Rachidia", sua localização, seus personagens, sua música, seus instrumentos e sua orquestra, de um ponto de vista histórico capaz de colocar em evidência o patrimônio musical Tunisiano com ajuda da cenografia, museologia e da museografia. Na realidade será feito um programa científico para a elaboração de uma exposição temporária que destaque a música Tunisiana antiga em geral e em particular a « Rachidia ».

Design para a mobilidade expositiva

Tese para a obtenção do grau de Doutor em Design, apresentada na Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade Técnica de Lisboa.

Hierapolis-Castabala: The Urban Development in A.D. 1st to 3rd Centuries

The goal of the present dissertation is to explore the urbanization process in Castabala in A.D. 1st to 3rd centuries, along with the factors affecting the urbanization of the city and the impact of Romanization on this process, by making use of the buildings that are proven or assumed to date back to this period. A further goal is to provide a general assessment of these buildings based on the finds and findings revealed by the excavations in Castabala, which first started in 2009, and use these as evidence for proposing new dating for buildings that have not been fully dated.

The Architecture of the Persian Period in the Levant

The earliest scholars were not concerned about preparing extensive investigations linking the Persian-period building remains excavated in the entire Levant together. Moreover, the research interests of scholars caused some impediments to the study of this period viz in the last decades; the Achaemenid period has been neglected by the scholars who -in turn- focused on the earlier and later periods for religious reasons. Too, while some regions have been studied abundantly, but it was not the case in other areas, which makes our knowledge is incomplete. From the explanation side, some scholars try to interpret the architectural remains from an ethnic perspective or unsubstantiated personal fancies, so their arguments were utterly lacking any objectivity. This thesis explores what are the Persian architectural and ornamental impacts on the Levantine architecture and the relations between Persian-period sites in Syria-Palestine region. Too, the architectural remains and their contents benefited us to clarify the settlement patterns in the regions being discussed. The author analyzed the ground plans of the buildings and their architectural features and ornamental motifs by conducting a descriptive, analytical, and interpretative study. He also conducted comparisons with similar buildings outside the Levant, especially in Fars to obtain a more comprehensive and systematic study, and then extracting any direct or indirect Persian influences. This has given us a better understanding of the nature of the social, political, and religious life in the entire Levant and the knowledge gap has been bridged to a satisfying extent. This study has demonstrated a few of the Achaemenid impacts, especially on the northern coastline of the Levant.

Yunus: ricerche e scavi nella necropoli dell'età del Ferro di Karkemish

La comprensione del contesto funerario rappresenta per l’archeologo uno degli aspetti più complessi da interpretare della società antica a causa dell’interazione tra numerosi, diversi fattori culturali. È quindi fondamentale condurre un’attenta e accurata analisi che tenga conto di tutti gli aspetti inerenti la sepoltura e il corredo. La riapertura nel 2011 degli scavi sul sito di Karkemish da parte della missione turco-italiana del Dipartimento di Storia Culture Civiltà dell’Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, in collaborazione con le Università di Istanbul e Gaziantep, ha reso necessaria una rilettura dei dati di scavo emersi durante le precedenti missioni organizzate dal British Museum, condotte tra il 1913 e il 1914 nella necropoli di Yunus, per metterli in correlazione anche con i dati inediti ottenuti nelle nuove campagne di scavo all’interno del sito di Karkemish e Yunus. Lo scopo finale di questo progetto consiste in una nuova analisi dei contesti funerari databili all’Età del Ferro volta a definire, ove possibile, lo sviluppo sia della necropoli, sia della cultura materiale con l'intenzione di apportare un significativo contributo alla ricostruzione e alla comprensione di una delle più importanti necropoli dell’Età del Ferro