Investigating the Mediterranean City in Late Antiquity (AD 300-650)
Principal Investigator: Luke Lavan
Ostia
In 2008-2010, Luke is jointly directing a programme of work at Ostia, the port of Rome, with Axel Gering of the Humboldt University in Berlin. He has been asked to join in refining previous work on the street system of the city in the 4th and early 5th c. A.D. At Ostia the team are dealing with a large urban area excavated by clearance, that holds one major advantage over other classical sites: there are a series of universal changes in the level of the city, in the 3rd, mid 4th and early 5th c. A.D., which make changes in the urban fabric uniquely easy to date and interpret. Here small-scale excavation and repair survey will be used to try to develop a comprehensive methodology for re-surveying old clearance excavations, such as are now becoming accessible in Algeria and Libya. The primary focus at Ostia is on understanding the street system, which Luke has recently studied at a synthetic level across the empire as a whole. The size of the site provides a unique chance to view late antique changes across the urban fabric in a systemic rather than anecdotal fashion. The project is open to students who have already some excavation experience, and to all research students with an interest in Late Antique Archaeology.
In 2008 the project concentrated on the Foro della Statua Eroica, a rectangular plaza in the centre of the city. This had been built on top of some 2nd c. baths, blocking two streets. It seemed ideal for the project. Cleaning and excavation work revealed that it was in fact built in the 4th c. A.D., and repaired sometime later, probably in the early 5th c. The excavation revealed many surprises: how the plaza had been created by demolishing the baths and filling them with building rubble, including some pieces of adjacent temples The square was paved using re-used marble and travertine slabs, including many inscriptions. These were often only preserved in ghost form ! : in reverse, as impressions in the mortar. The colonnades of the portico were also constructed using re-used fragments, including pieces of an enormous monumental inscription, perhaps come from the adjacent temple of Rome and Augustus, like some other blocks in the complex. In the last week of the dig a cistern was located, one of two that were set beneath the floor of the square in order to store water for the adjacent baths. The team also found an early medieval wall built across the ruins of the forum which we hope to investigate in 2009.
Click here to visit the web site and blog of the Berlin-Kent Ostia excavations.