| Preliminary Note on Results: Year 1 (2007/2008) | |||
Excavation The first season of excavation was completed in September and early October and involved uncovering a substantial area of the port in the vicinity of the "Palazzo Imperiale" that lies in a key area overlooking the great basins of Claudius and Trajan. |
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The work uncovered a hitherto unknown basin or channel measuring c. 25m wide and of considerable length. This was protected from the main basin of Claudius immediately to the north by a series of substantial moles and, possibly at a later date, by a massive warehouse complex to the south. A complex of cisterns was established in the vicinity at some time subsequently. |
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For reasons that are unclear the basin/channel began to fill up with sand in the course of the early imperial period AD, after which time a massive circular building (30m diameter) was constructed and the cistern complex further developed. |
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Immediately prior to the Byzantine period in the later 5th century AD, the large circular building was demolished as part of a programme of fortification designed to protect the harbour, possibly from seaborne Vandal raiders. |
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The excavations have been pioneering the development of highly innovative computer-based recording techniques designed to enable virtual reality reconstructions and web-based presentations of the site. Survey |
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2. Roman Ports in the Western Mediterranean This second focus, also directed by Professor Simon Keay, together with Graeme Earl, looks at the relationship of Portus to ports across the Mediterranean, primarily in the west. In the first instance it is using new computer-based techniques to better understand how we can characterize connections between ports. Secondly, it is using these to look at the co-presence of ceramics and marble at a range of key port site as a means of gauging fluctuating trans-Mediterranean connections during the Roman period. One key focus will be the major trade route between Hispalis (Seville) and Gades (Cadiz) in Baetica and Portus and Rome; others will be between Tarraco (Tarragona), Massallia (Marseilles) and key north African ports and Portus. It is being funded from a range of different sources and involves collaboration with the Universities of Oxford, Seville, Cadiz, Aix-en-Provence, the Institut Catala d'Arqueologia Classica and the Society for Libyan Studies. An important element of the work will consist of annual themed workshops held at the British School at Rome. The first of these, which will be dealing with Port Networks, will be held in March 2008. |
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Following on from the success of the Tiber Valley Project, the new flagship project of the British School at Rome is the Roman Ports Project, directed by Professor Simon Keay. This aims to better understand the development of Portus, the port of imperial Rome, by means of a programme of excavation and survey, as well as its relationships to other ports in the western Mediterranean. It involves extensive collaboration with Universities in the UK (Southampton, Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick and Bath), the Society for Libyan Studies, the Universita di Roma (La Sapienza), the Universidad de Sevilla (Spain) and the Institut Catala d’Arqueologia Classica (Tarragona), and the Universite d’Aix-en-Provence (Centre Camille Jullian) and Valletta (Malta). There are two discrete sub-projects.
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| 1. The Portus Project |
Scope of Project This is led by the Director of Archaeology at the School, Simon Keay, in association with Graeme Earl (University of Southampton), Martin Millett (University of Cambridge) and Lidia Paroli (Soprintendenza di Beni Archeologici di Ostia). |
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| The project aims to answer major research questions about Portus, the port of imperial Rome. It involves collaboration with the Universities of Warwick (Alan Chalmers) and Bath (Mark Wilson-Jones).It continues a very successful and long-standing research collaboration between the BSR and the University of Southampton, the University of Cambridge and the Soprintendenza di Beni Archeologici di Ostia. It is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) of the UK together with support in kind from the Soprintendenza di Beni Archeologici di Ostia. |
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The Portus Project includes multiple seasons of survey (Millett), as well as the excavation (Keay and Earl) of a central area within the port itself (Palazzo Imperiale), of which the first season of excavations was carried out in September 2007: this adressed key questions about Portus' character and development, its regional context and relationship to Ostia, Rome and Puteoli. The excavation is applying an integrated suite of techniques not generally used on complex Mediterranean sites with major structural remains, including digital recording and visualization. |
