Stephen Kay | British School at Rome (original) (raw)
Papers by Stephen Kay
Analecta Augustiniana Volumen LXXXVII, 2024
This article introduces preliminary findings from the geophysical survey of S. Agostino, San Gimi... more This article introduces preliminary findings from the geophysical survey of S. Agostino, San Gimignano undertaken by the University of Cambridge and the British School at Rome in 2021. It relates the survey findings to the frescoes and tombs that survive in situ, panel paintings from the convent which are now dispersed, descriptions in the antiquarian literature, and unpublished archival sources to suggest hypothetical reconstructions of the church’s interior in the later medieval and Renaissance period.
Papers of the British School at Rome, 2024
Papers of the British School at Rome, 2024
Papers of the British School at Rome, 2024
Papers of the British School at Rome, 2024
A. Launaro (ed.), Roman Urbanism in Italy: Recent Discoveries and New Directions, 2024
Situating Rome within wider debates on Classical Urbanism is notoriously challenging. It cannot b... more Situating Rome within wider debates on Classical Urbanism is notoriously challenging. It cannot be ignored; the city was the point of reference for a civilization built on urban centres. Rome’s resilient power to absorb, adapt and re-present itself underpinned its longevity. Yet while this rightly ensures Rome has a profound significance in discussions of the Classical and Late Antique city, the pulse that sustained the urbs Roma aeterna was also very much its own. No urban centre in the Mediterranean world could match its sustained dynamism, and as Purcell (2007) observed in his discussion of the horti of peri-urban Rome, the drivers that underpinned its evolution were often particular to the circumstances of the city itself. The European Research Council-funded ‘Rome Transformed’ Project https://research.ncl.ac.uk/rometrans/ (grant agreement No. 835271, Haynes et al. 2020; 2021; 2022) seeks to understand better this dynamism and its implications, through detailed study of a neighbourhood on the periphery of the Late Republican city, outside Rome’s pomerium, which went on to become the centre of western Christendom for a millennium. The project’s focus is on the eastern Caelian, and most particularly, on the eight formative centuries that ran from the Principate of Augustus to the Pontificate of Leo III. This paper concentrates on the first four of those centuries.
FOLD&R Fasti On Line Documents & Research, 586, 2024
Presented are the results of the Falerii Novi Project, a multi-year international archaeological ... more Presented are the results of the Falerii Novi Project, a multi-year international archaeological research project at the ancient urban site of Falerii Novi, in the Comune of Fabrica di Roma (Viterbo, Lazio), in the middle Tiber Valley. According to ancient sources, the Roman town of Falerii Novi was founded in the mid-third century BCE, when the nearby Faliscan center of Falerii Veteres (modern Civita Castellana) revolted and was conquered by Rome. The site, which measures nearly 32 ha and presents as a greenfield site today, lies along the ancient via Amerina, approximately 50 km north of Rome. The only standing premodern remains on site are the city’s walls, generally dated to its foundation in the 3rd century BCE, an extramural amphitheater to the northeast, peri-urban tombs, and the complex of Santa Maria di Falleri, whose monastic community is first mentioned in the 11th century CE. Previous work in the 19tth century and that carried out by the Soprintendenza during the late XXth century remain largely unpublished. More recently, however, non-invasive work using magnetometry and Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) has generated plans of the Roman town. The interim results of the FNP presented here build on this remote sensing to create a detailed understanding of the site’s development over its full history. Pursuant to our aims of exploring a range of urban spaces, trenches have been excavated across the intramural area, guided by magnetometry and GPR results. We detail results from an initial campaign of test pits (2021) and two years of open-area stratigraphic excavation (2022–23). Five areas of exploration (Areas I–V) are discussed below, including one, Area IV, restudied by the FNP after some initial, unpublished excavation by the Soprintendenza.
FOLD&R Fasti On Line Documents & Research, 587, 2024
In September 2023 the first season of work was conducted by the Furfo Project, a new interdiscipl... more In September 2023 the first season of work was conducted by the Furfo Project, a new interdisciplinary study organised through a 3-year research agreement between the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le Province di L’Aquila e Teramo, the University of Aquila – Department of Human Sciences, the British School at Rome and the Comune di Barisciano. The aim of the research programme is the investigation of the vicus of Furfo, an important archaeological site in the territory of Barisciano (L’Aquila, Abruzzo) located in the Aterno Valley along the via Claudia Nova. The vicus has been identified since at least the 1700’s thanks to its correspondence with the toponym of the area conserved by the church of Santa Maria di Farfona and with the ancient name conserved by the celebrated Lex Aedis Furfensis (CIL IX, 3513). More recently in the 1990s some fieldwalking was undertaken which proposed an estimated extent of the vicus. The first year of research of the new project saw the application of diverse types of non-invasive survey: fieldwalking, geophysical prospection (magnetometry) and LiDAR survey. The detailed analysis of each technique, and the combined synthesis of the overall results, allows a new reading of the topography and chronology of the site: a new understanding of the area occupied by the settlement has emerged, considerably more extensive and structured then previously hypothesised, and the complex topography of its long continuity of habitation attested by the material culture, from the ’Vestina’ to the medieval period.
Papers of the British School at Rome, 92, 2024
Individuals may receive the Papers as part of membership of the BSR: further information on membe... more Individuals may receive the Papers as part of membership of the BSR: further information on membership can be found at https://bsr.ac.uk/ institutional subscription rates The Papers of the British School at Rome (ISSN 0068-2462) is published once a year in October. The subscription price (excluding VAT) of volume 92 (2024), which includes print and online, is £167 net ($252 in the USA, Canada and Mexico) for institutions. EU subscribers (outside the UK) who are not registered for VAT should add VAT at their country's rate. VAT-registered customers should provide their VAT registration number. Japanese prices for institutions (including ASP delivery) are available from Kinokuniya Company Ltd.,
Papers of the British School at Rome, 2023
The Falerii Novi Project represents a newly formed archaeological initiative to explore the Roman... more The Falerii Novi Project represents a newly formed archaeological initiative to explore the Roman city of Falerii Novi. The project forms a collaboration of the British School at Rome with a multinational team of partner institutions. Thanks to a rich legacy of geophysical work on both the site and its territory, Falerii Novi presents an exceptional opportunity to advance understanding of urbanism in ancient and medieval Italy. The Falerii Novi Project employs a range of methodologies, integrating continued site-scale survey with new campaigns of stratigraphic excavation, archival research and environmental archaeology. The project aims to present a more expansive and holistic urban history of this key Tiber Valley settlement by focusing on long-run socio-economic processes both within Falerii Novi and as they linked the city to its wider landscape.
Advances in on- and offshore archaeological prsopection, 2023
The study discusses the investigation of an Italian Renaissance church with combined laser scanni... more The study discusses the investigation of an Italian Renaissance church with combined laser scanning and ground penetrating radar. The survey discovered through GPR multiple unknown tombs and the remains of a lost chapel. The full dataset was merged as a point-cloud in Leica Cyclone for a holistic view of the standing architecture and subsurface remains.
Papers of the British School at Rome, Nov 16, 2022
Please contact authors for a copy of the full PDF. A two-week campaign in June 2021 marked the b... more Please contact authors for a copy of the full PDF.
A two-week campaign in June 2021 marked the beginning of a planned multi-year project at the Roman city of Falerii Novi, located in the Comune of Fabrica di Roma (Viterbo, Lazio), in the middle Tiber Valley. The project takes place under the authorization of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la Provincia di Viterbo e per l’Etruria Meridionale and is a collaboration between the British School at Rome (BSR) and the Universities of Harvard and Toronto, along with researchers from the Universities of Ghent and Florence. This report outlines the methodology, aims and findings of the preliminary 2021 excavation season, which included a gridded test pit campaign across the entire intramural area supplemented by a series of cores along two axes.
Archäologischer Anzeiger, 2022
The gymnasium of Agrigento is one of the most important, if not the most important gymnasium in S... more The gymnasium of Agrigento is one of the most important, if not the most important gymnasium in Sicily and the western Mediterranean more generally, because of its size, design, and chronology. While parts of a race-track section and a pool were excavated between the 1950s and 2005 and were published in 2009 and 2011, crucial questions remain open: the extension, design, and most notably the existence and location of a palaestra; the construction date in the 2nd century B.C. or the Augustan period; and the urban context. To answer these questions, a project was launched in 2019 in cooperation between the Parco Archeologico e Paesaggistico Valle dei Templi di Agrigento and the Freie Universität Berlin, and a first season, together with the British School at Rome, was carried out in 2020. This paper presents the results of this first campaign, which included first, a geophysical survey of the area around the gymnasium and of a field to the north of the Hellenistic-Roman temple; and second, an architectural survey of unpublished features and work in the archives and storerooms of the Parco Archeologico.
Archaeological Computing Newsletter, 2004
Geophysics for archaeologists: Review essay of Revealing the Bried Past by Chris Gaffney and John... more Geophysics for archaeologists: Review essay of Revealing the Bried Past by Chris Gaffney and John Gater
I calchi di Pompei da Giuseppe Fiorelli ad oggi.Edited by Massimo Osanna, Annalisa Capurso, Sara Matilde Masseroli Studi e Ricerche del Parco Archeologico di Pompei, 46 2021, VIII-560 / 568 pp., 253 ill. col., 91 ill. b/n Paperback, 24 x 27 cm ISBN: 9788891321169 ISSN: 2612-4750, 2021
Dall’anno 2012, all’interno del progetto “Indagare l’archeologia della morte a Pompei, la necropo... more Dall’anno 2012, all’interno del progetto “Indagare l’archeologia
della morte a Pompei, la necropoli e i fuggiaschi di Porta Nola”,
una squadra multidisciplinare di archeologi, antropologi e ra-
diologi realizza lo studio antropologico dei resti ossei di 15 vit-
time conservate nei calchi di gesso estratti durante gli scavi
diretti da De Caro tra il 1976 e il 1978 nell’area della necropoli
di Porta Nola1
Fin dal 2005 la British School at Rome con l'Università di Perugia e la Soprintendenza per i Beni... more Fin dal 2005 la British School at Rome con l'Università di Perugia e la Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio sta conducendo uno studio sistematico del territorio di Cittareale, situato sulle montagne appenniniche a nord-est di Rieti, lungo la Via Salaria, sul confine tra le regioni Lazio, Umbria e Marche. Il progetto è parte di una serie più ampia di eventi programmati per il 2009 per ricordare il bimillenario della nascita di Vespasiano, ed è focalizzato principalmente sulla localizzazione e lo scavo del vicus di Falacrinae, dove Svetonio riporta che nacque l'imperatore. Il progetto ha comportato come prima cosa un programma di indagine di superficie, quindi l'analisi di una serie di siti attraverso la ricognizione geofisica, e lo scavo. Questo contributo presenta i risultati delle ricognizioni geofisiche e li compara con le evidenze emerse dallo scavo.
Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, 2021
Despite numerous studies focusing on Ancient Roman concrete especially petro-chemical characteriz... more Despite numerous studies focusing on Ancient Roman concrete especially petro-chemical characterization and provenance investigations of aggregates and mortar, less is known about the raw materials used for the construction of harbour structures where concrete had not been used. Recent geoarchaeological investigations of the northern mole of the Claudius harbour (Imperial port of Rome, Portus), revealed ten meters of continuous stratigraphic succession of raw materials employed for the foundation of the mole structure where the water column at the time of construction was reaching more than 16 meters of depth. The material succession consists of volcanic tuffs of different quality and hardness, carbonate and quartz rich sand, fragments and boulders of magmatic rock and Roman sherds. Attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy and principal component analysis have been applied on drilled core sediments and local reference outcrops including tuffs and pozzolana in the vicinity of Rome with the aim to: (i) characterize the mineral composition of samples and (ii) provide insights about the lithological provenance of raw materials. The results revealed that the majority of materials have a close spectra resemblance with “Tufo Lionato” and “Pozzolane rosse” except leucitite fragments occurring at the top of the harbour structure. By providing spectra similarities between the raw construction materials and the local outcrops, this study provides insights about the sources of materials and building strategies during the construction of the Imperial harbour of Rome and therefore constitute a starting point for further archaeological, geoarchaeological and restoration projects.
The Newsletter of the International Society for Archaeological Prospection Issue 61, 2021
GROMA, 2021
In 2008 the British School at Rome (BSR) and Archaeological Prospection Services of Southampton (... more In 2008 the British School at Rome (BSR) and Archaeological Prospection Services of Southampton (APSS) conducted a geophysical survey at the Etruscan site of Spina (Comacchio, Emilia Romagna) on the behalf of the University of Southampton, the University of Zurich and the Soprintendenza Arche-ologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la Città Metropolitana di Bologna e le Province di Modena, Reggio Emilia e Ferrara. The survey was conducted during a period of excavations in a central area of the site and aimed to place the excavation results in a wider context. This paper re-examines the geophysical survey results ahead of a new programme of research being led by the University of Bologna.
Archäologischer Anzeiger, 2020
Geophysical surveys were conducted at Morgantina in 1970, 2012 and 2018, with the objective of be... more Geophysical surveys were conducted at Morgantina in 1970, 2012 and 2018, with the objective of better understanding the city plan of the Archaic city on the Cittadella Hill and the Classical and Hellenistic city on the Serra Orlando Ridge. This paper focuses on the results of the 2018 survey conducted over three sectors on the Serra Orlando Ridge. It demonstrates that magnetometry was successful in rapidly recording subsurface archaeological features across the site, including the presence of streets, walls and areas of habitation. The general layout of streets and insulae of the orthogonal grid plan that was established in the mid-5th century B.C. on the Serra Orlando Ridge has been confirmed and the precise course of streets has been defined in more detail than hitherto known.
Analecta Augustiniana Volumen LXXXVII, 2024
This article introduces preliminary findings from the geophysical survey of S. Agostino, San Gimi... more This article introduces preliminary findings from the geophysical survey of S. Agostino, San Gimignano undertaken by the University of Cambridge and the British School at Rome in 2021. It relates the survey findings to the frescoes and tombs that survive in situ, panel paintings from the convent which are now dispersed, descriptions in the antiquarian literature, and unpublished archival sources to suggest hypothetical reconstructions of the church’s interior in the later medieval and Renaissance period.
Papers of the British School at Rome, 2024
Papers of the British School at Rome, 2024
Papers of the British School at Rome, 2024
Papers of the British School at Rome, 2024
A. Launaro (ed.), Roman Urbanism in Italy: Recent Discoveries and New Directions, 2024
Situating Rome within wider debates on Classical Urbanism is notoriously challenging. It cannot b... more Situating Rome within wider debates on Classical Urbanism is notoriously challenging. It cannot be ignored; the city was the point of reference for a civilization built on urban centres. Rome’s resilient power to absorb, adapt and re-present itself underpinned its longevity. Yet while this rightly ensures Rome has a profound significance in discussions of the Classical and Late Antique city, the pulse that sustained the urbs Roma aeterna was also very much its own. No urban centre in the Mediterranean world could match its sustained dynamism, and as Purcell (2007) observed in his discussion of the horti of peri-urban Rome, the drivers that underpinned its evolution were often particular to the circumstances of the city itself. The European Research Council-funded ‘Rome Transformed’ Project https://research.ncl.ac.uk/rometrans/ (grant agreement No. 835271, Haynes et al. 2020; 2021; 2022) seeks to understand better this dynamism and its implications, through detailed study of a neighbourhood on the periphery of the Late Republican city, outside Rome’s pomerium, which went on to become the centre of western Christendom for a millennium. The project’s focus is on the eastern Caelian, and most particularly, on the eight formative centuries that ran from the Principate of Augustus to the Pontificate of Leo III. This paper concentrates on the first four of those centuries.
FOLD&R Fasti On Line Documents & Research, 586, 2024
Presented are the results of the Falerii Novi Project, a multi-year international archaeological ... more Presented are the results of the Falerii Novi Project, a multi-year international archaeological research project at the ancient urban site of Falerii Novi, in the Comune of Fabrica di Roma (Viterbo, Lazio), in the middle Tiber Valley. According to ancient sources, the Roman town of Falerii Novi was founded in the mid-third century BCE, when the nearby Faliscan center of Falerii Veteres (modern Civita Castellana) revolted and was conquered by Rome. The site, which measures nearly 32 ha and presents as a greenfield site today, lies along the ancient via Amerina, approximately 50 km north of Rome. The only standing premodern remains on site are the city’s walls, generally dated to its foundation in the 3rd century BCE, an extramural amphitheater to the northeast, peri-urban tombs, and the complex of Santa Maria di Falleri, whose monastic community is first mentioned in the 11th century CE. Previous work in the 19tth century and that carried out by the Soprintendenza during the late XXth century remain largely unpublished. More recently, however, non-invasive work using magnetometry and Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) has generated plans of the Roman town. The interim results of the FNP presented here build on this remote sensing to create a detailed understanding of the site’s development over its full history. Pursuant to our aims of exploring a range of urban spaces, trenches have been excavated across the intramural area, guided by magnetometry and GPR results. We detail results from an initial campaign of test pits (2021) and two years of open-area stratigraphic excavation (2022–23). Five areas of exploration (Areas I–V) are discussed below, including one, Area IV, restudied by the FNP after some initial, unpublished excavation by the Soprintendenza.
FOLD&R Fasti On Line Documents & Research, 587, 2024
In September 2023 the first season of work was conducted by the Furfo Project, a new interdiscipl... more In September 2023 the first season of work was conducted by the Furfo Project, a new interdisciplinary study organised through a 3-year research agreement between the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le Province di L’Aquila e Teramo, the University of Aquila – Department of Human Sciences, the British School at Rome and the Comune di Barisciano. The aim of the research programme is the investigation of the vicus of Furfo, an important archaeological site in the territory of Barisciano (L’Aquila, Abruzzo) located in the Aterno Valley along the via Claudia Nova. The vicus has been identified since at least the 1700’s thanks to its correspondence with the toponym of the area conserved by the church of Santa Maria di Farfona and with the ancient name conserved by the celebrated Lex Aedis Furfensis (CIL IX, 3513). More recently in the 1990s some fieldwalking was undertaken which proposed an estimated extent of the vicus. The first year of research of the new project saw the application of diverse types of non-invasive survey: fieldwalking, geophysical prospection (magnetometry) and LiDAR survey. The detailed analysis of each technique, and the combined synthesis of the overall results, allows a new reading of the topography and chronology of the site: a new understanding of the area occupied by the settlement has emerged, considerably more extensive and structured then previously hypothesised, and the complex topography of its long continuity of habitation attested by the material culture, from the ’Vestina’ to the medieval period.
Papers of the British School at Rome, 92, 2024
Individuals may receive the Papers as part of membership of the BSR: further information on membe... more Individuals may receive the Papers as part of membership of the BSR: further information on membership can be found at https://bsr.ac.uk/ institutional subscription rates The Papers of the British School at Rome (ISSN 0068-2462) is published once a year in October. The subscription price (excluding VAT) of volume 92 (2024), which includes print and online, is £167 net ($252 in the USA, Canada and Mexico) for institutions. EU subscribers (outside the UK) who are not registered for VAT should add VAT at their country's rate. VAT-registered customers should provide their VAT registration number. Japanese prices for institutions (including ASP delivery) are available from Kinokuniya Company Ltd.,
Papers of the British School at Rome, 2023
The Falerii Novi Project represents a newly formed archaeological initiative to explore the Roman... more The Falerii Novi Project represents a newly formed archaeological initiative to explore the Roman city of Falerii Novi. The project forms a collaboration of the British School at Rome with a multinational team of partner institutions. Thanks to a rich legacy of geophysical work on both the site and its territory, Falerii Novi presents an exceptional opportunity to advance understanding of urbanism in ancient and medieval Italy. The Falerii Novi Project employs a range of methodologies, integrating continued site-scale survey with new campaigns of stratigraphic excavation, archival research and environmental archaeology. The project aims to present a more expansive and holistic urban history of this key Tiber Valley settlement by focusing on long-run socio-economic processes both within Falerii Novi and as they linked the city to its wider landscape.
Advances in on- and offshore archaeological prsopection, 2023
The study discusses the investigation of an Italian Renaissance church with combined laser scanni... more The study discusses the investigation of an Italian Renaissance church with combined laser scanning and ground penetrating radar. The survey discovered through GPR multiple unknown tombs and the remains of a lost chapel. The full dataset was merged as a point-cloud in Leica Cyclone for a holistic view of the standing architecture and subsurface remains.
Papers of the British School at Rome, Nov 16, 2022
Please contact authors for a copy of the full PDF. A two-week campaign in June 2021 marked the b... more Please contact authors for a copy of the full PDF.
A two-week campaign in June 2021 marked the beginning of a planned multi-year project at the Roman city of Falerii Novi, located in the Comune of Fabrica di Roma (Viterbo, Lazio), in the middle Tiber Valley. The project takes place under the authorization of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la Provincia di Viterbo e per l’Etruria Meridionale and is a collaboration between the British School at Rome (BSR) and the Universities of Harvard and Toronto, along with researchers from the Universities of Ghent and Florence. This report outlines the methodology, aims and findings of the preliminary 2021 excavation season, which included a gridded test pit campaign across the entire intramural area supplemented by a series of cores along two axes.
Archäologischer Anzeiger, 2022
The gymnasium of Agrigento is one of the most important, if not the most important gymnasium in S... more The gymnasium of Agrigento is one of the most important, if not the most important gymnasium in Sicily and the western Mediterranean more generally, because of its size, design, and chronology. While parts of a race-track section and a pool were excavated between the 1950s and 2005 and were published in 2009 and 2011, crucial questions remain open: the extension, design, and most notably the existence and location of a palaestra; the construction date in the 2nd century B.C. or the Augustan period; and the urban context. To answer these questions, a project was launched in 2019 in cooperation between the Parco Archeologico e Paesaggistico Valle dei Templi di Agrigento and the Freie Universität Berlin, and a first season, together with the British School at Rome, was carried out in 2020. This paper presents the results of this first campaign, which included first, a geophysical survey of the area around the gymnasium and of a field to the north of the Hellenistic-Roman temple; and second, an architectural survey of unpublished features and work in the archives and storerooms of the Parco Archeologico.
Archaeological Computing Newsletter, 2004
Geophysics for archaeologists: Review essay of Revealing the Bried Past by Chris Gaffney and John... more Geophysics for archaeologists: Review essay of Revealing the Bried Past by Chris Gaffney and John Gater
I calchi di Pompei da Giuseppe Fiorelli ad oggi.Edited by Massimo Osanna, Annalisa Capurso, Sara Matilde Masseroli Studi e Ricerche del Parco Archeologico di Pompei, 46 2021, VIII-560 / 568 pp., 253 ill. col., 91 ill. b/n Paperback, 24 x 27 cm ISBN: 9788891321169 ISSN: 2612-4750, 2021
Dall’anno 2012, all’interno del progetto “Indagare l’archeologia della morte a Pompei, la necropo... more Dall’anno 2012, all’interno del progetto “Indagare l’archeologia
della morte a Pompei, la necropoli e i fuggiaschi di Porta Nola”,
una squadra multidisciplinare di archeologi, antropologi e ra-
diologi realizza lo studio antropologico dei resti ossei di 15 vit-
time conservate nei calchi di gesso estratti durante gli scavi
diretti da De Caro tra il 1976 e il 1978 nell’area della necropoli
di Porta Nola1
Fin dal 2005 la British School at Rome con l'Università di Perugia e la Soprintendenza per i Beni... more Fin dal 2005 la British School at Rome con l'Università di Perugia e la Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio sta conducendo uno studio sistematico del territorio di Cittareale, situato sulle montagne appenniniche a nord-est di Rieti, lungo la Via Salaria, sul confine tra le regioni Lazio, Umbria e Marche. Il progetto è parte di una serie più ampia di eventi programmati per il 2009 per ricordare il bimillenario della nascita di Vespasiano, ed è focalizzato principalmente sulla localizzazione e lo scavo del vicus di Falacrinae, dove Svetonio riporta che nacque l'imperatore. Il progetto ha comportato come prima cosa un programma di indagine di superficie, quindi l'analisi di una serie di siti attraverso la ricognizione geofisica, e lo scavo. Questo contributo presenta i risultati delle ricognizioni geofisiche e li compara con le evidenze emerse dallo scavo.
Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, 2021
Despite numerous studies focusing on Ancient Roman concrete especially petro-chemical characteriz... more Despite numerous studies focusing on Ancient Roman concrete especially petro-chemical characterization and provenance investigations of aggregates and mortar, less is known about the raw materials used for the construction of harbour structures where concrete had not been used. Recent geoarchaeological investigations of the northern mole of the Claudius harbour (Imperial port of Rome, Portus), revealed ten meters of continuous stratigraphic succession of raw materials employed for the foundation of the mole structure where the water column at the time of construction was reaching more than 16 meters of depth. The material succession consists of volcanic tuffs of different quality and hardness, carbonate and quartz rich sand, fragments and boulders of magmatic rock and Roman sherds. Attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy and principal component analysis have been applied on drilled core sediments and local reference outcrops including tuffs and pozzolana in the vicinity of Rome with the aim to: (i) characterize the mineral composition of samples and (ii) provide insights about the lithological provenance of raw materials. The results revealed that the majority of materials have a close spectra resemblance with “Tufo Lionato” and “Pozzolane rosse” except leucitite fragments occurring at the top of the harbour structure. By providing spectra similarities between the raw construction materials and the local outcrops, this study provides insights about the sources of materials and building strategies during the construction of the Imperial harbour of Rome and therefore constitute a starting point for further archaeological, geoarchaeological and restoration projects.
The Newsletter of the International Society for Archaeological Prospection Issue 61, 2021
GROMA, 2021
In 2008 the British School at Rome (BSR) and Archaeological Prospection Services of Southampton (... more In 2008 the British School at Rome (BSR) and Archaeological Prospection Services of Southampton (APSS) conducted a geophysical survey at the Etruscan site of Spina (Comacchio, Emilia Romagna) on the behalf of the University of Southampton, the University of Zurich and the Soprintendenza Arche-ologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per la Città Metropolitana di Bologna e le Province di Modena, Reggio Emilia e Ferrara. The survey was conducted during a period of excavations in a central area of the site and aimed to place the excavation results in a wider context. This paper re-examines the geophysical survey results ahead of a new programme of research being led by the University of Bologna.
Archäologischer Anzeiger, 2020
Geophysical surveys were conducted at Morgantina in 1970, 2012 and 2018, with the objective of be... more Geophysical surveys were conducted at Morgantina in 1970, 2012 and 2018, with the objective of better understanding the city plan of the Archaic city on the Cittadella Hill and the Classical and Hellenistic city on the Serra Orlando Ridge. This paper focuses on the results of the 2018 survey conducted over three sectors on the Serra Orlando Ridge. It demonstrates that magnetometry was successful in rapidly recording subsurface archaeological features across the site, including the presence of streets, walls and areas of habitation. The general layout of streets and insulae of the orthogonal grid plan that was established in the mid-5th century B.C. on the Serra Orlando Ridge has been confirmed and the precise course of streets has been defined in more detail than hitherto known.
14th International Conference of Archaeological Prospection, 2021
Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses universitaires de Rennes. © Presses universitai... more Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses universitaires de Rennes. © Presses universitaires de Rennes. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.
14th International Conference of Archaeological Prospection, 2021
Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses universitaires de Rennes. © Presses universitai... more Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Presses universitaires de Rennes. © Presses universitaires de Rennes. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.
NSGG Recent work in Archaeological Geophysics, 2018
Between 2011 and 2014 the authors investigated in detail protohistoric land use in a river basin ... more Between 2011 and 2014 the authors investigated in detail protohistoric land use in a river basin in southern Italy, which had previously (2000-2010) been archaeologically surveyed by the University of Groningen Institute of Archaeology. The investigations aimed at fine-tuning archaeological prospection methods for ephemeral archaeological remains and at mitigating consistent research biases in the study of protohistoric settlement and land use. One of these biases is caused by a strong focus on 'sites' and/or elevated-density peaks in the archaeological surface record. Although our research was primarily focused on prospection methods for exactly such locations, one of our methodological experiments was to apply magnetic-based geophysical techniques to explore the detection of archaeological features without an apparent surface expression. We targeted three different landscape zones with potentially different archaeological remains: the limestone-derived soils in the foothill zone bordering on a coastal plain (100-400m asl), the silty soils of conglomerate-based marine terraces (<500m), and the generally erosive upland valley with soils on schists and marls (700-1000m). In the foothill zone, exploratory magnetic gradiometry in a transect across the intensively field walked agricultural area Contrada Damale revealed that there are various evidently anthropogenic features without an associated surface artefact scatter. Some of these features have direct parallels with archaeologically relevant anomalies detected on known protohistoric sites, such as rectangular structures. On the highest marine terrace, the Monte San Nicola hilltop, large-scale magnetometry survey resulted in a set of circular pit-like anomalies which after intensive re-survey appeared to be related to diffusely distributed pottery dating to the Late Bronze Age / Early Iron Age. These are probably the remains of unobtrusive cremation graves. In the upland Contrada Maddalena, large-scale on-and off-site magnetic gradiometry did not result in archaeological features, but a few seemingly natural magnetic anomalies turned out to be caused by complex geological processes which are relevant to our understanding of the archaeological surface record. In all three landscape zones, we conducted long transects of magnetic susceptibility measurements to determine the geological background in order to distinguish between anthropogenic and natural magnetic anomalies. In this paper, we argue that in landscape archaeological research it is important to look beyond our classifications of site and off-site, and apply prospection techniques on a regional level. Besides the detection of remains without a surface record, geophysical surveys can help improve our understanding of site formation processes and help us explain the gaps in our surface distribution maps.
workshop which will be hosted at the British School at Rome, to reflect upon and discuss the resu... more workshop which will be hosted at the British School at Rome, to reflect upon and discuss the results of the research
Antropologia e archeologia a confronto, Ed. Valentino Nizzo, E.S.S. Editorial Service, 2018
by Valentino Nizzo, Ian Gonzalez Alaña, Alessandra Guari, Susanne Moraw, Francesco Ghilotti, Serena Viva, Marie De Jonghe, Elena Dellù, Victoria Russeva, Stephen Kay, Philippe Pergola, Chiara Pilo, Llorenç Alapont, Cecilia Rossi, and Reine-Marie Bérard
Forthcoming in V. Nizzo (ed.), Archaeology and Anthropology of Death, Rome 2016
Located in the ruins of a deserted Roman villa in rural Umbria, there was an infant cemetery cont... more Located in the ruins of a deserted Roman villa in rural Umbria, there was an infant cemetery containing 47 burials of infants, from prenatal to 2-3 years, that has been termed an «abnormal cemetery» by its excavator, David Soren. The infants had been interred over a brief period about A.D. 450, as a result of a malaria epidemic. Associated with this mass grave were 13 puppies, most of them dismembered, the skeleton of a toad, and a raven's talon. Two stones had been placed over the hands of the oldest child in the cemetery while his feet had been 'weighed down' by a large roof tile. The archaeological record has been interpreted as evidence of apotropaic magical practices, stimulated partly by fear of fatal disease, partly by necrophobia. By contrast, the interments of the youngest children, mostly fetuses, had the character of discardsas the excavator called it -, with almost no attention given to burial form and no significant offerings. Using this record as a starting point, the paper will address the following questions: What exactly makes a burial a «deviant» one? Is there really anything like a «normative» or «typical» burial, an identical code of ritual for all members of a given community, regardless of factors such as gender, age, social and legal status, circumstances of death, etc.? And if there are different kinds of burial in one and the same community, which one should be considered the typical one? The burial of an adult male belonging to the elite and having died a peaceful death? And all other members of the community would have been buried in deviant ways? Acting as a kind of advocatus diaboli, this paper will argue for a reconsideration of terms like «atypical death» or «deviant burial», asking if it wouldn't be more fitting to talk about «adequate burials», i. e. adequate for a given individual and given circumstances of death. After establishing that, the kind of burial given to an individual still could be used as evidence for his or her place/status in society.
Archaeology and Economy in the Ancient World 39, 2020
Poster in Tecnica di idraulica antica, Convegno Nazionale, Roma 2016
by Stephen Kay, Llorenç Alapont, Gerusa Radicchi, Arturo Oliver, Miguel Mezquida Fernández, Museo Histórico Aspe, Andrea Moreno-Martin, Joaquin Alfonso A.r.q, Rosa Bautista Betoret, Museo Arqueológico Etnológico, Joaquin Pina, Juan Garcia, and Jose Manuel Melchor-Monserrat
Programa i preactes
Non-Intrusive Methodologies for Large Area Urban Research brings together contributions from a co... more Non-Intrusive Methodologies for Large Area Urban Research brings together contributions from a conference held in 2021 in association with the ERC-funded ‘Rome Transformed’ research project. The papers address a major challenge in archaeology. Non-intrusive research in pursuit of a deeper understanding of urban areas can be both richly informative and cost-effective. Multiple successes in the field have led to an impressive array of innovative methodologies, methodologies that are frequently combined for still greater insight and impact. Geophysical surveys, the use of UAVs, the study of exposed historic structures and the exhaustive examination of archival records can all play a vital role, and the development of these data capture methodologies is of the utmost importance for the future of research. As well as advances in data capture methodologies, however, the papers also present case studies in the management of the big data generated and in the integration of different methodologies. A further strength of this collection lies in the range of site types considered. While many projects have historically pursued non-intrusive research in areas relatively clear of modern buildings, a growing number of research initiatives, such as ‘Rome Transformed’ are seeking to advance them in areas which remain densely occupied. Accordingly the material presented here will also be of interest to non-archaeologists working in such diverse fields as civil engineering, urban planning and physical geography.
Fin dalla sua prima edizione nel 1995, il ninfeo di Q. Mutius, databile fra la fine del II sec. a... more Fin dalla sua prima edizione nel 1995, il ninfeo di Q. Mutius, databile fra la fine del II sec. a.C. e gli inizi del successivo, è stato riconosciuto come una delle più importanti testimonianze dell'architettura romana dell'epoca. Identificato all'interno di una costruzione privata che lo aveva inglobato, il ninfeo è stato oggetto di un progetto di acquisizione, documentazione, restauro e valorizzazione, che ha portato nel 2018 alla sua apertura al pubblico in un'area archeologica attrezzata. Questo ambizioso progetto ha visto anche la ripresa dello studio del ninfeo di Q. Mutius. Il volume presenta, nella collaborazione e nel dialogo tra specialisti di diverse discipline , il più aggiornato dossier sul monumento, episodio di fondamentale importanza per lo studio del tipo architettonico e decorativo, della Signia del tardo ellenismo e dell'intero "laboratorio Lazio" di quello straordinario periodo.
Associazione "Amici del Museo di Segni" e s t r a t t o a u t o r e
Dalla Camera oscura alla prima fotografia. Architetti e archeologi a Segni. Da Dodwell ad Ashby e Mackey., 2017
Associazione "Amici del Museo di Segni" e s t r a t t o a u t o r e
Roman Urbanism in Italy: recent discoveries and new directions, 2023
Roman Urbanism in Italy: recent discoveries and new directions, 2023
Journal of Roman Archaeology Supplement Series 111, 2023
GROMA: Documenting Archaeology 8, 2024
The generation of spatially accurate point clouds through laser scanning, combined with the extra... more The generation of spatially accurate point clouds through laser scanning, combined with the extraction of high amplitude Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) reflections provides a powerful tool to examine both the sub-surface and standing remains in a holistic 3D environment. This preliminary note describes the methodology and results from the examination of two Renaissance churches in central Italy where geophysical prospection and standing building survey have been successfully integrated to support a multidisciplinary study through non-invasive technologies.
FOLD&R, 2024
Presented are the results of the Falerii Novi Project, a multi-year international archaeological ... more Presented are the results of the Falerii Novi Project, a multi-year international archaeological research project at the ancient urban site of Falerii Novi, in the Comune of Fabrica di Roma (Viterbo, Lazio), in the middle Tiber Valley. According to ancient sources, the Roman town of Falerii Novi was founded in the mid-third century BCE, when the nearby Faliscan center of Falerii Veteres (modern Civita Castellana) revolted and was conquered by Rome. The site, which measures nearly 32 ha and presents as a greenfield site today, lies along the ancient via Amerina, approximately 50 km north of Rome. The only standing premodern remains on site are the city’s walls, generally dated to its foundation in the 3rd century BCE, an extramural amphitheater to the northeast, peri-urban tombs, and the complex of Santa Maria di Falleri, whose monastic community is first mentioned in the 11th century CE. Previous work in the 19tth century and that carried out by the Soprintendenza during the late XXth century remain largely unpublished. More recently, however, non-invasive work using magnetometry and Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) has generated plans of the Roman town. The interim results of the FNP presented here build on this remote sensing to create a detailed understanding of the site’s development over its full history. Pursuant to our aims of exploring a range of urban spaces, trenches have been excavated across the intramural area, guided by magnetometry and GPR results. We detail results from an initial campaign of test pits (2021) and two years of open-area stratigraphic excavation (2022–23). Five areas of exploration (Areas I–V) are discussed below, including one, Area IV, restudied by the FNP after some initial, unpublished excavation by the Soprintendenza.