H. Di Giuseppe 2014, Imperial Estates in Inland Lucania, in A.M. Small (ed.), BEYOND VAGNARI New themes in the Study of Roman South Italy, Proceedings of a conference held in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Ed (original) (raw)
Related papers
Excavations by the University of Sheffield conducted since 2012 in the central village (vicus) of the Roman imperial estate at Vagnari continued in the summer of 2015. A substantial part of a large tile-roofed and stone-built structure (North Building) about 25 m in length on the northern edge of the settlement has now been explored in three seasons of work. This building of the second and third centuries AD, overlooking the valley below, had a narrow corridor or porticus on the north side and a long range of rooms behind it divided by walls of clay and timber. These walls had collapsed in a fire, leaving a mass of burnt daub and plaster spread over the floors. In the last few years, lead processing debris and lead artefacts have been retrieved which indicate the processing of this material in and near the North Building. Crop processing, especially of durum wheat, also took place in the building. Trenches in 2015 were opened to clarify further the layout and chronology of the North Building and to investigate an area adjacent to and just south of it. The excavation in this hitherto unexplored adjacent area revealed exciting new evidence for viniculture in the second century AD. We discovered another building (South Building) that at the west end had an unroofed room with a mortar-paved floor. The very large pitch-lined ceramic vats (dolia defossa) sunk into mortar basins in the floor indicate that this room was a cella vinaria, or wine 'cellar' (Fig. 1). Such facilities are known at private farms elsewhere in Roman Italy, but this is the first time that evidence for wine-making at the imperial estate at Vagnari has been retrieved. Only the corner of this room could be explored due to time constraints, but we expect to find more dolia, probably arranged in rows, and other facilities, such as a wine press and a tank for the pressed grape-juice. Excavations in 2016 aim to clarify how large the storage room was, how many dolia of the emperor's wine in total were housed in it, and what the volumetric storage capacity of the structure was. To the east of the cella vinaria was a room of unknown function which had a tile roof that had completely collapsed onto the floor of the room. Although the excavations had furnished scattered evidence for iron-working in the North Building, a dense concentration of iron slag beneath this roof collapse points to metal-working of this kind within a specific area of the South Building, at least in its later phase, possibly the third century AD. Pieces of marble wall or floor cladding, window glass panes, worked bone implements and a wide range of pottery, however, shed light on the appointment of at least some rooms in the South Building and associated domestic activities in the earlier occupation phases. Clear evidence for industrial activities gives insight into the range of specialist crafts and industries practised by the resident manpower at Vagnari. Identifying agricultural practices and the sorts of productive vegetation cultivated here also gives a better and more complete picture of the various assets of this estate. The project illuminates the diversity of the economy of the imperial estate and the role of the vicus and its inhabitants in organizing and managing work and income for the emperor.