British School at Rome Annual Review 2016 - 2017 - Archaeology (original) (raw)
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The archaeological research in foreign institutes in Rome
Inrap/MiBAC, 2013
This paper illustrates the specific characteristics of archaeological research conducted by foreign institutes in Rome and their contribution to the development of preventive archaeology in Italy. Today, archaeology is regularly practiced in no fewer than 13 of the 22 foreign organizations associated in the International Union of Institutes of Archaeology, History and Art History in Rome. The authors provide a historical account of the activity of foreign institutes on Italian territory in relation to national and international socio political events. From the foundation, in 1829, of the Institute for Archaeological Correspondence - in which international researchers present in Rome were called upon to document archaeological discoveries and disseminate them, by correspondence precisely, to the public across Europe - to its conversion into a national institution in 1871 as a result of French-German tensions, and the progressive ouster of foreign researchers during the Fascist era. It was not until the post-World War II period that a rebirth occurred in international exchange, leading to the foundation of new institutes, a flourishing of scientific publications and the launching of long-term, large-scale excavation projects, as well as emergency excavation connected to rapid urban expansion; the role of foreign institutes was moreover fundamental for introducing and disseminating more modern archaeological investigation techniques not yet used in Italy at that time. Still today, foreign institutes in Rome carry out yearly archaeological missions not only in Italy but also in North Africa and the Balkans and provide libraries, laboratories and funding for thematic research projects involving both foreign and Italian researchers. Though preventive archaeology interventions represent but a small part of their many different activities, these institutes continue to take an active part in the more general ongoing international debate on the practice of archaeology today.
In this paper I will try to investigate upon the discovery of the building found in 1920s and 1930s under Via di San Nicola de’ Cesarini in Rome making use of the comparison between archives data and archaeological evidences. Exploring the historical archives at Rome (non-edited notes, drawings, tracings and photos of that period) we can reconstruct both the building’s aspect at the discovery moment and the datings of its phases, helped, at the same time, by the old cadastre of the city (Catasto Pio Gregoriano) and the Cabreo delle fognature della città di Roma, a limitless collection of plans and drawings of the ancient and modern drainage system of the city. Thanks to this work we can try to reconstruct the building in all its phases and attempt to identificate it making a new and update archaeological map that will help future works in proximity areas.
Papers of the British School at Rome
This gazette presents to the reader outside Rome news of recent archaeological activity (in the second half of 2018 and the first half of 2019) gleaned from public lectures, conferences, exhibitions, and newspaper reports.
Excavations in the Roman Status Quo
Places, 1988
Superintendent of Rome Adriano la Regina raised a cry of alarm against the progressive destruction of the Roman monuments and the loss of the marble decoration left exposed to the elements. The vibrations caused by the endless traffic and the pollution resulting from ...
The paper describes results from UBC excavations at the Roman villa of Gerace, Sicily, in 2013. Geophysical survey in 2012 demonstrated that some half a dozen further structures once existed here, in addition to the small villa-like building partially investigated by others in 1994 and 2007. In 2013 excavation concentrated on rooms 1 and 2 of the latter residence. The former, provided with a bench, a work-top and an earth floor, may have been a kitchen. Room 2 had a white mortar floor and plastered walls. A small portion of mosaic-paved corridor outside these rooms was also investigated. The building was erected not before ca. AD 370 and perished in a fire in the second half of the fifth century. Immediately to the east a building suggested by geophysics to have been some 50 m long was trial-trenched. The part excavated was paved with an intact floor of stone flags. The paving extended up to 2.20 m beyond the structure’s east and west exterior walls, possibly to ensure it was kept dry. It may have been the estate granary or storebuilding. Probably built in the first half of the fourth century, replacing an earlier structure below, it had a short life: it collapsed dramatically, perhaps in the earthquake of AD 361/363, and was never rebuilt. A heated room, possibly belonging to a bath-suite in the villa-like building, was found in the west end of the trench; part of the granary’s roof collapse and west wall were removed to provide space for the later structure’s stoke-hole. Among the finds were 99 stamps on roof tiles from the villa-like building. Ten dies were recorded, eight of them varieties of the name Philippianus, who may have been the owner of the Gerace estate in the later fourth century.
The Monuments of Ancient Rome (1950) DOROTHY M. ROBATHAN
It is a commonplace to point out that Rome's rapid rise to power in the ancient world resulted in great measure from its position in the Italian peninsula. Surrounded by mountains on all sides except on the south the Urbs is situated in the midst of a plain of volcanic origin, known as the Campagna. The Tiber flows through the city from north to south on its way to Ostia, the ancient seaport, where it empties into the ocean. Although the seven traditional hills upon which the city was built still retain their ancient names and may still be traced, in some cases their elevation is so slight as to be disappointing to those who visit Rome for the first time. What then has caused the changes in ground level which have taken place since the ancient period? It seems clear that many of the elaborate buildings of the Empire were superimposed upon the foundations of earlier structures which had not been completely demolished. Then too, as parts of ancient Rome fell into ruin during the Middle Ages, the débris was not cleared away, but structures of the Renaissance period were build upon the accumulated rubbish. Views of the Roman Forum dating from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries show the columns of the ancient temples buried deep in the earth, a clear indication of the extent to which the ground level had risen. In seeking to ferret out the secrets buried beneath the . .