Excavations at Villa Magna 2009
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The Journal of Fasti Online ● Published by the Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica ● Piazza San Marco, 49 – I-00186 Roma Tel. / Fax: ++39.06.67.98.798 ● http://www.aiac.org; http://www.fastionline.org Excavations at Villa Magna 2009 Elizabeth Fentress - Caroline Goodson - Marco Maiuro The fourth season of excavation at the site1 was aimed more at extending our knowledge of the structures al- ready discovered than at breaking new ground. However, we went well beyond confirming our hypotheses, and this penultimate season has come close to completing our investigation of the three principle structures discovered so far: the winery, the slave barracks, and the church of S. Pietro in Villamagna. The Winery (fig.1) The 2009 Archaeological Campaign in the area of the winery has provided important information and new data in regards to both the Roman building and the post-Roman phases of the site, substantially confirming our interpretation in the previous reports. Under the ge- neral supervision of Andrea di Miceli and supervision of the trenches by Seth Bernard, Dirk Booms, Janine Young, Raffaele Laino, Ismini Milariesis, Candace Rice, and Darian Totten, no less than 6 trenches of varying size and depth were opened. Where appropriate, a bobcat helped remove the modern overburden. Fig. 1. The plan of the winery (Andrew Dufton). 1 The excavations were again generously supported by the 1984 Foundation and the Banc’Anagni Credito Commerciale. We are very grateful to Charles K. Williams II, Cataldo Cataldi, and Gioachino Giammaria for their constant support, to Rodolfo Cesaritti for his hospitality, to Dr. Lorenzo Spaziani and the Laboratory Euritmia for their help with the osteological material and to the vol- unteers from the liceo Dante Alighieri for their cheerful labour. Many of our participants received assistance from their universities and we thank them for the support: Birkbeck College (University of London), Brown University, Columbia University, Oxford Uni- versity, Rhode Island School of Design, Stanford University, University College London, and the University of Pennsylvania which, together with the British School at Rome and the Soprintendenza ai Beni Archeologici del Lazio, directs the project. www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2009-169.pdf Elizabeth Fentress - Caroline Goodson - Marco Maiuro ● Excavations at Villa Magna 2009 A small trench was opened within the courtyard of the nineteenth-century Casale. The trench, an extension of AIV, aimed at clarifying the plan and function of the room with a quadripartite opus signinum basin at its centre. The most important result from this trench is the discovery of a robber trench cut into the yellow clay, continuing the line of the structure indicated as a channel for the wine in 2008. This interpretation remains uncertain, however. This cor- ridor was probably originally used to move the grapes from the quadripartite basin, where they were originally depo- sited, to the main calcatorium. The exact path traveled by the grapes and the pressed will be studied in the final sea- son. Into the remains of the building were cut a trenched foundation for a post-built rectangular hut, which produced a piece of Forum Ware. This is the earliest medieval pottery found inside the Casale, complementing the new evi- dence to the south of it and in the substructures. Trench AV was opened north of the modern Casale in order to determine the extension of the Roman building and to investigate the vaulted sub- structures on which the winery was built. An east- west opus mixtum wall, 60 cm. wide, is to be identi- fied as the outside wall of the winery complex. Traces of red painted plaster on the exterior face of the wall and the presence of a conduit running along the outside of the structure, possibly a drain or, more plausibly, a cavity drain for the purpose of protecting the structure from humidity, confirm that this was the northern side of the winery. To the north of this wall, an opus signinum floor was replaced in the late antique period by a coarse mo- saic with cubic white marble tesserae, each measu- ring 4 x 4 cm. This indicates that part of the exterior of the building was paved as well. Although one might imagine some sort of path or a paved open area to the rear of the winery (the main access to the winery, as seen in our previous reports, was from the opposite, southern, side), it is also possible that this was a working room, paved first with opus signinum and then with a coarse mosaic: both are common in wine installations2. Within the winery a vaulted corridor, runs east-west, linking a series of parallel north-south vaults. The height of the rooms to the springing of the vaults is 2.40 m. and ca 4.20 m. overall. The use of this area in Roman times is not certain, although its position below the press rooms suggests that it was used for the storage of wine in dolia. In a later period a wall in opus latericium partially closed off the corridor from the inner space of the vault, perhaps protecting its contents. A substantial transformation of the area took place in the early middle ages when a pavement Fig. 2. The northern vault, showing the Roman drain used as an oven in the made of tiles was laid and the area was used for early middle ages, and the pit in front of it. productive activities (fig. 2). A large pit was cut into the construction clay, allowing the reuse of a Ro- man drain running through the exterior wall as an oven: layers of ash from the cleaning of the oven gradually filled the pit, while a large sherd of Forum Ware on the pavement dates the structure to the ninth-tenth centuries. After the oven went out of use it was blocked with coarse masonry, and a deposit of earth and rubble accumulated through the twelfth century. Trenches on the northeastern flank of the Casale provided important new data for the understanding of the plan of the winery, demonstrating that it was essentially symmetrical around the axis of the exedra. GV, oriented north-south, measured 3 x 11.5 m. It brought to light a series of rooms symmetrical to the processing rooms on the west side of the building. A drain, 1.40 m. deep, led down to a larger horizontal drain heading east toward the out- side of the building. This was filled during the fifth century, which gives an important chronological indicator for the abandonment of the structure. 2 FRANKEL 2009: 3. 2 www.fastionline.org/docs/FOLDER-it-2009-169.pdf Elizabeth Fentress - Caroline Goodson - Marco Maiuro ● Excavations at Villa Magna 2009 Fig. 3. The northeast corner of the winery, with a later wall abutting it to the north. GVI, a trench oriented east-west, 3 x 9 m, revealed the northeast corner of the winery. The eastern wall of the terracing structure was found at the western limit of the trench (fig. 3): its technique, width and general features are consistent with the walls ascribed to the first phase of the buil- ding. It was abutted by a wall extending northward on the same alignment as the previous one. The construction material and the technique of this wall seem to be of a later date, with rougher and probably re- used cubilia. A rectangular structure run- ning east from the original exterior wall, and also abutting it, had cubilia reemployed in the mortar along with fragments of wall pla- ster: its opus incertum technique indicates a rather late date. A circular depresssion pro- bably intended for a dolium, cut within the first pavement of the room helps to determine the function of the complex. Perhaps there was a shortage of space in which foodstuffs and wine could be stored, and the room was an exten- sion of the winery and the enlargement of the storage capacity of the entire complex. Unfortunately, time and re- sources did not allow for an extension of the trench towards the south: nevertheless, it is apparent that in a late phase the storerooms of the winery were enlarged and that wine was still produced in the estate in large quantities. No more exact chronological definition of the later additions is possible at the moment. Fig. 4. Trenches FI and FII. In zone F, to the south of the Casale (fig. 4), the 2009 campaign was intended to investigate the end of the processional stair and the bath building suggested last year by a round room. This room was fully excavated in trench FII. It is built in opus latericium and has been persuasively identified as a hot room in a bathing complex, ei- ther a laconicum (sweat room) or a tepidarium (fig. 5). The interpretation rests not only on the typical round shape, but also on the presence of an opening for the passage of hot air from a praefurnium to the south. The doors to the north, south and east opened 80 cm. above the pavement, indicating the existence of an upper pavement raised on a hypocaust. This floor was dismantled in a later phase, along with all features relating to its former use: the drain was blocked, the tubuli for the circulation of steam were destroyed, the floor was paved with bipedales and the wall was plastered. A stair was built to reach the eastern door, while the southern and northern entrances were blocked. The restructured circular room might have served as a storeroom in this phase. East of the round structure a corridor paved with a fine white mosaic, gave access to both the hot rooms and to the rooms south of the excavated area.