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Excavation

  • Tusculum
  • Tuscolo
  • Tusculum
  • Italy
  • Lazio
  • Rome
  • Monte Porzio Catone

Tools

Credits

  • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

    MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

    ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

    AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

  • AIAC_logo logo

Summary (English)

  • Work on the Tusculum project resumed in September 2008.

    The main aim of the field work was to provide answers to the questions that had arisen during the previous campaigns. Work towards the 2011 publication of the excavation results also began.

    Forum – central-southern sector

    During the 2005 excavations three imposing buildings were identified: the basilica, datable to the second quarter of the 1st century B.C.; an opus caementicium podium, which a preliminary hypothesis suggests was part of the main temple in the forum; and outside of the forum area, a monumental nyphaeum.

    The 2008 excavations documented a substantial architectural complex in the southern part of the forum. A containing wall came to light along the south side of the terracing on which the forum was built. Datable to the late 4th-beginning of the 3rd century B.C., it belonged to a mid Republican building, measuring 18.25 × 25.70 m. It was abutted by an opus caementicium wall on a north-south alignment, forming the east perimeter of the basilica built in the 1st century B.C. The basilica measured 42.7 × 22.5 m.; the central nave was delimited by eight columns on the long sides and by four on the short sides.

    Forum – north-western sector

    The main aim of the campaign was to study the architectural development of the temple of Mercury, already excavated in 2001 and 2002. It stood in the south-western corner of the forum, at the crossroads between the three main roads which, in antiquity, linked the town to the rest of the territory. The temple was on a north-east alignment, thus differing from the surrounding sacella which were orientated east-west built along the west side of the forum. Three main construction phases were documented for the temple. The first related to the foundation in the late 2nd-beginning of the 1st century B.C. The second phase was the restructuring in the Julio-Claudian period, probably during the reign of Tiberius. The third dated to the beginning of the 2nd century A.D. and saw the construction of two pillars in front of the façade and the decoration of the internal walls with painted plaster.
    In the medieval period the area was robbed of building materials.

    Forum – north-eastern sector

    The research in this area concentrated on the reconstruction of the architectural connection between the forum and theatre. During the campaign the plans of the medieval room and of the late Republican building in opus incertum, partially exposed in preceding years, were completed. An interesting network of underground cuniculi on two levels was excavated. It was abandoned at the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. During the excavations an inscription dating to the mid 1st century B.C. was found, which made reference to an aedilis lustralis.

    Acropolis

    A small excavation in the area revealed the plan of a medieval church with three naves and an apse facing east. The richness of materials recovered, the construction techniques and size of the building (17 × 24 m.) attest the structure’s importance, datable (preliminary) to the 11th-12th century.

  • Valeria Beolchini - Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma (CSIC) 

Director

  • Trinidad Tortosa - EEHAR-CSIC

Team

  • Elena Ruiz - Universidad de Murcia
  • Giuseppina Ghini - Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio
  • Josep Antón Remolà - Museu Nacional Arqueològic de Tarragona - Universitat Rovira i Virgili
  • Julio Núñez - Universidad del País Vasco
  • Jacinto Sánchez - Codex
  • Oliva Rodríguez - Universidad de Sevilla

Research Body

  • Escuela Española de Historia y Arqueología en Roma (CSIC)

Funding Body

  • Ambasciata di Spagna
  • Comune di Frascati
  • Comune di Monte Compatri
  • Comune di Monte Porzio Catone
  • Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de España (IPCE)- Ministerio de Cultura; EEHAR-CSIC
  • XI Comunità Montana del Lazio "Castelli Romani e Prenestini"

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