Summary (English)
This season concentrated on the area west of the temple with portico, the excavation data providing a diachronic reading of the occupation of the lower city from the early archaic until the late antique period.
In fact, there was occupation across the area from the early archaic period onwards, attested by a first residential structure preserved only on three sides and on a north-east/south-west alignment, with an internal floor surface and central hearth. The structure dates to between the last quarter of the 8th century and beginning of the 7th century B.C. Therefore, in this phase, this was clearly a residential area and remained so until the beginning of the 6th century B.C.
During the second half of the 6th century B.C., the entire area underwent a radical transformation, taking on a monumental character with public functions. Interesting evidence of this change was documented in the south sector where a pit filled with a votive deposit was found and part of a wall built of stone orthostats was intercepted. This belonged to a monumental building facing north that can be dated to between the end of the 6th- beginning of the 5th century B.C.
During the 5th century and until the end of the 4th century B.C., the development of the area’s public and cult characteristics continued, attested by structures and furnishings of votive type.In the first decades of the 3rd century B.C., the area underwent a radical functional transformation: the sacred structures were razed almost to the same height and cut by the construction of an imposing terracing wall, part of the organisation of the zone south of the forum, within the overall project to monumentalise the entire forum area. Between the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 1st century B.C., a circular fountain was built in the north sector, coherent with a patch of floor mosaic identified just outside the explored area that documents the restructuring of this public space, overlooking the Capitoline in the Republican period.
Further monumentalisation occurred during the early imperial period with the construction of new buildings and the straightening of the forum’s line on the south side.
An imposing porticoed structure was built on the west side of the Temple with Portico, of which only the east and north perimeter walls were exposed. The opus caementicum foundation incorporated earlier structures and levels of collapsed walls built of tufa blocks. Two apsidal rooms with opus reticulatum walls and mosaic floors faced onto the portico. They were accessed from the forum, as was the porticoed area, via trachyte stone steps.
The late antique period is attested by “a cappucina” burials and an enchytrismos burial, part of an early Christian necropolis created in the area following the destruction of the porticoed building.
- Maria Luisa Nava - Soprintendenza dei Beni Archeologici delle province di Napoli e Caserta 
Director
- Carlo Gasparri - Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”
- Giovanna Greco - Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”
Team
- Studenti universitari, specializzandi, dottorandi
- Antonella Tomeo - Università “Federico II”
Research Body
- Università degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”
Funding Body
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