This was the second campaign of excavations run by Rome University’s School of Architectural and Landscape Heritage with the participation of Rome’s Pontificia Università Gregoriana, The Hungarian Natural History Museum, and the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest. Several tombs were excavated, some of which identified in 2014 and others during this season. The investigations showed the communitary and lay character of the burials, whose dating remains uncertain, although it can probably be attributed to between the 14th and 15th centuries. To date twelve burials have been investigated, which contained the skeletons of adult males and females and two infants.

Inside the forepart, the kiln praefurnium was excavated. A large quantity of charcoal nuclei and bronze slag was recovered from the fill, evidence suggesting that this was a bell making structure, perhaps relating to the 13th century church. Also within the forepart, a tomb bordered and covered by limestone slabs was excavated. It contained the remains of a young woman in foetal position.

The excavation area was extended at the facade of the forepart (Trench IV) and its north-eastern end. Trench IV revealed several monumental “a cassone” tombs, built in stone blocks, and other walls that are difficult to interpret at present. The presence of an imposing wall at the north-west corner of the forepart, perhaps a buttress, was of particular interest. It was built of grey-green worked limestone blocks placed in almost horizontal courses with a nucleus of chips and irregular lumps of the same material and mortar. The north-east facade was faced, while the south-eastern side was built up against the terrain. Until the excavations are extended downhill and the investigation of the wall completed, its relationship with the structures of the forepart remains to be clarified. More masonry-built tombs were uncovered, abutting the north-eastern side of the combined portico and vestibule. The earth graves of two adult males, a woman, and a child were present in the same area. The absence of divisions between the deceased suggests this was a common grave associated with particular events such as famine or epidemics, again datable by the materials in the graves to between the 14th and 15th centuries.

Trench III was opened along the left side of the church. Partially excavated, it revealed a number of modern phases, including a wood store, and at the bottom of the trench what is perhaps an ancient floor level. This can be associated with a door, later blocked, in the east wall of the church, evidence of the existence of an entrance on this side of the abbey church already in the medieval period.