The Utica project is run jointly by the Tunisian Institut National du Patrimoine and the University of Oxford, in collaboration with the British School at Rome as a participant in the BSR Ports Project, and is co-directed by Nabil Kallala, Elizabeth Fentress, Josephine Quinn and Andrew Wilson. We are investigating the city’s urban development and economy through a combination of topographic survey, geophysics, coring, excavation, pottery studies and structural survey. A geophysical survey was begun by Sophie Hay with a team from the British School at Rome, while trenches were opened in the northern edge of the site (Area I), the area of the basilica (Area II) and in the House of the Grande Oecus (Area III)). In Area II, a trench was laid out measuring 25 x 15m. which stretched, from north to south, across the exterior wall of the large structure (hereafter Building 1). Across the centre of the trench a concrete surface was cleaned and the various holes cut through it excavated, while work was begun on emptying the robber trenches of the main walls of the structure. Also in the northern end of the trench, particular attention was paid to cleaning and, in places, re-excavating an earlier sondage (hereafter Sondage A), probably made by Lézine, close to the north-west corner of the trench. South of 2002, meanwhile, an extensive area of post-Roman habitation was exposed, including at least three structures. Work was also begun removing the large deposit of earth that remained in the house of the Grande Oecus after the French excavations were abandoned in 1957. This was substantially disturbed by modern activity. The heavily damaged floor of the ‘Grande Oecus’ itself was cleaned and reburied

The 2012 season took place in September, directed by Elizabeth Fentress, Faouzi Ghozzi, Josephine Quinn and Andrew Wilson, followed by a 4-day geological coring season, jointly with Jean-Philippe Goiran’s geological team Excavations in the monumental centre, Area II, continued. In 2010, excavations north of the road surface continued with the emptying of the robber trenches of the basilica. The working hypothesis is that the inner trench was dug for the removal the foundations and stylobate of an interior colonnade of Building 1, while the external one follows the line of the outer wall of the building. The complex clearly extended to the south, however, where another mortar preparation surface was discovered, measuring roughly 4 m north–south, separated from the road by a narrow robber trench approximately 1.50 m wide. It is thought that this structure might represent a portico running along the south side of Building 1, which is perhaps the civil basilica of Utica. Medieval houses occupied both the edge of the basilica, building 1, and the area to the south of the road, where two medieval houses were discovered, buildings 3 and 4. All of these are relatively small structures, building 1 of a single room whose walls were based on column fragments. In Area III, the House of the Grand Oecus, excavation continued of the high stratigraphy covering four rooms on the northern side of the site. The central room proves to be paved with a well-preserved opus sectile floor of giallo antico and black marble. The excavation of modern intrusions continued, notably of a large, bell-shaped pit filled with architectural fragments that appear to have come from the basilica. A new Area, IV, was opened to the southwest of the town, where the geophysical survey revealed a trace which proved, on examination, to be a very large lime kiln. This is found in an area of buildings and traces of other kilns. A final new Area, V, was dedicated to the examination of fish salting vats to the west of the monumental centre.