The Periphery of Lepcis Magna: A Multifunctional Landscape

2012

A. Lichtenberger, O. Tal, Z. Weiss (Eds.) Judaea/Palaestina and Arabia: Cities and Hinterlands in Roman and Byzantine Times, 2019

Changing Landscapes. The impact of Roman towns in the Western Mediterranean, 2010

Archeologia e Calcolatori, 2017

ARCHEOLOGIA E CALCOLATORI, 2017

The project Asculum started in 2012 by the University of Bologna in agreement with the Archaeological Superintendency of the Marche and the Municipality of Ascoli Piceno, mainly as a project of urban archaeology and preventative archeology in a long-lived city. A proper integrated methodological approach, adopted since the first steps of the research, derives from the complex nature of the context of study, which poses special challenges for archaeological investigation and use of non-invasive prospection methods. The combination of a wide range of data, including that gathered from geophysical surveys (mostly ground penetrating radar mapping), archaeological digs, historic cartography, bibliographic and archival data, is leading to a reconstruction of the cityscape during the Roman Age and its development over the centuries. The understanding of the ancient urban landscape also includes a detailed morphological study aimed at the reconstruction of the Roman paleosurface, carried out using data derived from coring samples and stratigraphic digs. In parallel, a particular attention is reserved to the modern tridimensional documentation of the historical buildings of the city, by means of laser scanner and the analysis of the stratigraphy of the preserved walls. The new surveys covered, in particular, the still surviving Roman buildings, as the temples incorporated by the churches of San Venanzio and San Gregorio Magno, as well as the sostruzioni dell'Annunziata. The last acquisitions allowed the outlining of the overall layout and local patterning of the town during the Roman Age, as well as cast new light on the conformation of the ancient landscape at the time of the oldest Piceni settlement. Within the operating practices followed by the project, one of the most interesting aspects lies in the interaction of all the match's players involved in the process of archaeological impact assessments carried out in advance of modern transformations, in the way to conciliate the needs for preservation and research with the aim of a sustainable urban development.

TRAC, 1999

Change or No Change? Revised perceptions of urban transformation in late Antiquity by Anna Leone Introduction Defining a town is still problematic. Different approaches have been used to identify the essential characteristics of a town, but these are not always entirely convincing. It is possible, in analysing different disciplines and theoretical schools to identify two main ways to approach studies of the town. The first (and the most used in archaeological work) is directed at the analysis of the monuments, topography and materials of different towns (i.e. physical structures). This approach is spelled out by Carver in his Arguments in Stone 'a town is a centre of population ... .Towns contain monuments, ... are places where objects are exchanged, ... provide amenities, ... [and] ... are hosts to industry'. (Carver 1993:2-3) On the other hand, for others, the emphasis is on the society that lives in the town, that is, on social structures and processes. This second approach is subsumed in the principal points enumerated by Basham, following Childe in The Urban Revolution: Early cities were more extensive and densely populated than previous settlements,oo.inhabited by full time specialist craftsmen, transport workmen, merchants, officials and priests, ... supported by tithes or taxes of primary producers, ... possessed of a ruling class of priests and civil officials .... Centers where a leisured literate was able to develop and elaborate systems, ... artisans gave new dimension to artistic and craft expression. Basham (1978:50) Looking at all these aspects, we can propose that, ideally, to understand a town and its evolution one should consider both of the above aspects, that is, the social and the monumentaU topographical data. In the words of Roncajolo (1988:3), the right way is to analyse 'the society

2007

http://www.workshop-gshdl.uni-kiel.de/wp-content/uploads/International-Workshop-Programm-2019-Part-1.pdf In this paper we aim to present different data collected since 2002 during several research projects carried out by the Bologna University and focused on the rural and urban landscapes of the city of Ravenna (Northern Italy), the capital of the Western Roman Empire since A.D. 402. The main purpose is to analyze the transformations of an urban/rural complex network through different kinds of data and methods. The areas investigated are the lowlands of Ravenna, in the southeastern part of the Po Valley, between the Apennine Mountains and the Adriatic coast; this part of the Italian Peninsula has been characterized by intense geomorphological transformations in the past. The chronological range taken into consideration is short but significant: from the Roman period to the modern era. There are four main topics selected, analyzed with different types of sources: land use and land cover, evolution of rural settlement patterns, urban identity and its significance through history and palaeoenviron- mental transformations. One of the aims of the project will be to enlighten limits and potentials of using different kind of sources in the areas of interest: - Land use and land cover from XVI to XXI centuries will be investigated using historical cartography (e.g. using Pontifical Cadaster); - The evolution of the rural settlement patterns will be discussed looking at the data collected by two landscape archaeological projects, the “Decimano project” (2002-2006) and the “Bassa Romandiola project” (2009-2018); - Urban identity is well known in historical studies based on the written sources, but a different interpretation could be reached just analyzing historical evidence in relation to a wider network, including rural landscapes, geographic context and natural environment; - The palaeoenvironmental transformations will be studied through geoarchaeological and palaeobotanical approaches (e.g. coring and macro- and microplant remains analysis). The final aim of this project is to define a comprehensive management and interpretation method for different kinds of raw data. A multiscale approach will allow the use of those information to achieve a single framework for the evolution of a complex network, namely a capital city and its hinterland during the last two millennia.

Acta archaeologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae (Print), 2023

Siscia was the first city in Pannonia to be occupied by the Romans, in as early as 35 BC. Although Segestike, occupied by Octavian, was not topographically identical to the later colonia, it was of great military and commercial importance. Until the time of Claudius it was a fortress of Legio IX Hispana, from Flavian time it was a city with a rank of colonia, and after the administrative reform of Diocletian it became the capital of the province of Savia. It is understandable that the road network, the structure of the colonia and the development of its urbanisation have become the focus of research. This was by no means an easy task, since the present Sisak (Sziszek), which developed from the end of the 18 th century onwards, was built on the site of the former Roman town. Siscia thus remains only as an archaeological layer beneath the modern settlement. The present-day town, which follows its Roman predecessor in structure, thus allows only limited archaeological research; only 10% of the ancient settlement has been excavated. Stratigraphic observations could only be made in a few places. The publication presents the results of research carried out in 16 blocks, with a logical interpretation of the observed colonial phenomena. The data from the excavations is accompanied by old documentation of observations made during the 1931-1935 surveys and they are strongly taken into account and built upon in this publication. The geographical and hydrographic observations and drawings of L.F. Marsigli Danubius Pannonico-mysicus, as well as the data of the 13 th century Mappa mundi map, are also of great importance. 300 drawings supplements the information resulting of excavations carried out from the Second World War to the 1980s. Archaeological research over the last 40 years has also brought many questions closer to being answered. In addition to the above, the work takes stock of the information on Siscia provided by the ancient authors Polybius, Velleius Paterculus, Strabo, Pliny and Dio Cassius. However, there is no such compilation of inscribed monuments, which may also provide data on the urbanisation of the city (e.g. the presumed location of places of worship, shrines). The map of Pannonia at the beginning of the work, depicting the location of Siscia, is likely to provoke controversy. It indicates Emona as part of Pannonia, which, according to M. Sašel-Kos, was never part of this Danubian province. In my opinion, it can be assumed that Emona was part of Pannonia in the first century, but from the Flavius period on it may have been part of the Italian Regio X. Encyclopaedic summaries of Siscia were first written by J. Sašel (1974) and A. Faber (1974), and then by D. Vukovi c in 1994. All the earlier works were based only minimally on the finds recovered during excavations, with the exception of R. Makjani c's publication on terra sigillata, R. Koš cevi c's on fibulae and her study of thin-walled pottery types published in 2003 in "The autonomous towns in Noricum and Pannonia". In general, the pottery finds were published by I. Mileti c Cakširan in her dissertation in 2019. After an introduction on the history of research, the cartographic sources are analysed (pp. 18-37), mainly the topographic data of Marsigli. In this section, she also discusses information on the wider area of the city, its defenses, gates, street network, bridges, canals and other buildings, and discusses in detail the so-called Tiberius Trench, that was located