It’s been another fascinating and prolific 12 months in archaeology, with discoveries – ranging from a multi-million pound medieval gold hoard to a lost Roman city, a “missing link” in human evolution and a prehistoric erotic figurine – coming thick and fast from the four corners of the globe.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Fri, 10/02/2009 - 14:27
The discovery of a unique amphitheatre and other structures at Rome's ancient maritime port is putting the archaeological site of Portus on the map. For decades it's been a much over-looked site next to Fiumicino's international runway and scholarly attention has focused on neighbouring Ostia Antica, but experts now believe it is a unique site that should rank alongside monuments such as Stonehenge or Angkor Wat.
Portus was the principal maritime port of ancient Rome for most of the imperial period. Construction began during the reign of Claudius by digging out a huge man-made harbour protected by sea walls. It is located on the coast about two kilometres north of Ostia Antica, to the north of the Tiber mouth at Ostia, and near to Rome's main international airport, Fiumicino. The port was finalised during the reign of the emperor Nero and then greatly enlarged by the emperor Trajan. It was at this time that an amphitheatre would have been built within the complex of the 'palazzo imperiale', where most of the port's administrative business would have been done by the port official – known as Procurator Portus Utriusque. The port would have supplied the city of Rome with imports from large cargo ships until the Byzantine period and beyond. Portus was the conduit through which most of the key foodstuffs, marble, glass and metalwork that were consumed in Rome were imported from the Mediterranean provinces.
Simon Keay is Professor of Roman Archaeology at the University of Southampton and Research Professor at the British School at Rome.
He has worked at Portus, the ancient port of Rome for the past ten years. For the last three years he has directed the Portus Project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), investigating and excavating the site of the original port of Rome, close to the present day international airport at Fiamicino. This project is co-directed by Dr Graeme Earl of the University of Southampton and Professor Martin Millett of the University of Cambridge with the Soprintendenza di Beni Archeologici di Ostia Antica.
Simon’s research centres around the archaeology of the Roman Empire, with particular emphasis on trade, urbanism and culture change in the western Mediterranean.
Among his other projects, Simon has undertaken fieldwork in Spain at Tarragona, Peñaflor and Italica, including the AHRC-funded project Urban Connectivity in Iron-Age and Roman Southern Spain. He was also co-director of the AHRC-funded Roman towns in the Tiber Valley Project, the publication of which is nearly complete, and Director of the AHRC-funded project Roman Amphorae: A Digital Resource.
He speaks fluent Italian, Spanish and French and has a good knowledge of Catalan, Portuguese and German.
The amphitheatre has emerged at a location that excavators say is inside an 'imperial' palace complex - whose main function was port-related administration.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Thu, 10/01/2009 - 12:02
Several major archaeological discoveries have been made at the site of one of Rome's ancient harbours. An oval amphitheatre, a 90m canal as well as many smaller objects (including marble statues) have emerged during excavations of Portus, the cargo port of ancient Rome, about two miles north of its better-known counterpart, Ostia Antica.
Residents of Leptiminus, a city in Roman occupied Tunisia, ate a diet heavy in vegetables and marine life (including Grouper). However they avoided millet and legumes, dietary staples in other parts of the Empire.
They also avoided eating large amounts of the local fish sauce which they were trying to sell to other people. These are the findings of a Canadian science team that analyzed skeletons from the cemetery of Leptiminus.
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