The British School at Rome's 2023 fieldwork programme had as its primary focus the completion of the data capture element of the Rome Transformed Project (https://research.ncl.ac.uk/rometrans) and the expansion of activities in support of the Falerii Novi Project (www.faleriinoviproject.org).
The Rome Transformed Project, launched in October 2019, is funded as an Advanced Grant by the European Research Council (Grant Agreement No. 835271) and has brought together researchers from the University of Newcastle, the British School at Rome, the Università degli Studi di Firenze and the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. Over a four-year period, the team has explored, through a range of non-invasive methods, the archaeology of the Eastern Caelian Hill (Haynes et al., Reference Haynes, Ravasi, Kay, Piro and Liverani2023). As the project enters its final phase, the detailed analysis that has been conducted of the standing remains, as well as a programme of high-resolution recording, has led to a new understanding of this key area in Rome between the second and eighth centuries AD.
Fig. 1. Location of the archaeological fieldwork projects in Italy.
A second season of excavations at Falerii Novi was undertaken in late May–early June 2023, with the BSR being joined in its research by the Institute of Classical Studies (School of Advanced Studies, University of London), in order to provide a structured training programme for participating students. The focus of excavation activities in 2023 turned towards the forum, and a series of tabernae identified along the northern flank by the preceding geophysical surveys. The aim, similarly to the 2022 work near the South Gate (Andrews et al., Reference Andrews, Bernard, Ceccarelli, Dodd, Fochetti, Kay and Vermeulen2023), was to continue to focus upon these commercial spaces in order to record their changing function over time and to record evidence of daily life, including food consumption and patterns of exchange.
The Falerii Novi Project has amongst its aims an examination of the peripheral areas of the city, both within the city and immediately outside the walls. Previous geophysical prospection, including magnetometry and ground-penetrating radar (GPR), has mostly focused within the city walls. Therefore, in October 2022 Elena Pomar, BSR Geophysical Researcher, commenced a joint doctoral programme between the BSR and the University of Pisa to map the suburban area through non-invasive methods.
In 2023 a final season of excavation was undertaken at the rural Republican sanctuary of ‘La Cuma’ at Monte Rinaldo (Marche), a joint research partnership between the BSR, the University of Bologna, the regional Soprintendenza and the Comune di Monte Rinaldo. The six seasons of targeted excavation around the sanctuary, together with geophysical prospection and fieldwalking in the surrounding area, has led to a new understanding of the site and its role within the territory.
As part of the BSR's long running programme of investigations of Roman urbanism through geophysical prospection, in 2023 a new project was commenced in partnership with the Università degli Studi dell'Aquila, the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio per le province di L'Aquila e Teramo and the Comune di Barisciano. The vicus of Furfo, identified in the territory of Barisciano (L'Aquila), offers a rare opportunity to examine one of these little-investigated settlement types. Fieldwork began in the autumn of 2023 with a preliminary investigation with magnetometry to test the effectiveness of the technique alongside a programme of fieldwalking undertaken by the Università degli Studi dell'Aquila. The results began to offer an initial understanding of the extent of the settlement, which will be further explored with magnetometry and GPR over the course of 2024.
In late summer 2023 two geophysical surveys were undertaken in Sicily in support of colleagues working at the sites of Halaesa (Tusa) and Syracuse. The joint investigations of the University of Oxford and the University of Messina at the site of Halaesa have predominately focused on the promontory of the site where the Sanctuary of Apollo has been identified. A GPR survey was undertaken to further explore the extent of the complex. Further east at Syracuse, a new research agreement was established with the Parco Archeologico di Siracusa (Regione Siciliana) and the Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II (Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici), initially focusing on the investigation of the Temple of Olympian Zeus (Olympieion). A full survey of the site was conducted using magnetometry whilst parts of the podium of the temple were also investigated with GPR.
The British School at Rome is grateful to the regional authorities and the Ministry of Culture for its continued support of the BSR's archaeological research activities, as well as the growing number of collaborative partners. The following reports, from the long-term investigations of Interamna Lirenas and Monte Rinaldo to the newly established projects such as Furfo, demonstrate the vibrancy of archaeological research at the BSR.
