Although it is still April, planning for Ostia 2009 is well under way.

At the end of last season, the Superintendent of Ostia, Prof. Angelo Pelegrino, was pleased with the work of the Kent-Berlin team, and invited us to return in 2009, with a larger team, to continue the work, focusing again on the Foro della Statua Eroica and also on the palaestra behind the plaza, and a small area nearby.

In 2008 sickness and cancellations meant that our team of 15 was reduced to under ten effective workers, which had severely hampered our efforts. We called on local volunteers to fill the gaps, and with their efforts the season was successfully concluded.

But for 2009 we have a new source of support in a delegation of 10 students from UCLA, who will help us out in excavation, survey and finds processsing.

We hope that, together with our veterans of 2008, a full working staff will be assured for the whole excavation, and that we will be able to produce results as impressive as last year.

I look forward to posting more updates as the preparation progresses.

Best wishes
Luke Lavan 24/04/2009

Some Personal Remarks about the Beginning of the Kent-Berlin Excavation Project.

 

Ostia, the most important harbour city of ancient Rome, is characterised today by huge imposing trees, the ever present sound of nature and a complete variety of Mediterranean smells, ranging from the pleasant to the not so pleasant. However, other than the archaeology itself, what is most striking about Ostia is the overwhelming silence that surrounds it for the majority of the year – such is the fate of a city that lies in the shadow of Rome. The ancient buildings – many of them amazingly well preserved – are constructed in beautiful natural surroundings. In these buildings, upon careful observation, visitors are able to trace signs of the everyday life of the ancient Romans.

 

In 1991 I fell in love with Ostia immediately.

 

Following my original visit, I was eager to return to Ostia for further study. The most compelling reason to journey there was to write my master’s  thesis that I decided would concern urbanism in Ostia. In order to fulfil this, I moved to Rome, to be as near as possible to the object of my desire. After a while the romanticism began to vanish, not least because a scientific analysis started to bring some negative aspects to my attention. Several parts of the excavated city seemed to be rapidly decaying, especially the living quarters in the west of the city, but nobody had shouldered the responsibility of recording and interpreting them. As a result of this, I concentrated my PhD thesis on life in the 2^nd century appartments.

 

Having completed my doctorate, in 1999 I had the chance to start an architectural research project on the ‘Garden Houses’, one of the most famous and avant-garde examples of Roman Imperial architecture (see Literature: RM 2002). However, closer inspection of these 2^nd century appartments produced more questions than answers. I realised there were an astonishing number of traces of late antique occupation in these buildings, and throughout the city, which, according to established scholarship, had lost most of its former importance and wealth during the crisis of the 3^rd century AD.

 

This study served to spark my interest in later ‘post-classical’ periods. I intended to develop a new method that would involve a profound reconsideration of old prejudices. Even now, Ostia remains the biggest excavated area of the ancient world; therefore, rather than limiting my research to just one small area such as the Garden Houses, I wanted to extend it to cover the whole of the city as it is more than sufficient to raise and answer many questions about late antique urbanism.

 

In 2001 I had the chance to study the role of decay, earthquakes and fire-collapse, and what part they played in the rebuilding of the late antique city. As part of my habilitation thesis (see Literature) I started to compare all previously known micro-histories of buildings from late Ostia, as well as other comparably well-excavated metropoleis in the Roman East. Thanks to this broader perspective, it became apparent that instead of a supposed temporary decline, which occurred in some parts of some cities, the opposite was in fact occurring in Ostia; that is, during the 4^th and 5^th centuries, the standard of living actually began to rise. Therefore, I decided that it was necessary to show that Ostia did not decline, even though it had been tarred with the same brush. As far as private space is concerned, it is now well accepted that Ostia became an elite resort of wealthy Roman senators and the local aristocracy. Yet it still remains less well known that administrative and representative functions, such as monumental displays and processions, for the region and even Rome itself remained concentrated in late Ostia.

 

My habilitation thesis (2002 – 2007) involved several analyses of the buildings of Ostia, the results of which support a new overall picture of the city. The Decumanus (Ostia’s main street), was turned into a late colonnaded marble street whilst former secondary trade and business streets were converted into pedestrian zones. Close parallels exist only in the splendid metropoleis of the Roman East. Ostia seems the best example of the ‘loss of the middle-classes’ as the city displays an almost complete reorganization of both traffic, public and commercial access ways, and social and functional ‘horizontal zoning’, all of which are also visible at important regional centres such as Aphrodisias, Corinth and Ephesus.

 

Up until 2005, I had the chance to study almost all of the public buildings, including their micro-histories, along Ostia’s Decumanus (see Literature: RM 2004) with one exception – the Foro Della Statua Eroica. Despite having one of the biggest and most unusual entrances of Roman public architecture, there is very little else to see, even to the trained archaeological eye. However, further investigation will prove otherwise. This is very important, as without further excavation, this plaza cannot be interpreted to the lengths that it deserves and any new perspectives that may arise from it will be sorely delayed and perhaps even lost. However, having said this, a few facts are clear thanks to archive photography. Firstly it is clear that it was a newly built late antique forum which was probably used also as macellum, revealed to us by a surprisingly late renovation inscription dating to 418-420 A. D. Except for a few examples, such as in Rome itself, which are only known by inscriptions, as of yet this is the only example of such a construction in the Roman West!

 

When I met Luke Lavan at a Congress in Germany during 2006, we decided to meet in Ostia in order to discuss possible research areas and future projects. When visiting Ostia in 2007, Luke was extremely enthusiastic about the site. The Sopraintendente Prof. Pellegrino, when he learnt of Luke’s methods which he employed during his work in Sagalassos, was equally impressed. So the preparations began, both in Kent and in Rome, and now we are looking forward to uncovering further secrets and developing new perspectives and methods of study concerning the late antique city. This information shall make a valid and crucial contribution to late antique studies in Ostia, Rome, the Roman West and urbanism of this period in general.

 

Axel Gering

 

Edited by Richard Sadler 13/09/2008

Well it wasnt so easy to pack and send the stuff. After ringing round a variety of companies it became clear that sending the stuff back to Canterbury from a campsite wasn’t going to be easy, and that only one person would have the credit space available to send it – Luke. So bleary-eyed and confused, Luke abandoned his classes to reliable/exploited colleagues and staggered back to Rome to assist in the final clean up – to join Axel and Alex who had meanwhile been continuing the backfill. When Luke arrived back Alex was in a bad way – with back problems – guarding the ‘total station’ survey instrument at the now desolate campsite, where every empty corner reminded us of the friendship of our team mates who were now back in England and Berlin. One worrying development was that some of the equipment left outside our chalet had been stolen whilst Axel was at the airport. Perhaps neither DHL nor storage in a shed on site were appropriate now.

Eventually, we decided that the best solution was local storage in an Easybox, and to hire a van to accomplish this. The move went fairly smoothly – Easybox was, well very easy , though the van broke down thanks to a faulty ignition. Try if you can to imagine what it is like force-starting a fully loaded transit with four big blokes pushing behind and breaking into a run as the van starts up stuttering wildly like a bucking bronko. The first time it was hilarious, but the second time it had to be done in a very confined space down in the underground store of Easybox. With a run we managed to push-start the vehicle that sprung into life about one metre from a concrete wall. After this we hobbled off home, hoping for no more adventures.

By way of conclusion to our campaign, we had a final audience with Dr Pellegrino, head of the Sopraintendenza di Ostia. He was delighted by our results and has invited us back for next year, with a slightly enlarged team. We hope to produce a short report for him soon so that a formal request for a 3-year collaboration can be submitted to the Ministry of Culture. My hope is that with a bigger team and proper finance, everything will be easier next year (donations needed and welcome – see the link above). For now I am just looking forward to a bath and a bed and to throwing my destroyed shoes and clothes away. This has been the most stressful four weeks of my sheltered life so far, but on leaving Italy I do feel a strong sense of our achievement, resting on the dedicated hard work of all of the team.

 

As for the blog – this is pretty much the end of the narrative for this year, although all pages will be improved with photos and some ‘project’  sections rewritten in coming weeks.

Luke Lavan 03/10/2008

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today, at dawn, most of the team left, leaving Luke, Quyen, Axel and Alex feeling rather depressed. Despite, this we had to go back to work, as not everything had been finished on site, especially not the backfilling, of which there was still much to do. This was made much easier by super-strong volunteer Anna, who shovelled barrow-loads of soil all afternoon without any complaint. Without her we really would have been stuck. The re-burial of the site is a little depressing to watch. First we lay down a white ‘tessuto’ – compacted cotton wool , though it looks like snow – and then on goes the soil. What we dug disappears, and the site goes back somewhat to being what it was before – “a place where I used to have my picnic” – as one tourist put it, which we have somewhat productively disfigured.

It is taking a while to pack everything up, managed mainly by Quyen, completing work done by Helen, Andy and Luke. We don’t know what company we will use to post back yet, but hopefully not DHL, as we wish no repeat of our earlier problems, when equipment was damaged and delayed in transit. Unfortunately Quyen and Luke have to leave before it is all finished, handing it on to Alex and Axel. At least they are buoyed by the positive comments of visitors from the German Institute, notably Professor Freiberger. The Italian diggers from the Sopraintendenza di Ostia seem also to be very enthusiastic, which provides encouragement to an exhausted stay-behind team. Despite our tiredness we have made some new observations during the day, thanks to ‘photo cleaning’ by Luke. Axel notes that we clearly have two levels of mortar in our NW corner are too, corresponding to different phases of forum paving probably. The foundation of the west colonnade is now clearer than ever, with an emplacement for a robbed column base being located and photographed.

 

Luke Lavan 28/09/2008

Today was undoubtedly the hardest time for everyone. Not only has the temperature warmed up, but this was our last working day for the full team and there were still many jobs to finish. Angela Gillen worked herself into the ground to finish the trench in the NE corner of the plaza, assisted by our American volunteer Anna. Other people were frantically drawing, or filling out context sheets and cleaning up the edges of contexts to allow them to be planned and photographed correctly. The day did not pass without new discoveries. It is clear now that we have the same sequence of primary paving, destruction/fill and repaving in Angela’s area as we do in the SW corner, where the paving is well-preserved . Observations of surface markings by Richard Sadler revealed that our masons’ marks have been misread – they are in fact xii, xiiii and xv – part of a sequence in the SW corner – which shows that the second phase of paving was laid in one operation. Luke also spotted a gameboard that had previously been missed, though there was no time for a game with our bone dice from week one, and the numerous gaming counters that we have been finding. Axel has been leading the backfilling of the façade.

Luke Lavan 27/09/2008

Over the last few days the post-antique history of the plaza is starting to become clearer, thanks to new arrival Christina, invited by Axel from Berlin. Christina is an experienced digger who manages her own recording and has been digging a section trench through a missing part of the west colonnade. She has revealed that there was indeed a great hole made here, probably during early medieval times, almost certainly in order to remove a threshold block, where there had been a door of some kind. Interestingly, the stonerobbers who recycled this stone also cut through a very late wall composed on tile, pot and random fragments, which was discovered by Axel in the first week of cleaning. This wall perhaps dates from the troubled years of the seventh century AD. It runs over the ruined wall of the west colonnade and its composition – of jumbled material – suggests it was made out of a field of ruins, rather than made with the selected brick and stone of a well-organised spolia trade, as we see in late antiquity.

Were these constructions private usurpations of public space? Perhaps, as they do not seem to respect earlier alignments of the plaza. The wall is curved – could it be part of a church apse? Probably not, as it is too irregular. Next year’s digging will hopefully provide some answers.

Luke Lavan 26/09/2008 

At this moment Rome is hosting the International Congress of Classical Archaeology. As a consequence, we have been receiving distinguished academic visitors on site, the most enthusiastic being Professor Janet Delaine, of Oxford University, who has made two trips to visit us and has been able to advise Axel, who is busy studying the mortars of the site, in order to improve our knowledge of the phasing of the buildings. She has encouraged us to understand the subsidence of the plaza (and thus the preservation of some sections until today) in terms of the structures found underneath – in the bath building buried below. We have come up with the theory that one deeply subsided area may have been set over a hypocaust which collapsed, taking the paving with it. It thus required levelling, with building rubble thrown in to fill the hole.

Luke Lavan 25/09/2008

Not much to report today. A busy day, dominated by finds washing and drawing. There is not much digging taking place now, except for a bit of cleaning and two small sondages that aim to recover fill material from beneath the paving. The diggers are still very tired, but doing what work they can, from labelling finds to surveying the city for re-used architectural blocks to compare with those found in our forum. The arrival of a new digger from Berlin, Christina, has made our biggest sondage possible, assisted by Joe Williams. Elsewhere on site planning frames and string cover the paving, as we try to draw all we have uncovered. Breakfasts now reveal our hunger – cake and eggs have replaced bread and jam, and one or two of us even had heavy potato pizza.

 

Luke Lavan 24/09/2008

Today work slowed dramatically. Frankly, this morning most of the team were not fit for work, English director included. Exhaustion affected all the diggers, despite having had an excellent meal of beef and potatoes prepared by ex-chef Richard the night before. We were really weak. Some blamed the biscuits, others the absence of coffee. Probably we all just havent eaten enough, now that nights are so cold – more potato needed, and less airy bread at breakfast and lunch. We are heartily fed up of the local artisanal panini, which are built rather like the Pantheon – all crusty dome with nothing inside. Little work got done. Most of the beefcake diggers had retreated to finds washing before lunch and it was only thanks to Helen and Andy (who had been on admin and survey duties), and above all our American volunteers, that any digging got done.

 

Work has consisted of trowelling, drawing and fine cleaning for photos. The latter activity produces clouds of chalky dust – most of which has ended up in my lung – so a dust mask came on. However this is very necessary for the work of Kelly Madigan who is describing the complex layers for her Museum of London context sheets. Scott and Fabio are finishing the last bit of the façade area – a deposit on top of the mortar surface in front of the steps. Although mostly modern, this layer produced a bronze coin of the Arcadius, emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire from AD 395 to 408. I hope he might have appreciated our efforts to prolong his fame.

 Sondages were also begun in the fill of the baths but here the deposit was much poorer than anticipated. Only one sherd was found, in place of the hundreds of amphorae we were expecting. Perhaps the fill of our new cistern will be richer, and so produce some finds which might help us to date at least the second paving of the forum, which covered it.

 

Luke Lavan 23/09/2008

It has not been possible to dig on the Foro della Statua Eroica, without being constantly reminded of the adjacent forum baths, looming over the south side of the plaza. We also know that our forum was in fact constructed on top of a smaller set of baths, that was perhaps linked to,  or perhaps separate from, the forum baths to the south. The apsed walls of this structure poke through our paving in many places, and were everywhere demolished to make the flat level on which our forum was constructed. But an open question is the role of the large Late Roman cistern found on the west side of the plaza – was this constructed in order to provide a reserve for the baths, using rainwater from the portico roof? – yes probably, as the aqueducts of Ostia are known not to have worked well in Late Antiquity. However, today a second possible cistern was uncovered, as two huge parallels walls were exposed by surface cleaning, and suddenly the back piers of the façade area looked credible as vault supports for the roof of the intervening space. They include reused material so it is likely we have here a second Late Roman cistern.

 

But this great space was filled in and covered over with mortar at a later date, a different mortar from that found on top of the walls. It seems that we have here in fact the same two phases are we had in the area of preserved paving on the opposite side of the plaza. Just like on the far side, we have here a first level of mortar with the reverse imprint of re-used slabs, including large inscriptions, which have later been removed, and then a second layer of mortar put down. We need to clean more, but it looks like the 4^th c. plaza had many cisterns and this was reduced to only one in the 5^th c. restoration. Digging continues.

 

 

 

We are again short of people, as we had no volunteers today. There are so many jobs to do and so few people to do them. Helen Harrington is doing a great job managing finds, whilst Andy Bates and Diana Everett drew the first wall section today. Kelly Madigan and Angela Gillen are trying to finish drawing the façade, but work is easily disrupted by emergency tasks requested by the diggers, who are trying to finish cleaning two large areas. The arrival of a root cutter, lent by the sopraintendenza, made this work easier, as previously we had struggled to dig round them, and they had even broken our tools. This is perhaps the revenge of the trees, though there has been no ‘Attack of the Ents’ so far. Alex continues to chop through them, making excavation much easier.

 

Work intensifies – on final digging, drawing, washing, labelling – as does growing angst – about where on earth are we going to store all our equipment over the winter. Posting it all back to Canterbury does not seem the best idea given our adventures with DHL.

Luke Lavan 22/09/2008