Archeologia globale ad Egnazia: nuove acquisizioni dalla città e dal territorio

The inter-disciplinary FIRB Project “Archeologia dei paesaggi della Puglia adriatica in età romana: tecnologie innovative per una pianificazione sostenibile e una fruizione identitaria”, launched in 2013 and covering the study of settlement dynamics in Egnazia (Fasano, BR), has its focus on the connection between town and country, the organization of landscape, the use of natural resources, the production activities as well as on the cultural and commercial exchanges within the Mediterranean area. The systematic campaign of geophysical surveys, currently underway on the whole archaeological area and carried out together with ground penetrating radar, geoelectrical tomography and controlled source electromagnetism system, made it possible to direct the stratigraphic excavations already started to the sector south of the forum of the town. This sector started to be organized in the Augustan Age in conjunction with the construction of the forum and of the civil basilica and is characterized by the thermal baths of the forum and by a recently identified building, possibly a prestigious residence, whose purpose and organization of the space will be solved as the excavations are carried on. More numerous are the data on the transformation of this sector from the end of 4th century within the scope of a renewal and reorganization of the town due to the influential presence of an episcopal see. The thermal complex is transformed into a production site for lime, bricks and other useful material for the many building sites where, during that period, the town is rebuilt as a result of a vast destruction ascribable also to a natural calamity, probably the earthquake of 365 AD. Reorganization activities of the thermal baths are therefore observable also in Egnazia, like those being discovered by the latest investigations in other Apulian sites and in different regions of the Mediterranean, such as Crete, also severely damaged by the earthquakes of 4th century. Another distinguishing feature of the Late Antique settlement pattern is the coexistence of spaces for both production and residential purposes in the same buildings. This dynamics is now evident over the area of the thermal baths and also in the building nearby where, in the same period, residential spaces, production areas and open areas where animals were kept, coexist, as can be also observed in many different sectors of the town. On a marginal sector of this building, in a central area of the town of Imperial Age, the excavations directed by the geophysical survey also brought to light the existence of a wide area meant for agricultural purposes, most likely for viticulture, in a zone showing the first considerable discontinuity in the thick net of the Bishop’s town. The paleobiological analysis on this sector is providing interesting information about the supply method of the lime kilns and the inhabitants’ food habits, in this last case also with the support of zooarchaeological research activities. For the first time the excavations are supported with a systematic survey of the Ignatinus ager, whose data are managed on a GIS platform. The data bank, constantly implemented, is being shared also with the Authorities in charge of the archaeological resources protection in order to steer the regional planning with interventions taking into account the archaeological potential of the area. The preliminary results show the existence, right outside the walls, of a vast wetland that, given the lack of an aqueduct, was certainly used as water reserve for agricultural purposes. The settlement remains are found instead on the inland plateaus, especially close to the via Traiana and its ramifications and gathering particularly along the ‘lame’ (landform smaller than a ravine), which guaranteed water availability. A settlement continuity is observable here between the Roman Republican Age and the Late Antique period, but with a change in the settlement pattern: from bigger nuclei to a more widespread distribution of small and medium-sized nuclei