Primary responsibility of an archaeologist is to explain to the public what he’s digging and he must strive to do it in the most engaging and stirring way as possible, using the most appropriate language. This is one of the challenges of public archaeology that we daily face in Vignale. Vignale is a Roman farm, villa and posting station situated in Val di Cornia (Tuscany, Italy) and since 2005 under excavation by University of Siena. One of the main features of the site is the lack of clear and visible evidences: the poor state of preservation makes even more complicated to illustrate a hardly definible structure - and difficult to imagine - as a mansio is. The effort of understanding is so high that the usual guided tours are insufficient to suggest the visitors concrete images of the posting station and how it worked. This paper focuses on how we handled this situation using public archaeology oriented strategies and how this approach was capable to generate virtuous mechanisms between the “Uomini e cose a Vignale” research project and the local community. As emerging from the theoretical framework (see Merriman 2004, Schadla Hall 2006), public archaeology doesn’t have an univocal definition, but it’s declinable in different ways depending on the cultural and social context and on the methodological approaches (Matsuda, Okamura 2011, 2). In our situation, public archaeology is the engine of a complex process, based on the continuous balance and the mutual stimulus between scientific research and our relationship with the local community. This process, as theorized by Matsuda and Okamura (2011, 4), is conceived as a dynamic endeavor, which consists of an everevolving two-stage cycle comprinsing the creation of the relationship with the people (research) and its consolidation through the active participation to the ongoing project (action). Our approach, called "Excava(c)tion" (see Costa, Ripanti 2013), is not limited to the narration of the mansio but covers the other phases of use of the site. This approach takes place on the Web - with a website (www.uominiecoseavignale.it) and a related Facebook page - and mainly on the fieldwork. Since the beginning of our research, we have taken advantage from its position of high visibility near a highway. This circumstance has led a lot of people to the site and has requested us to think about our communication strategy and the way of interacting with the public.
Raccontare una mansio in un progetto di archeologia pubblica
Samanta Mariotti;
2016-01-01
Abstract
Primary responsibility of an archaeologist is to explain to the public what he’s digging and he must strive to do it in the most engaging and stirring way as possible, using the most appropriate language. This is one of the challenges of public archaeology that we daily face in Vignale. Vignale is a Roman farm, villa and posting station situated in Val di Cornia (Tuscany, Italy) and since 2005 under excavation by University of Siena. One of the main features of the site is the lack of clear and visible evidences: the poor state of preservation makes even more complicated to illustrate a hardly definible structure - and difficult to imagine - as a mansio is. The effort of understanding is so high that the usual guided tours are insufficient to suggest the visitors concrete images of the posting station and how it worked. This paper focuses on how we handled this situation using public archaeology oriented strategies and how this approach was capable to generate virtuous mechanisms between the “Uomini e cose a Vignale” research project and the local community. As emerging from the theoretical framework (see Merriman 2004, Schadla Hall 2006), public archaeology doesn’t have an univocal definition, but it’s declinable in different ways depending on the cultural and social context and on the methodological approaches (Matsuda, Okamura 2011, 2). In our situation, public archaeology is the engine of a complex process, based on the continuous balance and the mutual stimulus between scientific research and our relationship with the local community. This process, as theorized by Matsuda and Okamura (2011, 4), is conceived as a dynamic endeavor, which consists of an everevolving two-stage cycle comprinsing the creation of the relationship with the people (research) and its consolidation through the active participation to the ongoing project (action). Our approach, called "Excava(c)tion" (see Costa, Ripanti 2013), is not limited to the narration of the mansio but covers the other phases of use of the site. This approach takes place on the Web - with a website (www.uominiecoseavignale.it) and a related Facebook page - and mainly on the fieldwork. Since the beginning of our research, we have taken advantage from its position of high visibility near a highway. This circumstance has led a lot of people to the site and has requested us to think about our communication strategy and the way of interacting with the public.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
