The past year has seen a continued increase in the number of archaeological field projects which the BSR is proud to support, either through the provision of expertise and equipment or with geophysical survey. This year the fieldwork reports section presents the preliminary results of 11 continuing or new collaborations, whilst a number of other new initiatives will be reported over the coming years. Alongside the projects presented here, the geophysical research programme has supported a number of other projects including work at Settecamini, 15 km to the east of Rome along the Via Tiburtina Antica. The aim of the new research, led by Brown University and the University of California, Santa Barbara in collaboration with the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali is to fully investigate an archaeological park where a number of Roman monuments are preserved, including a 500 m stretch of the ancient Via Tiburtina, several funerary monuments and a structure interpreted as either part of a villa or a road-station.
To the north of Rome the BSR and University of Southampton have completed the full geophysical survey of the archaic sanctuary and Roman colony of Iulia Felix Lucus Feroniae. Using a number of non-invasive techniques, the research has sought to integrate the structures excavated between 1952 and 1979 into a more detailed plan of the site. The results, which will shortly be published in the Papers of the British School at Rome, reveal that the Roman town was not a dense urban settlement but rather that it only developed around the forum and along the Via Tiberina and Via Capenate.
Since 2016 the BSR has been working closely with another foreign academy in Rome, the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies, at the site of Francavilla di Sicilia. After an initial season of Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR), aimed at identifying further areas of the settlement of the early Greek colony 30 km inland from Naxos, the BSR has continued to support the excavations with topographical and photogrammetric survey.
The Segni Project, a long-term BSR collaboration with the Archaeological Museum of the Comune di Segni, undertook three seasons of excavations between 2012 and 2014 that are now being prepared for publication. However, as reported in PBSR LXXXII (2014), the project has also undertaken extensive work on the nymphaeum of Quintus Mutius in support of the restoration of this important second-century BC monumental fountain. Over the past year it has been possible to conclude the excavation revealing the full façade of the structure which has subsequently been recorded with a laser scanner and is now in the process of conservation ahead of its opening to the public later this year.
Following a successful grant application to the Roman Research Trust and the Roman Society, in October 2017 a multi-method geophysical survey was made of a rural Roman villa at Matrice, Campobasso. The project, an initiative together with the Ashmolean Museum and King's College London, has the aim of publishing the excavations which were conducted under the direction of John Lloyd between 1980 and 1985 after the site had been identified during the Biferno Valley Survey led by the BSR in the 1970s. The geophysical survey was conducted within unexcavated rooms of the villa, along a modern asphalt road which divides the site and in an unexplored field to the west of the excavated complex. The results revealed the continuation of the villa to the west, possibly revealing a northern wing which defined a large courtyard that opened towards the west, facing a well-used transhumance route. The results of the survey have raised a number of questions concerning the chronological phases of the site which cannot be answered through geophysical prospection, as the earlier excavations had revealed a substantial Samnite building, as well as continued occupation in the Roman and Late Antique periods. In order to fully publish the villa, a further season of excavation will be undertaken in September 2018 targeting some of the geophysical anomalies.
Alongside this field activity, further research on both the Portus and Lateran projects has been possible thanks to the generosity of Mr Peter J. Smith sponsoring the position of two post-doctoral archaeology researchers at the BSR. This year, Dr Peter Campbell (Portus Project) and Dr Thea Ravasi (Lateran Project) have been able to develop research themes within these projects as well as contribute to the publications of these projects. In summary, the outstanding results presented in the following 11 reports as well as those discussed above illustrate the enormous contribution that BSR supported archaeological fieldwork has made over the past year to Mediterranean archaeology.
