2022 Villa di Tito Archaeological Project
In May and June 2022 McMaster students returned to Italy to participate in the Villa di Tito Archaeological Project, directed by Martin Beckmann (McMaster) and Myles McCallum (Saint Mary’s University). The goal of the project is to shed light on life in the early first millennium CE in the Velino Valley in the foothills of the Apennine Mountains, about 80km north-east of Rome, through the excavation of a Roman villa. Excavation at the site began in 2018; after a hiatus caused by the pandemic, the full team returned in 2022.
The villa was built in the first century CE atop a massive concrete podium rising from the north side of the Velino Valley, overlooking the Via Salaria and Lake Cutilia, thought by the ancient Sabines to be the navel of the world. The Flavian family, whose most famous member was the Roman emperor Vespasian, owned property in the valley, and local tradition has associated the villa with Vespasian’s elder son, Titus. Who really owned the villa remains a mystery.
Much of the superstructure of the villa has been destroyed over the centuries, but what remains includes some of its most interesting and seldom-researched parts. These include a series of rooms at the back of the villa, one monumental but others utilitarian, and a number of large chambers built into the podium which once would have served for processing and storage of agricultural produce. Excavation of these areas gives us a glimpse into the lives of the non-elite, of laborers, servants and slaves, the people who made the villa actually work.
Excavation in 2022 reached occupation levels in a number of areas. Some of the most interesting finds were made in a large room at the back of the villa. Opening onto a long corridor, this room was divided into two by walls made of perishable materials, including wood. Only the nails that once held the wooden beams together were found, and the plaster that has once covered the walls. Finds inside these areas revealed that they likely served two different purposes, cooking in the western space (revealed by fragments of numerous cooking vessels, some still blackened with soot), and storage in the easter area (show by two amphorae found in fragments in the corner of the room).
This same room also revealed evidence of a ritual conducted at the very time the villa was built. Under a collapsed section of floor, students discovered a large well, a structure dating to a time before the villa was built. The builders of the villa had filled in the well and then constructed a wall and a floor above it. But before sealing off the well, they placed a number of artifacts, along with the remains of a piglet, as a ritual deposit to placate any spirits that might dwell in it. These objects included a ceramic lamp, a silvered bronze mirror that had been ritually broken, an iron key, a large bronze ring, and a coin of the emperor Augustus.
Six McMaster students took part in the project. Robyn Bachmeier (MA 2021) wrote here MA thesis on the coins found at the villa in the 2019 excavations. Current MA student Melissa Choloniuk, who is writing a thesis on the Temple of Janus in Rome, also participated in the 2019 excavation. And four undergraduates joined the project for the first time: Adam Boccia (Classics), Julia Miller (Classics), Tara Simeunovic (Computer Science) and Rosalie Swenor (Mathematics).
In May and June 2022 McMaster students returned to Italy to participate in the Villa di Tito Archaeological Project, directed by Martin Beckmann (McMaster) and Myles McCallum (Saint Mary’s University). The goal of the project is to shed light on life in the early first millennium CE in the Velino Valley in the foothills of the Apennine Mountains, about 80km north-east of Rome, through the excavation of a Roman villa. Excavation at the site began in 2018; after a hiatus caused by the pandemic, the full team returned in 2022.
The villa was built in the first century CE atop a massive concrete podium rising from the north side of the Velino Valley, overlooking the Via Salaria and Lake Cutilia, thought by the ancient Sabines to be the navel of the world. The Flavian family, whose most famous member was the Roman emperor Vespasian, owned property in the valley, and local tradition has associated the villa with Vespasian’s elder son, Titus. Who really owned the villa remains a mystery.
Much of the superstructure of the villa has been destroyed over the centuries, but what remains includes some of its most interesting and seldom-researched parts. These include a series of rooms at the back of the villa, one monumental but others utilitarian, and a number of large chambers built into the podium which once would have served for processing and storage of agricultural produce. Excavation of these areas gives us a glimpse into the lives of the non-elite, of laborers, servants and slaves, the people who made the villa actually work.
Excavation in 2022 reached occupation levels in a number of areas. Some of the most interesting finds were made in a large room at the back of the villa. Opening onto a long corridor, this room was divided into two by walls made of perishable materials, including wood. Only the nails that once held the wooden beams together were found, and the plaster that has once covered the walls. Finds inside these areas revealed that they likely served two different purposes, cooking in the western space (revealed by fragments of numerous cooking vessels, some still blackened with soot), and storage in the easter area (show by two amphorae found in fragments in the corner of the room).
This same room also revealed evidence of a ritual conducted at the very time the villa was built. Under a collapsed section of floor, students discovered a large well, a structure dating to a time before the villa was built. The builders of the villa had filled in the well and then constructed a wall and a floor above it. But before sealing off the well, they placed a number of artifacts, along with the remains of a piglet, as a ritual deposit to placate any spirits that might dwell in it. These objects included a ceramic lamp, a silvered bronze mirror that had been ritually broken, an iron key, a large bronze ring, and a coin of the emperor Augustus.
Six McMaster students took part in the project. Robyn Bachmeier (MA 2021) wrote here MA thesis on the coins found at the villa in the 2019 excavations. Current MA student Melissa Choloniuk, who is writing a thesis on the Temple of Janus in Rome, also participated in the 2019 excavation. And four undergraduates joined the project for the first time: Adam Boccia (Classics), Julia Miller (Classics), Tara Simeunovic (Computer Science) and Rosalie Swenor (Mathematics).