Main Archaeology Page

History of Archaeology @ the Academy

Conferences

Affiliate with the Academy

Activities

Staff Bios

ARCHAEOLOGY RESEARCH PROJECTS

Affiliation with the Academy is granted after presentation of an application and evaluation by the Advisory Committee. Those interested in participating in affiliated projects should contact the individual project directors. Projects currently underway include the excavations at Chianciano Terme, Monte Polizzo, and the Theater of Pompey; a number of other sites are now in study season preparing for publication.

• Bronze Age Pottery and 21st Century Scholarly Communication, A Web-based archive of Bronze Age Pottery
  Project Directors: Susan S. Lukesh (Hofstra University), R. Ross Holloway (Brown University). The web-based archive of bronze age pottery is a dynamic, robust database which permits clustering and associating material by record characteristics as well as by images. Within this product is the long-term record database which defines pot shape based on pot characteristics, holds information on decoration patterns and types of images available, measurements, find location etc. In the web version of this iteration, there is the ability to view all images for a selected record, to select records based on a number of characteristics (size, shape, decoration patterns, site etc), and display side by side the image(s) of 2 or more selected records - the visual clustering and association mentioned above. Currently, there are close to 200 pots available from excavations of the project directors over the last 30 years as well as from related sites in Sicily, whose presence is available with the kind permission of the excavator. The product can be viewed as a demo at demoprod.informationbuilders.com (look for the heading Bronze Age Pots). High-speed access is recommended.
  
  
• Sangro Valley Project
  Project Directors: Susan Kane, Oberlin College and Ed Bispham, Oxford University
  The Sangro Valley Project in the southern Abruzzo region of Italy was established in 1993 by John Lloyd (Oxford University), Neil Christie (Leicester University), and Amalia Faustoferri and Cinzia Morelli (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Abruzzo). Since Lloyd’s untimely death in 1999, a new Anglo-American team (headed by Susan Kane, Oberlin College and Ed Bispham, Oxford University) has been formed to continue operations in the region. The current Sangro Valley Project sustains both a research program in the Sangro middle valley, using Lloyd’s survey data as its starting point, and a didactic field school for university students with excavations in the public park site of Monte Pallano.
  
  
• Excavations at Chianciano Terme, Siena region, Tuscany.
  Project Director: David Soren, University of Arizona.
  The project has excavated a Roman spa bathing establishment which may be the source of the fabled fontes Clusini. A large Roman pool and shrine has been uncovered along with administrative buildings and additional bath structures. In 2002 an exhibition and computer walkthrough was installed on the top floor of the newly reopened Chianciano Archaeological Museum, with the help of digital firm Reality Bytes (Jose Olivas), material culture specialist Archer Martin and archaeologist Noelle Soren. The excavation will soon be published by Oxford's British Archaeological Reports. New excavations are being planned in the summer of 2003.
  
  
• The Roman Maritime Concrete Study (ROMACONS)
  Project Directors: Chris Brandon (Architect), Robert L. Hohlfelder (University of Colorado, Boulder), and John Peter Oleson (University of Victoria)
  Hydraulic concrete, which can set while in contact with water, was developed by the Romans in the second century B.C. and used for the construction of harbours, bridge footings, aqueducts, and other elements of the imperial infrastructure. The ROMACONS project has been set up for the purpose of collecting and analyzing cores of hydraulic concrete taken from Roman harbors and other maritime structures around the Mediterranean basin.
  
  As the first stage of this project, in August 2002 six cores 10 cm in diameter and up to 3.10 m long were collected: three from the north mole of the Claudian harbour at Portus, two from a breakwater and a quay by the entrance to Trajan¹s basin at Portus, and one from the SE breakwater at Anzio. Initial examination of the cores has provided new information on the design of these structures, the composition of the concrete, and placement in the forms. Chemical and geological analyses have been undertaken by collaborating scientists S. Cramer, C. Stern, R. Cucitore, and E. Gotti. Archer Martin was instrumental in obtaining the permissions to take the core samples, and the Italcementi Group made a generous donation of coring equipment.
  
  Please find an introduction to the project with bibliography and preliminary reports from the project at http://web.uvic.ca/~jpoleson/#romacons.
  

• Excavation at Monte Polizzo, Sicily
  Project Director: Ian Morris (Stanford)
  Assistant Directors: Emma Blake (Stanford), Trinity Jackman (Stanford), Brien Garnand (Santa Clara)
  Since 2000 Stanford has been excavating a religious center and surrounding areas on the acropolis of Monte Polizzo, in collaboration with Sebastiano Tusa of the Soprintendenza di Trapani. The American Academy has been a sponsor since 2001. The main period of occupation dates c. 550-475 BC, with further occupation in the 4th century BC and the Arab-Norman period. This was one of the largest indigenous sites in western Sicily in the 6th century BC. The project aims to redefine questions about Hellenization through close stratigraphic and quantitative analysis and application of natural-science techniques.
  Stanford's excavation is part of a multi-national project, and teams from Naples, Gothenburg, Oslo, and Northern Illinois are exploring other parts of the site and region. Preliminary reports appear in the Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome.

• "Statonia" (Bomarzo)
  An exploratory season was held in 1998 at the Etruscan and Roman site at Piammiano, identified as Etruscan "Statonia," under the direction of Emanuele Papi of the University of Siena and Theodore Peña of the State University of New York at Buffalo. Surface survey identified several hectares of Etruscan remains, with a strong Roman presence in the central area. Field seasons were carried out in 1999 and 2000.

• Theater of Pompey
  Director: James Packer (Professor of Classics Emeritus, Northwestern University)
  Field Director: Dott.ssa C.M. Gagliardo
  Architect: Dario Silenzi
  Collaboration with: the Archaeological Superintendency of Rome and Istituto Tata Giovanni (owner of Palazzo Pio)
  Financial Support (2003-4): the National Endowment for the Humanities; private contributor.
  Project aims: study, documentation and interpretation of: a) the Theater of Pompey’s plan and architectural elements and b) the later history of the site when Palazzo Pio and neighboring buildings near Rome’s Campo dei Fiori were built into and over the Theater. After 3-4 field campaigns, the work will conclude with a final study season. The next excavation season (spring/summer, 2004) will see continued clearance of the Theater’s ambulacrum. With an NEH grant to the Director (spring, 2003) and an additional private donation, a significant portion of the 2003-4 costs are now funded. In late 2003 – early 2004, the Director will raise the remainder from private sources.
  

• Excavations at Cosa
  Director: Elizabeth Fentress.
  A campaign to conserve and present the House of Diana took place in summer 1999 under the direction of Thomas Roby.
  
  

• Part 2: The Stratigraphy on the U of Michigan Press web site
  
• The House of Diana on the Forum
  
• A Cosan bibliography
  


• Excavation at Horace's Villa, Licenza.
  Project Director: Professor Bernard Frischer (UCLA) Field Director: Dr. Monica De Simone
  Co-principal investigator: Professor Kathryn Gleason (Cornell University).
  In collaboration with the Archaeological Superintendency for Lazio and with the generous support of the Steinmetz Family of Los Angeles, the Kress Foundation, and the Vincenzo Romagnoli Group, the project aims to re-examine materials from past excavations, to undertake the excavation of the gardens for evidence of their planting and layout, as well as to conduct test excavations in other parts of the site where the stratigraphy is preserved. The project began in 1997 and is expected to continue for four years, with a final study season in the fifth year.
  
  
• Survey and Excavation on the Island of Jerba, Tunisia
  (in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania and the Institut National du Patrimoine). Directors: Elizabeth Fentress, Renata Holod and Hedi Slim. A final field season took place in July 1999.
  
  
• Janiculum Mills Excavation
  A small excavation of the Roman water mills observed by Lanciani and excavated by Malcolm Bell in 1991 and 1993 was directed in 1998 and 1999 by Andrew Wilson.
  
  
• Ostia Excavation
  The Ostia project is intended to cast light on the urbanistic development of the site. A plan of the unexcavated areas was developed by the German Archaeological Institute through geophysical surveying and the analysis of aerial photography. Excavation campaigns were undertaken between 1998 and 2001 in order to investigate and better understand key points of the plan. The American Academy in Rome has participated in this phase of the project since 1999. The co-directors of the project are Michael Heinzelmann (German Archaeological Institute Rome) for field operations and Archer Martin (American Academy in Rome) for the study of the finds. The publication plan calls for a first part focusing on stratigraphy and other questions related to the work in the field and a second concerned with the various categories of finds.

  See http://www.dainst.org/index.php?id=562 for a longer description with bibliography and links. (Note: Most of the content here is in German.)