Lapis Gabinus: official blog of the Gabii Project

Terrenato to present AIA lecture in Winnipeg, Manitoba

2012-02-01T00:01:00.000-05:00

On February 12, 2012, Nicola Terrenato will present a lecture entitled, "The Gabii Project Excavation in Central Italy: The Mystery of the ‘Lead Burrito’" for the local society of the Archaeological Institute of America in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. At the center of the talk is an unusual lead sarcophagus excavated at Gabii in July 2009.

The abstract of Terrenato's talk is here.

The event will be held at 3.00pm at the University of Manitoba
University College 237, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.

For information on the society, the lecture, or other questions about this event, contact the Winnipeg society of the AIA.

Gabii Project at the 2012 AIA meetings

2011-12-22T12:00:00.000-05:00

The Gabii Project will be well represented at the upcoming meetings of the Archaeological Institute of America to be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The AIA will convene January 6-8, 2012, at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown (1201 Market Street · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107 USA).

The following Gabii Project presentations are planned:

Friday, January 6, 2012, 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM. Rachel Opitz, Anna Gallone, Marcello Mogetta, and Nicola Terrenato. "The Gabii Project: the 2011 season" in AIA Poster session 2J
Sunday, January 8, 2012, 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM: Anna Gallone. "The Use of Lead in Central Italian Funerary Contexts: The New Evidence from Gabii" in Paper session 7B (Roman Funerary Images and Ritual)

Also on Friday, January 6, material related to the Gabii Project will be presented in a colloquium session focused on 'Comparative Urbanism in the Ancient Mediterranean World.' In that session, organized by Jeffrey Becker and Jamie Sewell, material relevant to Gabii will be part of papers by Becker ("Storied pasts? Archaic and Republican Urbanism Compared"), Marcello Mogetta ("Urban Villages: Comparing Iron Age Settlement Structure in Greece and Italy") and in the discussion offered and moderated by Nicola Terrenato.

We hope to see many of our Gabii Project friends and alums in Philadelphia!

Gabii Project announces its 2012 volunteer field program

2011-11-02T21:26:00.000-04:00

Gabii Project 2011 team photo

The Gabii Project will offer a field program for students and volunteers in 2012; the program will run from June 24 until July 28, 2012. Applications will be accepted online via the project's website and the deadline for applying to the program is February 28, 2012; all qualified students are eligible to apply, not just those associated with the University of Michigan. Notifications of acceptance will be made by March 16, 2012, and accepted volunteers must submit their payment in full by April 2, 2012, in order to secure their spot. No volunteer may participate in the program if the program fee has not been settled in full. The cost for the 5-week program, inclusive of accommodation in Rome, Italy, insurance, equipment, and local transportation, will be $3,600 (USD) in 2012. At this time the possibility of receiving academic credit for participation in the field program is still being negotiated. A final decision will be reached before the application deadline. A credit option might involve an additional fee.

In order to apply

Please complete the online application form. Please complete all required fields.
Then, please be sure to ask two professional recommenders (who know you either from an academic setting or a prior fieldwork experience) to send letters on your behalf to Dr. Jeffrey Becker (gabiiproject-at-umich.edu - replace at with @) not later than February 28, 2012.

Travel

Volunteers are responsible for covering their own travel costs to and from Italy.
The point of arrival is Rome, Italy. Rome is served by two airports that handle international traffic. These are Leonardo da Vinci airport, also known as Fiumicino (FCO), and Ciampino airport (CIA) [also known as Aeroporto di Roma-Ciampino or Giovan Battista Pastine Airport]. Fiumicino handles long-haul international flights while Ciampino tends to receive short-haul, EU zone carriers.
The arrival packet distributed to confirmed volunteers will include specific arrival information and information and logistical details.

Accommodation in Rome, Italy

Accent International residence

The team will be accommodated in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood in dormitory/apartments provided and administered by the study abroad firm Accent International.
Student accommodations have two to four bedrooms with one to two bathrooms per residence.
All accommodations have been renovated recently and include common area, kitchen facilities, refrigerator, washing machine, television, and wireless internet. On-site 24-hour/7-days-a-week logistical support is also included.
Team members will also have access to a study center / business center operated by Accent International.
The program fee covers the cost of lunch (Monday-Friday), but not other meals which are self-catering.

Work and instruction on-site at Gabii

Volunteers will work on-site Monday through Friday, usually arriving on-site by 7.30am. Prospective applicants should note that this is a labor-intensive program and be aware that working long hours in the hot sun is to be expected. Average daytime temperatures will be in the range of 90˚ F or higher.
Applicants must be in good health, have passed a recent physical examination, and provide up-to-date records of current inoculations.
Volunteers will work in small teams supervised by experienced excavators. Additionally, the field program will expose participants to all facets of fieldwork, including working with ceramics and other archaeological materials, environmental sampling, flotation, topography, conservation, and documentation. A regular rotation will be established for field program participants.
Regular site tours (usually once every 7 to 10 days) will help keep all team members up to speed on the progress of excavation work in the various areas of the site.
Several optional weekend outings will be arranged where guided tours will be offered by staff members. In past years weekend trips have included the Forum Romanum and Palatine Hill as well as Ostia Antica.

2011 volunteers at Ostia Antica

Atmosphere and Experience

The Gabii Project is a large team (50+ people) effort. Teamwork is the key to our success, but the working conditions can be intense. The successful applicant will be ready to work as part of a large team and welcome the opportunity to work and learn cooperatively.
The combined experience of the Gabii Project’s multi-national staff offers volunteers the opportunities to learn and practice some of the latest and most cutting edge techniques of field archaeology. Additionally, an excellent staff to student ratio guarantees close instruction in field methodology.

For University of Michigan Students

You may be eligible for financial aid via the University of Michigan.
You may be eligible for University of Michigan credit by enrolling for a fall 2012 independent study with Professor Nicola Terrenato. Contact Marcello Mogetta with your questions.

A note on funding

Students accepted for the field program are encouraged to seek outside funding sources to support their participation as the Gabii Project does not offer need-based financial support. Possible sources include one's home department or institution, as well as various competitive fieldwork fellowships like those administered by the Archaeological Institute of America and the Etruscan Foundation.

Trench tours on-site in 2011

Need more information?

Please contact Dr. Jeffrey Becker via email.

Download the .pdf version of the field program flyer.

New Gabii Project publications: infant tombs and a new Latin inscription

2011-10-26T10:48:00.002-04:00

Two new articles related to the Gabii Project's work have appeared this fall.

David Potter and Benjamin Fortson. 2011. "A Fragmentary Early Republican Public Inscription from Gabii." Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik (ZPE) 178:255ff.

Jeffrey A. Becker and Jessica Nowlin. 2011. "Orientalizing infant burials from Gabii, Italy." BABESCH 86:29-37.

End of the 2011 campaign

2011-08-16T13:55:00.000-04:00

The sixth week of the Gabii field season was busy to the point of being frantic - thus the delay in getting this post up on the web. The week was one of finishing up various projects and beginning the process of finalizing the documentation of the 2011 excavations. We were undaunted by some mid-week rain and finished in fine fashion. Our final Friday was marked by a party in Frascati and the bulk of the team departed the following morning.

The archaeological picture at Gabii continues to become ever more complex. At this stage our team has explored parts of four city blocks and, in so doing, exposed multiple phases of the city's long and varied life. A huge revelation, so to speak, from the 2011 season has been the emergence of substantial architectural remains from multiple periods of the city's life. The Republican phases of the city are increasingly well-represented as we are beginning to see the presence of structures that were occupied in phase with the quasi-orthogonal grid of the Republican city. At this stage the project has explored parts of three side streets of that grid. The city's contraction, influenced in large part by the quarrying of lapis Gabinus involves the gradual abandonment of these city blocks and the subsequent collapse of the vacant buildings. At the southwest of our excavation area an Imperial necropolis emerged which has produced the lead "burrito" sarcophagus (2009) and now over 30 additional tombs of the Imperial period. The city's story is a rich one and a pleasant challenge to unravel.

The 2011 Gabii Project team

Nicola Terrenaton on-site during the final site tour of 2011.

Nicola Terrenato, the project's director, was pleased to announce on July 29th that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) had awarded him a 3-year collaborative research grant to support the project's research from 2012.

The final week on-site saw a core group of staff members working to complete documentation, finds recording, and end-of-season break down and storage of equipment and supplies. We completed a second round of aerial photography and also backfilled parts of the site - some permanently, others temporarily. Now that the team and staff have returned to their various countries (and continents) we begin the post-excavation process for the 2011 material and the planning process for the 2012 field season. See you in this space soon ...

The project is enormously thankful to its staff, students, and friends (thanks, Sandro!!) for a fantastic and productive 2011 season.

Our die hard staff.

Week 5 - helicopters, radar, and X-rays (oh my!) ...

2011-07-24T17:39:00.000-04:00

The fifth week of our 2011 field campaign was abuzz with activity. In addition to our ongoing excavations in the ancient city of Gabii, the project continues to collect data by additional means. As in past years, we carried out a pass of aerial photography on-site via helicopter (thanks to Sgr. Italo Marini of the Fly Roma School) in order to see our work from a different angle. The utility of aerial photography in archaeology has long been proven and, in the case of urban sites such as Gabii, it is especially useful for recognizing alignments and orientations within the site. Happily, thanks to our surveying capabilities the aerial photographs can be orthorectified and incorporated into the Gabii GIS - super exciting!

Our intrepid field director Anna Gallone on the helicopter mission to take aerial photos of Gabii.

Our technological saturation only increased as the week went on as we were happy to benefit from the presence of specialist colleagues from Roma Tre University and Davidson College, respectively. From Roma Tre we welcomed Professor Elena Pettinelli and her team from the physics department who this week began additional tests using ground penetrating radar (GPR) at Gabii. This geophysical technique recognizes archaeology and geologic features by creating subsurface radar profiles and our project is beginning to test the effectiveness of GPR at Gabii as a guide to better understanding the site. Our physics colleagues were even generous enough to come out to Frascati and talk to our group about physics and its applications for archaeology.

Elena Pettinelli from Roma Tre University.

We were also happy to welcome Prof. Ruth Beeston from the Chemistry Department at Davidson College in North Carolina. In conjunction with Hilary Becker, Ruth was in Italy to carry out XRF testing in the lab of the University of Michigan / University of Calabria project in the Area Sacra di Sant'Omobono in Rome and she was generous enough to come to Gabii with her XRF equipment. The handheld XRF equipment is used for conducting elemental analyses and Ruth's day of testing at Gabii included samples of human bones along with other specimens, including geologic ones. Adding XRF testing to our arsenal of investigative strategies is a boon to the research agenda of the Gabii Project.

Ruth Beeston and Austin Raymond in the lab at Gabii.

Davidson College crew at Gabii: Will Milvaney, Hilary Becker, Austin Raymond, and Ruth Beeston.

With all of this flying, zapping, and radar-ing, we would be remiss if we did not mention the excellent progress made in terms of excavation at Gabii. Our teams continued to make progress in all of our excavation areas, something that was evident to all of our visitors this week, including the local inspector of the archaeological service. As we move on to the sixth, and final, week of the 2011 campaign we continue to derive great excitement from our students and sharing with them the process of discovery at Gabii.

Fourth week at Gabii

2011-07-17T11:28:00.000-04:00

A pattern of oppressive heat and humidity gave way after mid-week and we finished this, our fourth week of the 2011 campaign, under beautiful skies at Gabii. Gabii Project veterans continue to marvel at Gabii's unique weather patterns, seemingly still influenced by the crater lake of Castiglione, although the lake was drained a long time ago. The winds helped to make the temperatures lovely for fieldwork - although the occasional blown paperwork or silt in the eye was a downside to the windy weather. In terms of archaeology, we had a productive week. In Area C we continued to delimit a Republican structure and in Area E a lot of hard work cleaning top soil and colluvium is starting to reveal interesting and promising wall features, in addition to more evidence for Gabii's street system. Elsewhere on the site we continue to work to complete the excavation of a structure in our Area B as well as to document and model various features, including digital tomb modeling. Our lecture program this week included presentations by Hilary Becker (Davidson College) on the inland economy of ancient Italy and by Ruth Beeston (Davidson College) on XRF and chemical applications in archaeology. Mid-week we were invited to visit the excavations of our 'neighbor' Marco Fabbri who is working at the site of an archaic building on the rim of the crater of Castiglione. To top off a great week, a number of the team joined Jeffrey Becker and Hilary Becker for a visit to the ruins of Ostia Antica on Saturday. All enjoyed a fun day walking and talking amidst the ruins. As we move on to the fifth week of this year's campaign, we look forward to what is sure to be an exciting new round of discoveries. The project also joined Google+ this week, so come join our circle(s)!

Austin Raymond (Davidson College).

Evan Goldstick (Michigan), Samuel Palumbo (Bryn Mawr) work with supervisor Jamie Sewell.

Ruth Beeston talks about chemistry and archaeology.

Part of our group at the sanctuary of Attis in the Campus of the Magna Mater. (l to r, starting with back row: Brandon Tomasso, Jacob Kovacs-Goodman, Evan Levine, Sheira Cohen, Jonathan Flynn, Julia Reilly, Aida Ali, Jackson Vaughn, Tim Hart, Ruth Beeston, Michael Beeston, Hilary Becker, Austin Raymond, Evan Goldstick, Nick Bartos, Christina Cha, Ilana Hill, Zoe Fox, Lauren Coughlin.

Part of our group at the Capitolium. (l to r, starting with back row: AJ Chrapliwy, Jackson Vaughn, Sam Palumbo, Evan Goldstick, Amanda Swango, Tim Hart, Austin Raymond, Sheira Cohen, Jeffrey Becker, Jacob Kovacs-Goodman, Brandon Tomasso, Sophia Staley, Laura Steitz, Carrie Wallace, Lauren Coughlin, Jonathan Flynn, Nick Bartos, Julia Reilly, Zoe Fox, Alison Rittershaus, Aida Ali, Ilana Hill, Christina Cha, Evan Levine.

Gabines on the Ianiculum?

2011-07-10T06:32:00.001-04:00

Yes, it can happen - a geographic convergence of sorts, Gabines coming to the hills of Rome. This was the case on the evening of Saturday, July 9, 2011, when the American Academy in Rome and the University of Michigan's Office of Development hosted a reception for friends of the Gabii Project in the Academy's Bass Garden. Welcoming the group were project director Nicola Terrenato, Brodie Remington from the Office of Development, and T. Corey Brennan, the Andrew W. Mellon Professor-in-Charge of the School of Classical Studies at the American Academy. The welcome highlighted the strengths of the University of Michigan and its tradition of Roman studies and Classical archaeology, as well as the ties between the two institutions. After a discussion in the garden about the aims of the Gabii Project, the group adjourned to the Casa Rustica on the Academy's grounds for a visit with the lead sarcophagus excavated at Gabii in 2009. It was a lovely evening - with perfect weather - and the Gabii Project is grateful to its friends and supporters for coming out to share in both a lovely evening in Rome and in our fieldwork outcomes.

Third week of the 2011 season

2011-07-09T07:25:00.000-04:00

It seems unbelievable that we have reached the mid-way point of the 2011 field season. Things on-site at Gabii are so busy and our team (85 persons strong) is working so hard that time seems to be flying by this summer. Our week was very productive and was fortunate for good weather, save one rainy day. The excavations in Areas C, D, and E continue to work to delimit parts of city blocks, including phases that pre-date the imposition of Gabii's street grid that was exposed by survey. This involves looking not only for limits with respect to the blocks, but also to untangling what is looking to be a multi-phase architectural chronology. Area E (our newest area) is still in the process of clearing colluvial layers, but has in so doing exposed some promising wall tops and important evidence of our easternmost side street.

Stormy skies over the Ager Gabinus.

Sophia Staley (Brown) and David Zackheim (Williams) work with assistant supervisor Marilyn Evans (Berkeley), at center.

Laura Wilke (Cornell) and Bailey Benson (UPenn) work sorting pottery.

Area B Team on 8th July 2011 with supervisor Claudia Melisch, at center.

At the Villa Mercede we had two engaging lecture presentations by Nicola Terrenato and Abigail Crawford, respectively. Terrenato's talk on stratigraphy and the Harris matrix pushed students to think about the relationship of stratigraphic contexts on an archaeological site and the challenges of organizing stratigraphic information in a usable and lucid way. Crawford's talk on archaeological materials included a 'practical' component wherein students were given finds data and stratigraphic data for various units and asked to offer interpretations on that basis. Both exercises were very useful for our group.

Nicola Terrenato discusses the Harris matrix.

Abby Crawford discusses archaeological materials.

Alison Rittershaus (Harvard)

Nicola Terrenato capped the week with a presentation at the Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome in tandem with a presentation of the publication of the Regional Pathways to Complexity Project. The event enjoyed an excellent turnout and the Gabii Project is extremely grateful to the Dutch Institute for the invitation to include our work in their event. On we go to the fourth week!

Nicola Terrenato discusses Gabii Project research on July 8, 2011.

Second week at Gabii - full steam ahead!

2011-07-02T09:38:00.001-04:00

Somehow we have reached the end of the second full week of work with the full team on-site. In spite of a day of rest mid-week for the SS. Peter and Paul holiday, the week was very full, busy, and productive. We welcomed on-site 25 new student volunteers from the American Institute for Roman Culture in Rome who will spend the remainder of July working with our team. Some of them have joined existing excavation teams while others have formed a new team that is tackling a new area (Area E), so we welcome their arrival and participation.

Elsewhere on the site things are in full swing. The environmental lab is processing soil samples of all kinds, as well as setting up for what is to be a robust campaign of dry-sieving of soon-to-emerge occupation layers. In the finds lab the staff is working to collect and collate data on past season's finds, all the while processing new cassette as they come from the field.

For the 'diggers' work continues on structures in three of our areas, at this point the main goal is the delimiting of the ground plans of these buildings. To that end, we are working on a further expansion of one of our excavation baulks. On this, a beautiful Italian Saturday, we look forward to the upcoming third week of the 2011 campaign.

Gabii Project at the Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome

2011-07-01T16:25:00.000-04:00

On July 8, 2011, at 18.00, the occasion of the presentation of the new volume Regional Pathways to Complexity: Settlement and Land-Use Dynamics in Early Italy from the Bronze Age to the Republican Period by Peter Attema, Gert-Jan Burgers, and Martijn van Leusen (Amsterdam, 2011) will provide the occasion for a presentation by Nicola Terrenato on the recent work of the Gabii Project under the title "The Gabii Project: Recent discoveries and perspectives".

The event is open to the public.

Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome

Via Omero 10/12

00197 Rome, Italy

For more information, contact the Gabii Project (gabii.project (at) gmail (dot) com). For information on the venue or directions, please contact the Royal Netherlands Institute at Rome <archeo@knir.it>.

Gabii 2011 • first week

2011-06-26T03:42:00.000-04:00

Monday 20th June

Monday morning was fiercely hot and more humid than it has been - but no matter, we were on-site with nearly our full complement of staff and students. Since this was 'day one', the morning was given to orienting newcomers and re-orienting returning hands. Nicola Terrenato welcomed the group to Gabii and we also were briefed on various safety matters by Carlo Monda. Tours of Gabii's urban area and Iuno sanctuary were followed by tours of the various excavation areas. After lunch, students divided themselves into their respective excavation groups and got to work cleaning their sectors. For those of us watching them, their excitement was evident - as is ours as we begin another season's work at Gabii. In the early evening we re-convened to discuss documentation procedures for this year's excavation.

Nicola Terrenato welcomes the team.

Students introduce themselves to the group

Cleaning begins in Area D

Marcello Mogetta discusses stratigraphic recording.

Tuesday 21st June

Day two! Today was a beautiful day - sunny, but with our favorite Gabii breeze that cools but also creates oh-so-fun dust devils that zoom across the site. We also were joined by our sometimes orbiting friends: military pilots screeching across central Lazio, touch-and-go landing practice at Fly School Rome, and the mowing crew of the SAR. So, a busy day on the site! Once on-site today, everyone went straight to it. In Area B we have cleaning operations to complete the excavation and documentation of structure mostly exposed in 2010. In Areas C and D a similar story is to be found, with lots of cleaning to be done to isolate features revealed by baulk expansions this spring. Since so much surface cleaning went on today, it was much fun to orbit around the site and see student reactions to artifact recovery. Even if only a sherd contained in a non-contextualized 'zero' layer, that first artifact can be a profound experience. It is particularly delightful to watch a meaningful understanding come across the face of a student whose prior experience has been with archaeological materials on the printed page or in the museum case - in one's hand it is a different story. Similarly, pottery washing in the lab, accompanied by instruction from Abby Crawford (BU), seemed to register with all involved. All in all, a good and productive day.

Tim Hart (Michigan / IPGRH)

Aaron Chapnick (Buffalo) recording a feature with students.

Wednesday, June 22nd
The team seems to be getting into its daily rhythm - wake up, bus, on-site to gather tools, and off to work. We are operating three excavation areas again this year, thus three teams at work, plus the group in the finds processing lab and the topography team. From the directors' point of view, it is enjoyable to orbit the site and watch these groups working together. Today cleaning progressed and new excavation is underway in our Area C.

Zoe Fox (Bryn Mawr College) in Area B.

Jamie Sewell, AJ Chrapliwy (Michigan), and Evan Goldstick (Michigan) in Area C.

Jamie Sewell works on a section drawing.

Thursday, June 23rd
Today was an intensely hot day on the site. Excavation of an imperial cappuccina-type inhumation burial advanced significantly, as did work on section drawing in a modern feature in area C. Students are also rotating through the finds and environmental processing labs, learning the important ceramic typologies to be found at Gabii and assisting the environmental staff in recovery of ecofacts from soils samples. This process of environmental sampling stands the real chance of producing important environmental data like carbonized seeds and bones that can eventually help to reconstruct important aspects of the lifeways and diets of the inhabitants of the ancient city.

Supervisor Claudia Melisch works in Area B.

Samantha Lash (Michigan) and Austin Raymond (Davidson) in Area B.

Sabian Hasani (Michigan) in Area D.

Lauren Coughlin (UMBC) in Area D.

Friday, June 24th
Today, the final day of week one, happened under serene skies with a touch of cloud cover. It was a shorter day as the Soprintendenza elected to close the archaeological area earlier than usual, but nonetheless a great deal of progress was made in our excavation areas. All three areas are poised to move into stratified deposits in week two, the prospect of which is of course exciting. It is also evident that the 2011 team is developing a good camaraderie already at this early date.

Students work with Abby Crawford (BU) and Laura Wilke (Cornell) in the finds processing lab.

Emanuele Casagrande Cicci surveys in Area C.

Claudia Melisch, Alessia Nava, and Sabrina Zottis.

Andrew Johnston (Harvard) with students Jackson Vaughn (Kalamazoo), William Milvaney (Davidson), and Christina Cha (UCLA) in Area C.

...and we're back at Gabii

2011-06-17T11:12:00.001-04:00

On what proved a lovely and temperate week of weather in central Italy, the Gabii Project team got back to work on-site. Field director Anna Gallone and colleagues have been working for the previous two weeks to prepare the site, extend some excavation sectors, and generally make ready for a good season; today marked the start of that season with a group of our core staff showing up for work. We all return to Gabii charged with energy for this year's campaign, which promises to be a campaign in which we complete sectors that have been the focus of work over the previous two seasons and also begin to explore newly expanded portions of other sectors. All of these sectors, of course, coming together to help tell what is proving to be a complicated story of urban ups and downs in the ancient city.

Our work this week focused on the preparation of the excavation site for the arrival of the full team on this coming Sunday, June 19, and the completion of various excavation tasks remaining in our 'Area A' from 2010. We are pleased to welcome back many returning staff members - as well as a record number of returning undergraduate students. We will again be joined by students from the Summer Program in Archaeology of the American Academy in Rome, as well as by several recent alumni/-ae of the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. We hope you will watch this space for updates throughout the season, as well as take the opportunity to follow us on Facebook or Twitter. We'd also like to encourage you to check out our student blog, Ager Gabinus.

Anna Gallone and Marcello Mogetta

Gabii Project 2011 field campaign approaches

2011-04-07T19:21:00.001-04:00

After a long (and cold) winter in the United States, it hardly seems possible that summertime could be near, but it does, in fact, approach apace and the Gabii Project team is already hard at work planning another season of fieldwork. In some respects it seems as if the fieldwork of 2010 just concluded a few days ago ... nonetheless there is already a palpable anticipation as we begin to think of being in the field once more. The goals for this campaign center on the continued investigation of features revealed during the first two field campaigns (2009 and 2010), including the ancient city's grid of streets, an industrial zone, and a former area of occupation that transitioned to an ad hoc necropolis in the Imperial period. The investigations in various sectors will again be accompanied by environmental sampling and digital mapping. These threads, woven together, are contributing to the collection of a rich data set for the urban center of ancient Gabii and are already facilitating our study of the site and reconstruction and modeling of the ancient city. We are witnessing the potential of digital recording and modeling, both of which are changing not only procedures in the field but also granting new analytical opportunities. Major questions about Gabii remain, including the chronological trajectory of its rise as well as the onset of its contraction and eventual abandonment.

A look across the Ager Gabinus from July 2010.

The project will again offer its volunteer field program this summer, bringing student volunteers to the field to participate in all aspects of the excavation process. This season the team is once again multi-national and represents many institutions. Those institutions represented include: the University of Michigan, Brown University, Davidson College, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Auckland, Kalamazoo College, Stanford University, University of California Los Angeles, University of California Berkeley, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Bryn Mawr College, Carleton College, Oberlin College, Boston University, Harvard University, Washington and Lee University, and Williams College. The project will also again welcome graduate student participants from the Summer Program in Archaeology (SPA) sponsored by the American Academy in Rome. In 2011 the Gabii Project is pleased that its field program has been certified by the Register of Professional Archaeologists; we also have entered a partnership with the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies (ICCS) in Rome and have several Centristi signed up to join us in the field. We plan more extensive blogging by staff and students this season, so join us in following those posts over at Ager Gabinus: dispatches from the field.

The project's directors always welcome your inquiries. Watch this space for continuing updates throughout the 2011 field season!

Nowlin presents at "Death, Decay, and Discovery"

2011-04-03T00:00:00.016-04:00

J. Nowlin

Jessica Nowlin, Ph.D. student in the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University and a member of the Gabii Project's topography team, will present a paper as part of the upcoming symposium "Death, Decay, and Discovery: An interdisciplinary workshop on taphonomic approaches to understanding burial practice" on April 9, 2011. The workshop, organized by Brown University post-doctoral fellow Allison Davis, brings together mortuary archaeologists and taphonomists to discuss the utility of these approaches in answering larger archaeological questions. Nowlin's paper, "More than Pretty Pictures: The Use of Three-Dimensional Modeling in the Documentation of Funerary Remains" concentrates on the use of digital photogrammetry at Gabii for modeling funerary contexts. In 2009 Nowlin's work on digital models of sensitive sub-Geometric elite tombs at Gabii has resulted, in part, in the forthcoming publication of said tombs in J.A. Becker and J. Nowlin. 2011. "Orientalizing Infant Burials from Gabii, Italy." BABESCH 86:9-21.

Will the real Lapis Gabinus please stand up?

2011-03-31T22:03:00.001-04:00

Jason Farr

Jason Farr, assistant trench master with the Gabii Project and Ph.D. candidate in Classical archaeology at the University of Michigan, will present a paper at the upcoming Duke-UNC Graduate Colloquium in Classics taking place April 1-3, 2011. The colloquium, a long-standing graduate forum, centers this year on the theme of "Refuse and Reuse: The Challenges of Repurposing and Re-imagining in the Ancient World" and will feature keynote speaker Eric Varner (Emory). Jason's paper, "Re-Purposing Lapis Gabinus and Re-Imagining Gabii: the Exploitation of a Stone Resource and the Memory of a Latin City" will discuss the Roman quarrying of lapis Gabinus, as well Gabii's role as a symbol in Latin literature. Jason has defended a dissertation proposal at Michigan in fall 2010 entitled "The Quarries of Gabii and Lapis Gabinus" and is in the early stages of his work on the Gabine quarries.

Gabii Project and the Centro enter partnership

2011-01-29T15:50:00.000-05:00

The Gabii Project is happy to have entered a new partnership with the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome (ICCS), the esteemed and venerable study abroad center founded by Brooks Otis and a consortium of American colleges and universities in 1965. Under this partnership, the Gabii Project and its summer field program will become an official "affiliated program" from the Centro's point of view. Centro students will receive a high priority for selection into the summer field program sponsored by the Gabii Project. Centristi already feature prominently in the organization of the Gabii Project (Jeffrey Becker and Hilary Becker are alumni of the Centro’s spring 1998 iteration) and we look forward to welcoming other Centristi in summer 2011 and beyond.

Lapis Gabinus named one of "Top 50 Archeologist Bloggers”

2011-01-17T09:28:00.000-05:00

The website http://www.engineeringdegreeonline.org/ has named the Lapis Gabinus as one of its "Top 50 Archeologist Bloggers" in its latest posting. We rank 13th on their list; it is nice to be in the distinguished company of a host of good bloggers and their blogs. Thanks!

Gabii Project at the AIA meetings in San Antonio, Texas

2010-11-10T21:38:00.007-05:00

Nicola Terrenato will present a paper on the 2009 and 2010 seasons of the Gabii Project at the upcoming meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America to be held in San Antonio, Texas, in January 2011. Presently Terrenato's paper is scheduled to appear in Session 6B "Recent fieldwork in Roman Italy" on Saturday, January 8, 2011, from 2:45 until 5:15 PM. The conference takes place in the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter Hotel.

"The Gabii Project: Excavations 2009-2010."
Nicola Terrenato (University of Michigan), Jeffrey A. Becker (Brown University), Anna Gallone (Gabii Project), Marcello Mogetta (University of Michigan), and Rachel Opitz (CNRS, Besançon).

So, as you 'remember the Alamo', think of Gabii, too, and we'll hope to see you in Texas!

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German TV coverage of lead sarcophagus testing

2010-11-10T21:33:00.002-05:00

As has been reported previously, the lead sarcophagus (the famous 'burrito') excavated at Gabii in 2009 has been undergoing focused neutron tomography tests in Munich, Germany. Under the close supervision of field director Anna Gallone and colleagues from the Forschungsneutronenquelle Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II), the sarcophagus has gone through a variety of tests. The online video clip, from German television, offers a first look at this process.

The Mystery of the Lead Coffin

Munich neutron researchers study mummy

Tense expectation at the arrival of an archaeological sensation. Carefully packed in this crate is a 2m long coffin, roughly 1,700 years old, found in excavations near Rome. Who is inside, nobody yet knows, for the coffin has not yet been opened. At the TU (Technische Universität) in Munich, the mysterious find is to be examined. He will lead the examination. Burkhard Schillinger is a “neutron scientist” and has been preparing for weeks. He wants to bombard the coffin with neutrons, so to produce an image of the coffin`s contents, without opening it. (Schillinger) “We are very eager to find out if we will be able to see anything, for we ourselves do not yet know if it will work. We are at the limit of what is physically feasible with this analysis, and we are very excited.”

Can the Bavarian researchers solve the mystery of the Roman lead coffin? In this tomograph, the first measurements will be undertaken. The crate is handled like a “raw egg”, for any kind of shaking could damage the contents. To ensure that everything goes according to plan, the archaeologist Anna Gallone has traveled especially from Italy. She, along with an international team, discovered the coffin. And this is what it looks like. It weighs about 350kg, and has a distinct form. The coffin comprises thick walls of lead that were folded together over the corpse. An extremely lavish procedure for this period. (Anna) “It was definitely someone that was very rich because of the quantity of lead that was used for the coffin. The way in which was produced was very expensive. It must have been someone of high status, but exactly what position the person is hard to tell at this stage.”

The only certainty is that the person was buried here, in the historical town of Gabii, 18km east of Rome, today an excavated field. Archaeologists have found more than 20 graves here. Anna Gallone (The Gabii Project's field director) has also investigated some of them, but the lead coffin is the only one of its kind. The graves were situated on a tufo-plateau, and were subject to rain and sun for centuries. Amazingly, despite these adverse conditions, the bones have survived well. From them, the archaeologists can roughly establish the age of the coffin - the 3^rd century AD. But who could afford such a burial? Back in Munich. Burkhard Schillinger prepares the main test. For this, one of the most advanced neutron sources in Europe is available. To get a good picture, the coffin must be placed directly in front of the source. Because neutrons possess no charge, like miniscule probes, they can be used to research the quality of metals without disturbing them, a method so good for the analysis of the coffin, it is as if it was designed for it. But there is a problem, for there are several points where the coffin is not sealed, and through these holes earth has found its way inside. Could this disturb the analysis? (Schillinger) “Earth, especially when it is wet, is an enormous obstacle for the neutrons. The lead that you see here is easy for us to get through, but since neutrons are sensitive to light elements, then they are naturally also sensitive to soil, and we have grave doubts whether it will work.”

It starts! During the analysis the scientists have to leave the room due to the strong radiation. What happens now behind these steel doors can be imagined in this way: the neutrons penetrate the interior of the coffin. Some will be diverted, or absorbed. The rest will pass through the coffin and hit a luminous screen covered with a layer of lithium. The lithium atoms burst and light up the screen. A sensitive camera records the light and saves it as a photo. But in practise it does not always work. Also this time. On the monitor, the first image appears. As feared, the soil diverted the neutrons too strongly. The layer of lead can been seen clearly, but beneath everything is black. Burkhard Schillinger and the archaeologists start once again, this time with stronger neutrons. They are specifically interested in recognisable grave goods, clues to the status of the person. And really, the image on the screen allows the recognition of the first details. (Anna) “There is actually the possibility that what we are looking at is the skeleton. What I find particularly noteworthy is this area. This here is possibly the pelvis. And beneath, this long shape, might actually be the backbone.” Grave goods, by the way, are not recognisable. To find out more, the coffin will be opened in the next few weeks at Rome. Until then, the archaeologists can only speculate. (Anna) “Well I mean the problem of interpreting this coffin, is that there is no comparable find in Italy or the Roman Empire. For this reason it is possible that person was a foreigner, from northern Europe or from the eastern provinces.” The neutron analysis was able to deliver the first clues. The coffin contains human remains. These will have to be examined in greater detail at Rome.

Translated from the German by Jamie Sewell

13 November 2010

Gabii Project 2011 field program - now accepting applications

2010-10-15T14:21:00.002-04:00

The 2011 excavation season is closer than it might seem and the Gabii Project is now accepting applications from students and volunteers for the 2011 field program via its website. The 2011 season will mark the fifth year of fieldwork at Gabii and we are excited to again bring students into the field and put them in contact with cutting edge methods and techniques in field archaeology.

The program will run from June 19 until July 30, 2011. Applications will be accepted online via the project's website (click on the '2011 application form' at left). The deadline for applying to the program is February 28, 2011; all qualified students are eligible to apply, not just those associated with the University of Michigan. Notifications of acceptance will be made by March 15, 2011, and accepted volunteers must submit their payment in full by April 1, 2011, in order to secure their spot. The cost for the 6-week program, inclusive of room and board, insurance, equipment, and local transportation, will be $4,600 (USD) in 2011. It is not possible to receive academic credit for participation in the field program. The information below outlines some of the basic details of the field program; more complete information can be found on the project website. To apply: please complete the application form linked through the toolbar at the left and submit electronically. Please complete all fields. Then, please be sure to ask two professional recommenders (who know you either from an academic setting or a prior fieldwork experience) to send letters on your behalf to Prof. Jeffrey Becker (gabiiproject-at-umich.edu - replace at with @) by February 28, 2011.

Accommodation:
- The Hotel Villa Mercede in Frascati, Italy, will serve as the Gabii Project's base of operations again in 2011. The team will be accommodated there and will take their meals during the week at the Balubino restaurant.
- Volunteers will be accommodated in shared rooms (2 to 4 people per room) with a private bathroom.
- Convenient local train service links Frascati to downtown Rome and regional buses provide other transportation options.
Work on-site:
- Volunteers will work on site 7:30 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday. Applicants should note that this is a labor intensive program and be aware that working long hours in the hot sun is to be expected. Average daytime temperatures will be in the range of above 90˚ F.
- Applicants must be in good health, have passed a recent physical examination, and provide up-to-date records of current inoculations.
- Volunteers will work in small teams supervised by experienced excavators. Additionally, the field program will expose participants to all facets of fieldwork, including working with ceramics and other archaeological materials, environmental sampling, flotation, topography, conservation, and documentation.
- Regular site tours (usually once every 7 to 10 days) will help keep all team members up to speed on the progress of excavation work in the various areas of the site.

Instruction:
- The above-mentioned rotation on-site will be accompanied by various instructional opportunities from 'hands on' instruction in excavation techniques to small group instruction on archaeological materials and topography.
- The 2011 field program will include a lecture series (averaging 1 lecture per week) on topics related to the methodology field archaeology and to the archaeology of Central Italy.
- Several optional weekend outings will be arranged where guided tours will be offered. In 2010 weekend trips included the Forum Romanum and Palatine Hill as well as Ostia Antica.
Atmosphere and Experience:
- The Gabii Project is a large team (50+ people) effort. Teamwork is the key to our success, but the working conditions can be intense. The successful applicant will be ready to work as part of a large team and welcome the opportunity to work and learn cooperatively.
- The combined experience of the Gabii Project’s multi-national staff offers volunteers the opportunities to learn and practice some of the latest and most cutting edge techniques of field archaeology. Additionally, an excellent staff to student ratio guarantees close instruction in field methodology.
- n.b. Students accepted to the field program are encouraged to seek funding sources to support their participation as the Gabii Project does not offer need-based financial support.

For more information, please contact Prof. Jeffrey Becker (gabiiproject-at-umich.edu - replace at with @).

Gabii Project presentation at Brown University

2010-09-17T15:36:00.001-04:00

On Thursday, September 23, 2010, at 12:00 PM Jeffrey Becker and Jessica Nowlin will offer an informal presentation on elite infant tombs excavated at Gabii in 2009. The talk will be part of the Brown Bag Series in Archaeology organized by the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World.

The details: Jeffrey Becker and Jessica Nowlin (Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology, Brown University)
Orientalizing Infant Tombs at Gabii: Discovery, Documentation, and Interpretation
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology, Rhode Island Hall, Room 108. The event is open to the public.

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Lapis Gabinus recognized as a 'Top 50 Archaeology Blog' for 2010

2010-08-03T18:46:00.000-04:00

We are pleased that this blog - Lapis Gabinus - has been recognized as a 'Top 50 Archaeology Blog' for 2010 by the website 'OnlinePhDPrograms.com'.

Weeks III and IV at Gabii

2010-07-16T18:47:00.001-04:00

The last two weeks have flown by us, scarcely leaving time to make a post on the blog! We are in the midst of a heat wave here in Italy, but you would be hard pressed to tell considering how hard our team is working - they are undaunted by the heat. The last two weeks have been exciting and quite busy. We were fortunate to have Mario Torelli (Perugia) visit us on Friday, July 10 and it was great fun to show him around the site and benefit from his insights. This week our colleagues from the Archaeological Prospection Services of Southampton visited us to check various magnetic anomalies discovered during the 2007-2008 survey phase; we were also lucky to have several sets of parents and relatives of team members visit us, so Gabii has been a busy place. But for the most part, we have been digging - and doing a lot of it! Our Area B has finally emerged from the overburden of Roman tombs and occupation evidence is finally appearing. Elsewhere on the site we continue to analyze various bits of evidence, including an in-depth examination of animal bones and the ongoing collection of environmental samples. In all, we are extremely please with the progress we are making and look forward to the week coming up.

Gabii Project 2010 - reflections on the first week

2010-06-27T13:21:00.007-04:00

The first week of 2010 fieldwork at Gabii has flown by -- and in such a quick fashion that week two is half over and we are just now composing this update! In all, the first week on-site was fantastic - the weather was good (cooler than average) and the progress in terms of work was excellent (certainly above average!). We are pleased both to see a lot of new faces on this year's team, but also to welcome back numerous familiar faces; old and new team members are bonding well together and are giving work on-site a great atmosphere.

The first day dawned a bit cool, and was sprinkled with spots of drizzle. This did not stop us from bringing everyone to the site, signing out equipment, and taking tours of our own work site and the larger area of ancient Gabii. Students saw both the temple of Iuno and the excavated area that belongs to the Soprintendenza in Rome. Inside our own area we recapped the 2009 field season by exploring the various features brought to light and also observing various new features exposed by natural erosion and also our enlargement of the excavation area. We discussed with the team this year's excavation strategy and the key points we hope to address. These include further investigation of the road system identified by geophysical survey in 2007 and 2008 and further work on architectural remains on our Area B and Area C, wherein we see Imperial phases and their post-abandonment layers and for which we hope to construct a broader narrative in terms of phases of use (and disuse).

As the week progressed, the weather warmed up decently, but was pleasant. Italy's wet spring has produced a bumper crop of wildflowers and it almost seems a shame to weed them out of the excavation area. We all spent a good deal of time this first week cleaning the site and beginning to understand the newly expanded areas A and C. This cleaning, though a bit tedious, is a great opportunity for the team to begin to gel and already signs point toward a great and productive season with a great group.

Pre-season preparations for the 2010 season

2010-06-05T04:34:00.007-04:00

This week has been a busy one on the ground here in Italy as preparations for the 2010 excavation campaign are in full swing. The list of chores is long - from purchasing supplies, reorganizing the logistics area, cleaning - but each task completed brings us closer to the beginning of what promises to be an exciting season in the field. During the last few days we have been expanding the limits of two of our excavation areas with the careful help of a mechanical digger and a dump truck. By scraping away some topsoil the directors are able to verify the subsurface situation in terms of preserved archaeology and, thus far, the indications of some interesting new features are beginning to emerge. We are looking forward to the arrival of the field staff on 13 June - just more than one week from today!

Gabii at "Archaeological Survey and the City"

2010-05-14T13:53:00.004-04:00

The upcoming Laurence seminar organized by Prof. Martin Millett and the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge will feature two talks related to the work of the Gabii Project. The seminar, under the title "Archaeological survey and the city", brings together panels of archaeologists involved in archaeological survey in the ancient Mediterranean. The seminar runs from May 24th through the 27th 2010.

Both of the Gabii related papers will be offered on May 25th.

Nicola Terrenato. "Survey and the Orthogonal city. At the intersection of scholarly traditions".

Steven Kay (BSR/APSS). "Geophysical survey of the city of Gabii, Italy".

Fiat/Chrysler Scholars at Gabii

2010-05-06T23:05:00.002-04:00

The Gabii Project is pleased to announce the creation of the "Fiat/Chrysler Scholars" program to support the participation of University of Michigan students in the fieldwork at Gabii. These "Fiat/Chrysler Scholars" will have the opportunity to participate firsthand in the exciting fieldwork at Gabii and take part in cutting-edge archaeological research. We are grateful to the Chrysler Foundation and Fiat SPA, who have each made a gift of $25,000 to The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) at the University of Michigan. The directors of the Gabii Project have selected the first group of "Fiat/Chrysler Scholars" and we look forward to updating you on their experiences at Gabii in 2010.

The 2010 Fiat/Chrysler Scholars from the University of Michigan are:

Lauren Bennett (majoring in Latin)
Bailey Benson (majoring in Anthropology and Classical archaeology)
Ivan Cangemi (PhD student in Classical art and archaeology)
Jason Farr (PhD student in Classical art and archaeology)
Cynthia Kazanis (majoring in Anthropology and Classical archaeology)
Melissa King (majoring in Communication Studies and History of art)
Samantha Lash (majoring in Classical archaeology)
Michael Pry (undeclared)
Camille Reynolds (majoring in Classical civilization)
Jessica Ryan (majoring in Classical archaeology and Classical civilization)

Gabii Project in Lazio e Sabina VI (2010)

2010-05-04T21:20:00.005-04:00

The Gabii Project's article in Lazio e Sabina VI, edited by G. Ghini, (2010) appeared today from Edizioni Quasar.

N. Terrenato, A. Gallone, J. A. Becker, and S. Kay. 2010. “Urbanistica Ortogonale a Gabii: Risultati delle nuove prospezioni geofisiche e prospettive per il futuro.” In Lazio e Sabina VI: Atti del Convegno. Sesto Incontro di Studi sul Lazio e la Sabina. Roma 4-6 marzo 2009, edited by G. Ghini, 237-48. Rome: Edizioni Quasar.

In the news: Lead sarcophagus from Gabii

2010-03-30T14:57:00.062-04:00

As has now been released to the press, an unusual Imperial Roman lead sarcophagus was excavated at Gabii in 2009 by the Gabii Project. This new story originated with a small feature by National Geographic News, along with a news release from the News Service of the University of Michigan. A sampling of the resulting press coverage can be found digested and linked here on our blog.

The sarcophagus, which weighs around 1000 lbs, is fashioned from sheets of lead folded so as to encase the deceased, thus the 'burrito' moniker that accompanied the news story and has become something of a popular tag on Twitter and other sites. The unusual nature of the sarcophagus comes from the fact that it does not follow the normal pattern for these objects - and indeed, only several hundred imperial lead sarcophagi are known. The sarcophagus in question here was formed by wrapping sheets of lead around the deceased, crimping the 'head' end and leaving the 'foot' end open and exposed. So, while the corpus of square lead sarcophagi with lids and lead sarcophagi liners is reasonably well defined, the lead-wrapped inhumant remains unusual. We are grateful for the offers of advice and help that are coming in from colleagues from all corners - thank you!

The next phase of study of the sarcophagus will begin shortly with non-invasive tests employed to ascertain something about the contents that are currently shielded by the lead wrapping, which in itself has important value as an artifact. The sarcophagus is heading for the American Academy in Rome in the next days where Mellon Professor T. Corey Brennan has been invaluable and incredibly supportive in facilitating this next phase of research. Prof. Brennan's blog entry is here.

This sarcophagus - about which we are still learning - prompts us to consider events at the far end of Gabii's life as an urban center and also raises interesting possibilities about studying a well-preserved (albeit unusual) status burial in Imperial Latium. While those in the blogosphere are hoping that we find a dangerous vampire, mummy or ancient demon inside, we're betting on a regular Roman, most likely of an elevated social rank.

The research at Gabii is supported by the University of Michigan and its Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, as well as by organizations that include the National Geographic Society. The kind support of the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma and, in particular, Dr. Angelo Bottini and Dr. Stefano Musco, is also gratefully acknowledged. We are also grateful to our friends at LAND srl who so carefully prepared the sarcophagus for removal from the tomb and transported it to safe storage.

THE SARCOPHAGUS 'IN THE NEWS'

U.S. media

Free Republic. 29-March 2010
e! Science News. 29-March 2010
WDIV Detroit. 30-March 2010
WWJ • 950 Detroit. 30-March 2010
LiveScience.com. 30-March 2010
Click on Detroit. 30-March 2010
Yahoo! News. 31-March 2010
Fox News. 31-March 2010
Suite101.com. 31-March 2010
Encyclopedia Britannica Kids. 2-April 2010
American Academy in Rome's blog coverage. 2-April 2010
Blog entry of the University of Michigan Press. 6-April 2010
Archaeology magazine, July/August 2010 issue. 'From the trenches'

Canadian media

National Post. 30-March 2010
Montreal Gazette. 31-March 2010
Calgary Herald. 31-March 2010
The Vancouver Sun. 31-March 2010
Edmonton Journal. 31-March 2010
Ottawa Citizen. 31-March 2010
Canada.com. 31-March 2010
Global Toronto. 31-March 2010
Hamilton Spectator. 7-April 2010

U.K. media

Heritage Key Digest. 30-March 2010
The Independent. 31-March 2010

Italian media

Antikitera. 30-March 2010
Il fatto storico. 31-March 2010
corrispondenti.net. 1-April 2010
Centro Ufologico Taranto Magazine. 1-April 2010
La Stampa. 14-April 2010 interview with Anna Gallone
Le Scienze. June 2010 issue - news digest item.

Asian media

South Asian News. 30-March 2010
National Geographic News - Japan. 31-March 2010
newKereala.com. (India). 31-March 2010
Bí ẩ n chi ế c quan tài g ầ n 2.000 năm tu ổ i (Vietnam). 3-April 2010
Nguoi Viet Online (Vietnam). 4-April 2010
Vietnamnet.vn (Vietnam). 10-May 2010

Hungary and Romania
Terra Magazin (Romania). 31-March 2010
tudomany.ma.hu. (Hungary) 2-April 2010
Hirado.hu. (Hungary) 2-April 2010
hirszerzo (Hungary). 3-April 2010
Ziare.com (Romania). 3-April 2010
Realitatea.net (Romania). 3-April 2010
MNO Magyar Nemzet Online (Hungary). 2-April 2010
Other world and web-based media

SciTech Report. 29-March 2010
LabSpaces. 29-March 2010
RedOrbit. 29-March 2010
Phenomica. 31-March 2010
Softpedia. 31-March 2010
Press Enterprise. 31-March 2010
Ciência Hoje: Jornal de Ciência, Tecnologia e Empreendedorismo. (Portugal). 31-March 2010
El Solitario de la Vega Real. (Spanish). 1-April 2010
svt (Sweden). 3-April 2010
Spektrum Direkt. 31-March 2010
Avalon: revista digital gratuita (Spain). 3-April 2010
ntvmsnbc (Turkey). 31-March 2010
aktualne.cz (Czech). 3-April 2010
Forte (Estonia). 9-April 2010
Postimees (Estonia). 30-March 2010
Milliyet.com (Turkey). 31-March 2010
Historiek.net. 1-April 2010
Poisk news (Russia). 18-April 2010
El Reservado (Spain). 29-April 2010
Autumn 2010. A German radio interview with Anna Gallone about the process of scanning the lead sarcophagus with neutrons in Munich. ("Bleisarg unter der Neutronenlupe: Im Forschungsreaktor untersuchten Archäologen eine antike Rarität").

Gabii Project at '7° Incontro di Studi sul Lazio e la Sabina'

2010-03-03T19:57:00.008-05:00

The seventh Lazio e Sabina conference will take place at various academic venues in Rome from March 9th through March 11th 2010 and the Gabii Project will again be represented among the presentations. Field director Dott.ssa Anna Gallone will present a paper on March 10th entitled, "Gli scavi dell'University of Michigan a Gabii." The paper, co-authored with project director Nicola Terrenato and vice field director Marcello Mogetta will be part of the morning session, beginning at 09:30 am, at the American Academy in Rome.

The full conference program can be found here.

Two upcoming Gabii Project talks in Canada

2010-02-27T01:22:00.004-05:00

Project directors Nicola Terrenato and Jeffrey Becker will present interim lectures on the work of the Gabii Project in the next two weeks.

- On March 3, 2010, at 2:30 PM, Nicola Terrenato will present a talk entitled, "The Gabii Project: a new excavation in a major Latin city" in the Department of Classics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. The lecture will be in Watson 517 and is open to the public.

- On March 11, 2010, at 4:30 PM, Jeffrey Becker will present a talk entitled, "The Gabii Project, 2007-2010: preliminary conclusions and future perspectives" in the Department of Classics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. The lecture will be held in Togo Salmon Hall 701.

Gabii Project: 2010 field program

2009-11-09T21:27:00.008-05:00

The Gabii Project announces its 2010 field program!

The Gabii Project will again offer a field program for students and volunteers in 2010; the program will run from June 20 until July 31, 2010. Applications will be accepted online via the project's website and the deadline for applying to the program is January 31, 2010; all qualified students are eligible to apply, not just those associated with the University of Michigan. Notifications of acceptance will be made by March 1, 2010, and accepted volunteers must submit their payment in full by March 25, 2010, in order to secure their spot. The cost for the 6-week program, inclusive of room and board, insurance, equipment, and local transportation, will be $4,500 (USD). Academic credit is not offered for participation in the field program. The information below outlines some of the basic details of the field program; more complete information can be found on the project website.

Accommodation:

The Hotel Villa Mercede in Frascati, Italy, will serve as the Gabii Project's base of operations. The team will be accommodated there and will take their meals during the week at the Balubino restaurant, while lunches will be provided on-site.
Volunteers will be accommodated in shared rooms (2 to 4 people per room) with a private bathroom.
Convenient local train service links Frascati to downtown Rome and regional buses provide other transportation options.

Work on-site:

Volunteers will work on site 7:30 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday. Applicants should note that this is a labor-intensive program and be aware that working in the hot sun is to be expected. Applicants must be in good health, have passed a recent physical examination, and provide up-to-date records of current inoculations.
Volunteers will work in small team supervised by experienced excavators. Additionally, the field program will expose participants to all facets of fieldwork, including working with ceramics and other archaeological materials, environmental sampling, flotation, topography, conservation, and documentation.
Regular site tours will help keep all team members up to speed on the progress of excavation work.

Instruction:

The above-mentioned rotation on-site will be accompanied by various instructional opportunities from 'hands on' instruction in excavation technique to small group instruction on archaeological materials and topography.
The 2010 field program will include a lecture series (averaging 1 lecture per week) on topics related to the methodology field archaeology and to the archaeology of Central Italy.
Several weekend outings will be arranged where guided tours will be offered. In 2009 weekend trips included the Forum Romanum and Palatine Hill as well as Ostia Antica.

Atmosphere and Experience:

The Gabii Project is a large team (75-80 people) effort. Teamwork is the key to our success, but the working conditions can be intense. The successful applicant will be ready to work as part of a large team and welcome the opportunity to work and learn cooperatively.
The combined experience of the Gabii Project’s multi-national staff offers volunteers the opportunities to learn and practice some of the latest and most cutting edge techniques of field archaeology.

For more information, please contact Prof. Jeffrey Becker, the Managing Director (gabiiproject (@) umich.edu)

Gabii Project: 2010 staff recruitment

2009-10-15T17:46:00.006-04:00

The Gabii Project is Seeking Supervisors and staff members for the 2010 field season

The Gabii Project is an international archaeological initiative focused on the excavation of the ancient Latin city of Gabii located 18 km east of Rome, Italy. After two seasons of survey and study, a 5-year campaign of excavations began in June 2009 under the direction of Professor Nicola Terrenato of the University of Michigan. The dates of the season for staff members are June 13 through August 7, 2010; staff members must be available for the duration of the excavation season.

We are seeking experienced excavation staff members to serve as trench supervisors and assistant trench supervisors; we are also seeking specialist staff for the field laboratory, including those with experience in illustration and conservation. The ideal candidate will have completed a field school program and have at least one prior season of fieldwork experience. Experience with stratigraphic excavation, Harris matrices, and GIS applications is a plus; while not a requirement, the ability to communicate in Italian would also be advantageous.

In some cases the project will be able to subsidize the cost of room and board for staff members and, in exceptional cases, may be able to subsidize travel costs for certain staff members. Necessary equipment and daily transportation to and from the site will be provided for excavation staff.

Staff members must be in good health, have passed a recent physical examination, and submit documentation of current and up-to-date inoculations. Staff members must also be committed to working as part of a large team and providing leadership and guidance for students in the field. Staff members must also have a current passport, valid until at least October 2010, allowing for entry into Italy.

If you are interested in submitting an application for a staff position with the Gabii Project, please send a cover letter, current curriculum vitae, and a letter of reference from someone familiar with your fieldwork experience and credentials to:

Prof. Jeffrey Becker

Managing Director, The Gabii Project
c/o Department of Classics
McMaster University
1280 Main Street West, Togo Salmon Hall 706
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M2

jabecker@mcmaster.ca or gabiiproject@umich.edu

The application deadline is December 1, 2009. Electronic submissions are encouraged. Arrangements may be made for informal interviews either at the AIA/APA meetings in Anaheim, Ca., in January 2010 or via other means.

Gabii Project at the AIA meetings in Anaheim

2009-10-08T14:52:00.004-04:00

There will be two Gabii-related presentations at the upcoming 2010 annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Anaheim, California.

Session 2G: Poster Session -- Thursday, January 7, 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM

"The Gabii Project 2009: The First Season of Excavation"

Anna Gallone (The Gabii Project), Marcello Mogetta (University of Michigan), Nicola Terrenato (University of Michigan) and Jeffrey A. Becker (McMaster University)

Session 1E: Pre-Roman Italy -- Thursday, January 7, 8:30 AM - 11:30 AM

"Infant Burials and Emerging Social Hierarchy in Orientalizing Latium"

Jeffrey A. Becker (McMaster University) and Jessica Nowlin (Brown University)

A new plan for Gabii

2009-07-30T23:57:00.002-04:00

The Gabii Project is pleased that an article detailing the results of the survey campaigns of 2007 and 2008 is due out in the October 2009 issue of the American Journal of Archaeology:

Jeffrey A. Becker, Marcello Mogetta, and Nicola Terrenato. "A new plan for an ancient Italian city: Gabii revealed". AJA 113.4 (October 2009).

Gabii Project fifth week

2009-07-26T04:57:00.003-04:00

The fifth week of the Gabii Project has come to an end and the majority of the team has departed from Frascati. The project is most grateful for the energy, hard work, and enthusiasm that marked the 2009 season, and thanks all of the team members for helping us to achieve so much in this first excavation season. In the coming weeks a season roundup will be posted here, so stay tuned ...

Gabii Project fourth week

2009-07-21T17:44:00.001-04:00

The fourth week of fieldwork at Gabii was exceptional and hugely productive. With the overburden of colluvial silts removed in many areas, our team spent the balance of this week investigating stratified contexts, which is of course very exciting. Across the site progress has been marked not just by hard work but also by enthusiasm as staff and volunteers alike push ahead to complete work in their respective areas. In some sectors the tops of tumbled walls are coming into view, while in others the challenge remains interpreting features cut in the volcanic bedrock of Gabii. We also continue to investigate the network of streets within the urban area, since a main goal of this campaign is to begin to establish a chronological sequence for the urban grid. As week five arrives it is time to complete excavation of a number of features and work on the completion of various documentation before we can really begin to digest the results of this season.

Summer Program in Archaeology (SPA) at Gabii

2009-07-21T17:39:00.003-04:00

The Summer Program in Archaeology at the American Academy in Rome offers graduate and advanced undergraduate students an opportunity to come to Italy to engage archaeology firsthand by means of site visits and a month of archaeological fieldwork. This season five SPA participants came to Gabii to work in the field and lab and the Gabii Project could not be happier about having had them aboard. Since the SPA attracts students from a broad spectrum of interests within Classics, Archaeology, and Mediterranean studies, the contribution the students bring is correspondingly broad. In the give and take of field archaeology, fresh and different viewpoints are extremely valuable. At Gabii this year were Catherine Baker (Cincinnati), J. Marilyn Evans (Berkeley), Duncan MacRae (Harvard), Casey Shamey (Missouri), and Miriam Tworek-Hofstetter (Texas).

Gabii Project team, 2009

2009-07-15T13:39:00.001-04:00

The Gabii Project team, 2009

Front Row (l-r): A. Zarbo, J. Lipkowitz, J. Wang, A. Crawford, D. Tincu, E. St. Cyr, R. Ketelaars, K. Marks, N. McFerrin, S. Zottis, A. Thorne, F. Andreacchio. Second row: M. Deokoran, L. Temple, M. Tworek-Hofstetter, F. Herman, L. Fessler, V. Scarpellino, C. Baker, L. Di Bartolomeo, C. Canada,. A Duvall. Third row: A. Greenberg, A. Smith, A. Adelmann, M. Evans, C. Frueh, J. Toro, N. Eckert, B. Hawes, J. Farr, D. MacRae, N. Kennard, E. Robinson, B. Benson, C. Arno, J. Nowlin, L. Motta, M. Mogetta, L. Banducci, J. Becker, A. Gallone, N. Terrenato, Sandro. Fourth row: C. Connelly, A. Benner, S. Tohm, A. Conison, J. Speidel, D. Reagan, R. Whitfield, B. Roberts, E. Adkins, J. M. Harrington, L. Herring-Harrington, I. Cangemi, L. McAlpine, K. Love, A. Johnston, R. Opitz, B. Frueh, C. Monda, B. Zappaterreno. Back row: T. Brown, C. Shamey, L Johnson, B. Balco, C. Pry, R. Apostol, K. Moleen, E. Bembeneck, K. Davio, B. Buckley,

Gabii Project outing to Ostia Antica

2009-07-11T16:33:00.011-04:00

A large contingent of the Gabii Project visited the archaeological site of Ostia Antica today, guided by Prof. Hilary Becker (Oberlin College), Evelyn Adkins (Michigan) and Andrew Johnston (Harvard). The group was thrilled to visit the site and is grateful to the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici di Ostia for according our group a gratis entry to the site. An added point of excitement was that one of our team members, Allia Benner (Dartmouth), celebrated her 21st birthday by visiting Ostia - and was properly serenaded with a birthday song (in Latin) in Ostia's forum. The ruins of Ostia provide one of the most ideal classrooms, as it were, for the study of Imperial Roman urbanism, architecture, and society. With vast tracts of well preserved architectural remains, Ostia is an excellent place to stroll and observe archaeology up close. Of particular interest are building techniques and building types, along with a host of evidence for architecture and society in Imperial Ostia. During our visit this week the group considered not only the commercial and domestic architecture, but sacred architecture as well, including Mithraea in Ostia, the Campus of the Magna Mater, the Christian basilica, and the Jewish synagogue.

Third week comes to an end ...

2009-07-11T11:41:00.004-04:00

Again it is Saturday evening in Frascati. A number of the Gabii staff spent the day in the field, both excavating and surveying. In all, the third week of this year's campaign at Gabii was a great success, with good weather allowing significant progress at the site. In our 'Area C' we begin to see the emergence of architectural remains, and throughout we are amazed at the formation of the site of Gabii after its destruction, as an unbelievable amount of silt has accumulated over time atop the ancient layers. As these remains emerge from their silty realm, we feel we are beginning to at least glimpse some possible phases at the site, but of course it remains premature to speculate about any dates. The trajectory of Gabii's urban history is, until now, so dimly understood that in all likelihood there are many new - and possibly even unexpected - chapters to be written. So as we press forward into the fourth week of work, we have an eye on understanding what we have been working on this season as well as an eye toward inserting this new material into the overall context of Gabii

On the way to the Forum Romanum (but nothing funny happened) ...

2009-07-04T17:21:00.003-04:00

Today dawned hazy, and turned into a sweltering day in Rome. Nearly 40 members of the Gabii team went down to take in the sites of the Forum Romanum and Palatine Hill today, and a good time was had by all, it would seem. Jeffrey Becker and Hilary Becker pointed out salient architectural and topographical features as the group toured around. In the Forum we could check out the sculptures on view in the Curia Iulia as part of the Vespasian bimillennium show and on the Palatine we could see the recently restored wall paintings in the House of Augustus. In all, the Forum and Palatine challenge all of us in terms of archaeological viewpoint and remind us of changes in excavation strategy, not to mention the mindbendingly complex stratigraphy that inspires awe amongst diggers. We're grateful to the archaeological ministry in Rome for granting us a free entry to the archaeological area.

The challenges of week two

2009-07-04T17:15:00.004-04:00

The second week at Gabii in the 2009 season was full of challenges. First, the celebration of a major holiday in Rome (the saints' day of Peter and Paul) kept us from working on Monday, and then torrential rains on several successive afternoons did their best to hamper us the rest of the week. One particularly rough storm on Wednesday 1 July was unbelievable - wind, hail, torrential downpours - and made such a mess of the site that we could not work the following day. We did learn that there is tremendous downslope erosion at Gabii, explaining a good deal about deposition at the site. We used Thursday to work on documentation and talk with the team about topography and GIS (thanks to the Topo team for a great presentation) and to work on practicing the Harris matrix. Friday saw us back at the site, cleaning up after the rains.

There were some positive developments this week, including good progress in environmental sampling, work on the U.S. zero finds, and the exsposure of some stratified layers, including more mysterious bedrock cuttings. So we move on to week three hoping for calmer weather and steady progress ... hopefully Iuno will allow it.

A beautiful start to digging Gabii

2009-06-27T02:27:00.001-04:00

After torrential rains last weekend, June 21st dawned as a beautiful day - a perfect one, in fact, for working in the field. And now, we have completed the first full week of fieldwork at Gabii. Staff and students arrived on site for an initial orientation and equipment checkout, along with a tour both of the new excavation area and other parts of Gabii that have been the focus of past excavations. During our various tours members of the group reacted to Gabii's impressive topography, as well as the extent of what was once the walled city. For 2009 a sector of the slope of the crater of Castiglione has been chosen as the focus of investigations, with three areas defined within that zone. Surprisingly, perhaps, these three areas each present a varied and different picture and, at least preliminarily, seem to represent different points in the occupational history of the site. While it is too early to speak of chronology or interpretation, it does seem safe to say that the excavation of these three sectors will offer up a new and so far relatively unknown story about Gabii's urban history. And we are so glad to have so many staff members and students here to help tell that story. prepared, and hopefully we are ready to tackle the archaeology there.

Staff arrives at Gabii

2009-06-14T12:45:00.003-04:00

The staff of the Gabii Project is beginning its work on site tomorrow, in preparation for the field season and the arrival on site of the full team on 22 June 2009. This week the staff faces various challenges - from the mundane chores associated with setting up work spaces and equipment to the more engaging tasks of discussing excavation and documentation methodology and the beginning of digital data collection at Gabii. We expect to have more news to share in this space very soon, so stay tuned.

Gabi topsoil survey

2009-05-30T09:37:00.005-04:00

As preparations for the start of excavations at Gabii have been underway, we'd like to share news of the recent survey of the topsoil layers at Gabii by the project's new friend and colleague, Stuart Elton. Stuart spent a week in Gabii and Frascati and used a metal detector to survey the topsoil layers as they were being removed to expose the main excavation area. The survey was worthwhile in the end and we thank Stuart for doing such a great job at it.

And they're off....!

2009-05-18T19:35:00.003-04:00

Happily, work at Gabii for 2009 has begun! Since 14 May, work on site has been underway. Thus far, activities have been fairly mundane, including delimiting the entire excavation area and preparing for the installation of the perimeter fence. Once the fence is set, excavation huts and facilities will be put in place and in just a few days the first layer of top soil will be cleared.

Summer approaches

2009-04-11T18:40:00.000-04:00

The Gabii Project team is busily preparing for the beginning of the 2009 field season. We are fresh from stimulating discussion about Italian urbanism that took place at the 8th conference of Roman Archaeology held recently in Ann Arbor and buoyed by how much interest our colleagues have expressed in the outcomes of the geophysical survey and the anticipation for the inception of excavations in about 8 weeks' time. During the field season we will be posting regular updates to this blog, so we hope you'll keep track of our activities in the field.

Gabii Project at the 8th Roman Archaeology Conference (RAC)

2009-02-28T12:56:00.000-05:00

Marcello Mogetta will present a paper at the upcoming 8th Roman Archaeology Conference (RAC) that is being hosted by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, April 3-5, 2009. M. Mogetta's paper, in a session on current approaches to the study of urbanism in first millennium BCE Italy is entitled, ""Grid Cities": Latin Planned Urbanism and Roman Colonial Layouts".

Gabii Project at the 6th 'Convegno Lazio e Sabina'

2009-02-28T12:49:00.000-05:00

Results of the 2007 and 2008 field campaigns at Gabii will be presented at the 6th 'Convegno Lazio e Sabina' this week in Rome, Italy. The three day conference is being hosted by the École française de Rome, the British School at Rome, and the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Romani; the conference runs March 4 through March 6, 2009.

The Gabii Project's paper, which will be presented by Nicola Terrenato, is "Urbanistica ortogonale a Gabii: risultati delle nuove prospezioni geofisiche e prospettive per il futuro" (co-authored by J. A. Becker, A. Gallone, and S. Kay).

Gabii at the AIA in Philadelphia

2008-11-18T20:59:00.000-05:00

Results from the 2007 and 2008 field seasons at Gabii will be presented at the upcoming annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, to take place in Philadelphia, Pa., in January 2009. The paper will appear in session 4A on Saturday, January, 10, 2009, from 8:30 until 11:00 AM and is entitled "A New Plan of an Ancient Italian City: Gabii Revealed".

Gabii field school program 2009

2008-10-27T14:43:00.000-04:00

The Gabii Project is pleased to announce a field program in 2009 for student volunteers. The 5-week program will run from June 21 through July 25, 2009.

All student volunteers will be housed at the Hotel Villa Mercede in Frascati, Italy. This hotel features air conditioning, wireless internet, and a swimming pool. Two students will share each guestroom that includes a bathroom and two beds. Frascati is connected to Rome by a local train (30 minutes). The on-site restaurant at the hotel will provide breakfast, a packed lunch, and dinner. The Project will arrange for vegetarian meals on request and will attempt to accommodate special dietary needs. Some meals will be served on Saturday and Sunday at the hotel for any who elect to remain close to Frascati. The daily schedule (Monday-Friday) will begin with breakfast at 6:30 am, followed by a prompt 7:00 am departure for the site. Students will be transported via a contracted motor coach. Once on site there will be a mid-morning break and a lunch break. Student will depart the site around 4:30 pm to return to Frascati. Dinner will be served at the hotel around 8:00 pm. Students will have weekend days (Saturday and Sunday) free. No prior experience is required. Cost: $3,600

Please visit the Project website for more information and application instructions, or see the listing at the AIA's Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin site.

Gabii Project seeks staff members for 2009

2008-10-27T14:41:00.000-04:00

The Gabii Project seeks experienced excavation staff members to serve as trench supervisors and assistant trench supervisors, as well as possible specialist staff for the field laboratory. The ideal candidate will have completed a field school program and have at least one prior season of fieldwork experience. Experience with stratigraphic excavation and Harris matrices is a plus; while not a requirement, the ability to communicate in Italian would also be advantageous.

In some cases the project will be able to subsidize the cost of room and board for staff members and, in exceptional cases, may be able to subsidize travel costs for certain staff members. Necessary equipment and daily transportation to and from the site will be provided for excavation staff. Staff members will be responsible for their own transportation to and from Italy.

Staff members must be in good health, have passed a recent physical examination, and submit documentation of current and up-to-date inoculations. Staff members must also have a current passport, valid until at least October 2009, allowing entry into Italy.
We are seeking experienced excavation staff members to serve as trench supervisors and assistant trench supervisors, as well as possible specialist staff for the field laboratory. The ideal candidate will have completed a field school program and have at least one prior season of fieldwork experience. Experience with stratigraphic excavation and Harris matrices is a plus; while not a requirement, the ability to communicate in Italian would also be advantageous.

If you are interested in submitting an application for a staff position with the Gabii Project, please send a cover letter, current curriculum vitae, and a letter of reference from someone familiar with your fieldwork experience and credentials to:

Prof. Jeffrey Becker
Managing Director, The Gabii Project
c/o Department of Archaeology
Boston University
675 Commonwealth Avenue, Suite 347
Boston MA 02215 U.S.A.

The deadline for the receipt of applications is December 1, 2008. Arrangements will be made for informal interviews either at the AIA/APA meetings in Philadelphia, Pa., in January 2009 or via other means.

For more information, please visit the Project website.

Gabii Project website goes live

2008-10-01T13:26:00.001-04:00

The Gabii Project is pleased to announce the launch of its new website where, among other content, you will find information about the 2009 fieldwork program for students.

Mechanical bore holes

2008-08-06T11:15:00.000-04:00

As we near the end of survey operations at Gabii, on the basis of data collected from manual core sampling this summer, we elected to carry out several mechanical bore holes in order to sample a larger range of stratigraphiic deposits and, hopefully, ascertain the depth of the bedrock for several loci on the site. The positioning of the mechanical bore holes was determined on the basis of manual samples that showed promise in terms of preserved stratigraphy and/or anthropic inclusions. By distributing the coverage of these mechanical samples across the intramural area of Gabii, we hope to be able to ascertain something of an idea about the nature of the archaeological deposits in various areas of interest. Once the data from both sets of bore holes has been compiled, we will be able to construct a site profile for Gabii and thus be better able to target the placement of our first trenches in 2009.

Core-sampling and surveying 2007 and 2008

2008-07-12T10:23:00.000-04:00

Work at Gabii in 2007 and 2008 has concentrated on a survey of the former urban area within the line of the ancient city walls. Today the site of Gabii, contained within the Parco Archeologico di Gabii, is abandoned, as it has been for many centuries at this point. The site is largely given over to tall grasses and vegetation, making for extremely favorable survey conditions. Our project adopted a survey strategy that included the use both of magnetometry and core-sampling, both manual and mechanical. The former method of course aims at the detection of sub-surface features, particularly architecture, while the latter method was employed in order to help gauge the stratigraphic depth of the site along certain axes, thus creating a stratigraphic profile. Surprisingly, no integrated site-plan of Gabii exists, and this constitutes a prime objective for the Project at this stage.

The magnetometry survey was carried out by our colleagues from The British School at Rome, led by Stephen Kay. Beginning in summer 2007, the magnetometry survey will continue into autumn 2008 by which time at least some 30 ha of the site will have been surveyed. The preliminary results of the survey by the BSR team suggest an interesting urban layout with numerous features of interest preserved beneath the soil. As the team now filters the data this information will prove extremely useful in the development of an excavation strategy.

The other prong of our survey approach has been the use of core-sampling with manual augurs. Working along two principal axes imposed on the site, this approach yielded a great deal of information about the stratigraphic sequence at Gabii. The sampling was conducted within the already delimited archaeological area and also to the south of the modern via Prenestina on private property that is now used as a landing strip for ultra-light aircraft. Throughout the core-sampling the team carefully collected data on the preservation of archaeological layers and also sought to understand the geological profile of the site to the extent possible; in other words, to determine where the anthropic layers (man-made) ended so as to assess the stratigraphic depth of the preserved deposits at Gabii. To this point the results of this second arm of the survey look to be promising. In 2008 the core-sampling team was composed of Marcello Mogetta, Jason Farr, Elizabeth Robinson, Carlo Virili, and Jeffrey Becker.

Taken together, data from magnetometry and core-sampling will provide great help in further pursuing the archaeology of this important ancient city.

The Gabii Project

2008-07-05T13:30:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the excavation blog for the Gabii Project, an archaeological initiative focused on the survey, excavation, and study of the ancient Italian city of Gabii, situated some 13 km. to the east of Rome. The Gabii Project is a multi-institution, international effort, currently spearheaded by Nicola Terrenato of the University of Michigan with collaboration from Boston University, the University of Perugia (Italy), the Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma, and the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici per il Lazio. This blog will be a forum for posting information about the progress of our work and the results of our research. We hope you will come back soon for further updates.