American Excavations at Morgantina
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA | DUKE UNIVERSITY
Newsletter of the Friends of Morgantina
Issue 3
November 2014
News from Central Sicily
In addition to the recent excavations described in the
altars to amphorae: the results of 60 years of excavation. In
February, 2013, the FoM provided the means for Erik
Thorkildsen to survey the contents of existing storerooms and
prepare a detailed plan for the move into the school, which
will mark the start of a new era at Morgantina. We hope to
contribute to the proper furnishing of the new spaces: this is
an immediate challenge.
As for the work of the American Excavations at
Morgantina (AEM), we are happpy to report that Prof.
Shelley Stone’s Morgantina Studies VI, The Hellenistic and
Roman Fine Pottery will appear at Princeton this month—at
the time of writing the book is at the bindery (see following
page!). This comprehensive and authoritative account of local
and imported black and red gloss table wares, as well as relief
and polychrome wares, should make “MS VI” an essential
handbook for classical ceramicists and for scholars working
in the central and western Mediterranean. We congratulate
Shelley Stone on a magnificent achievement, and we thank
Christopher Moss, the Princeton editor, for his good work.
As a series Morgantina Studies is back on course.
The FoM has continued to contribute to research,
conservation, and publication. In addition to funding Erik
Thorkildsen’s visit to Aidone to survey the storerooms, we
were able to cover the recent cost of indexing Morgantina
Studies VI. In the spring of 2014, FoM also paid for
conservation of the newly recognized hearth-altar of Hestia in
the North Stoa (see the report on page 7), and we are prepared
to contribute to the cost of a new shelter for this remarkable
monument, designed by Erik Thorkildsen (see below).
following reports, there have been several noteworthy
developments at Morgantina. The new director of the Museo
Regionale di Aidone is Laura Maniscalco, an experienced
classical archaeologist who with her husband Brian E.
McConnell has excavated at the sanctuary of the Palikoi near
Palagonia, producing an exemplary publication. We are
happy to welcome Dr. Maniscalco to Morgantina, where she
will also direct the Parco Archeologico once the park’s statute
is approved. Dr. Maniscalco has presided over recent
conferences at the museum on the uses of water in ancient
sites (July) and on the Morgantina silver treasure (October).
She succeeds Arch. Enrico Caruso, who was transferred to the
ancient site of Iaitas (Monte Iato); we are grateful to Arch.
Caruso for his many efforts on behalf of Morgantina and wish
him well in his new position.
In June the town council of Aidone at long last
transferred ownership of the Torres Truppia elementary
school to the Sicilian region, so that this sturdy building
across from the Museum can now be used to house new
excavation storerooms and, we hope, a well-equipped
conservation lab.* The terribly over-crowded existing
storerooms are for the most part difficult of access, poorly
illuminated, and lack even rudimentary climate control. The
school finally offers the hope of proper storage for the 8000+
sherd boxes and large objects of stone and terracotta, from
* In the 1980’s the elementary school was used as lodging for staff and
volunteers, who will remember the cold courtyard showers and the excellent
kitchen, presided over by the irrepressible Carolina Doria.
Section looking east at the proposed shelter for room 19 of the North Stoa: the hearth-altar of Hestia in red (inv. et dis. Erik Thorkildsen).
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On several occasions when for lack of funds the
authorities could not carry out urgently needed maintenance
(e.g., cutting high grass around the North Baths and in the
Agora to prevent potentially disastrous brush fires), FoM
stepped in. While we are all in agreement that FoM should not
pay expenses that are normally borne by the the Museum and
Park, it has been important for the director to be able to turn to
FoM at moments of real crisis-- as she has also looked to the
Archeoclub, the local support group in Aidone.
Next year will mark the sixtieth anniversary of
American research at Morgantina. The first event
commemorating the start of work in August, 1955, will be a
session of papers on Morgantina at the annual meeting of the
Archaeological Institute of America in New Orleans (Saturday
morning, January 10, 2015). Later that day the FoM will hold
a reception for all the friends, volunteers, and staff members
who may be present. The past two years have shown that there
is much more to do at Morgantina, both in studying the results
of sixty years of excavation and continuing productive
fieldwork. The FoM has made a mark, and both the AEM and
the Italian authorities are grateful for its support. Visit the
website at www.Morgantina.org, (maintained by Duke
University) and we shall hope to see you in 2015 in New
Orleans—and if not, at Morgantina.
Malcolm Bell, III
Warren Dunn
Neil MacDougall
Directors, Friends of Morgantina
Title page of Morgantina Studies VI
The First Two Years of the Contrada Agnese
Project
The Contrada Agnese Project (CAP) is a multi-year
excavation and research project sponsored by the American
Excavations at Morgantina. It aims to investigate occupation at
the far western edge of the ancient city to better understand life
on the periphery of Hellenistic and Roman settlement. CAP’s
successful 2014 season was owed to the hard work and
commitment of an exceptional group of thirty-one students and
scholars from three countries and more than fifteen universities
and institutions.
We laid the groundwork for this year’s work during the
2013 season, when members of CAP carried out excavations in
various parts of the ancient city to test the interpretations
produced by the 2012 geophysical survey. Among the most
significant results of our 2013 excavations was the
confirmation that ancient builders at Morgantina altered the
orientation of the original city plan to accommodate the
Agnese Ridge, which diagonally intersects the city grid. We
see this in the different orientation of stenopos W13 and the
adjacent insula.
In 2014 we focused on the northeastern lot (no. 1) of the
insula W13/14S. In three trenches, we exposed several rooms
of a very large, and possibly public, building that stood
immediately south of plateia B, across the street from the
North Baths. The discovery of large storage vessels (pithoi)
within our largest trench suggests the building was used, at
least for a time, for storage of foodstuffs or agricultural goods.
One of the most significant discoveries was a wall
constructed over the top of the third-century BCE building that
once occupied lot 1. The wall is well dated by the material
recovered from the stratum below, a rich deposit of ceramics,
coins, terracotta figurines, and even a human mandible. The
deposit provides for the first time clear evidence of renewed
activity in the Contrada Agnese during the second century
BCE, a period in the city’s history that remains relatively
obscure. We expect to have a better understanding of the space
as our research and excavations continue over the coming
years. Please stay tuned!
Recording evidence is crucial in modern archaeology, and
CAP incorporated new technologies in daily routines in the
field. One of the most exciting was a drone called Tina, which
gracefully soared overhead and furnished us with daily highresolution digital images of trenches and the surrounding
landscape. She also managed some great group shots.
Back in Aidone, our Geospatial, Data Curation and Finds
Teams integrated thousands of contextual, scientific, material,
and visual data points into CAP databases, allowing us to track
the progress of research and render the fieldwork in
impressively detailed three-dimensional models. The CAP
Environmental Team, comprised of specialists trained in the
recovery and analysis of ancient flora and fauna, made sure that
our investigations were focused on the microscopic as well as
monumental. Their contributions will add important data to our
picture of daily life at Morgantina and its environs.
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Clockwise from top left: computer
generated aerial map of trenches; Roman
coin, mint of Rome, c. 212-210 BCE;
CAP members updating the geodatabase;
human mandible found at trench VI;
piloting “Tina,” the team’s drone.
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CAP 2014 ROSTER
Some further notes on the 2014 season:
• Over the July 4th weekend we shared our research with
an audience of more than one hundred, at a conference
organized by the Società Italiana di Geologia
Ambientale and held at the Museo Archeologico
Regionale di Aidone.
• We were visited by individuals with personal ties to
Morgantina, including Josh Chernoff (volunteer
in ’82, ’83) and Carin Bartosch Edström, daughter of
the late Prof. Carl Erik Östenberg of the University of
Lund, who excavated at Morgantina in the 1960’s.
Their visits were a reminder of the many lives that have
been touched by the AEM over the past sixty years.
• Eight volunteers joined us this summer to take part in
their first archaeological excavation.
• No fewer than 24 kilograms of pecorino pepato were
consumed during the four-week season. Now that’s
teamwork!
• We will share more updates on the results of our work
during the Morgantina session at the 2015 Annual
Meeting of the AIA/SCS. We hope to see you there.
Thanks to the Friends of Morgantina and the Depart-ment
of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University for their
generous support, which has continued to make our fieldwork
and research possible and allows us to continue to provide
opportunities and training for a new generation of classical
archaeologists.
Field Supervisors: Randy Souza (Duquesne), Jared Benton
(Old Dominion)
Trench Supervisor: Steve Gavel
Assistant Supervisors: Elizabeth Wueste (Berkeley),
Giuseppe Castellano (UT Austin)
Architecture Team: James F. Huemoeller, Giancarlo
Filantropi, Data Curation + Finds Team: Leigh Lieberman
(Princeton), Annie Truetzel (Princeton), Mali Skotheim
(Princeton)
Geospatial Team: Ben Gorham (UVA), David Massey
(Indiana), Alex DeLand (AerialVector)
Environmental Team: Michael MacKinnon (UWinnipeg),
Robyn Veal (Cambridge), Cynthia Larbey (Cambridge),
Charlene Murphey (UCL), Diane Lister (Cambridge)
Conservators: Karen Abend, Aislinn Smalling (UCL)
Volunteers: George Barr (UOregon), Auschere Caufield
(UOregon), Liam Dearing (VCU), Ryan Franklin (Johns
Hopkins), Kyle Govan (UOregon), Luke Hollis (Archimedes
Web Solutions), Chris Jelen (UOregon), Jasmine Kim
(UOregon), Jennifer Knust (BU), Kat Potts-Dupre
Huemoeller (Princeton), Lauren Russo, Savannah Schultz
(UOregon), Veronica Shi (Stanford), Andrew Tharler (Bryn
Mawr), Leonid Tsvetkov (Artist at-large), Jessica Williams
(Harvard)
Alex Walthall, University of Texas at Austin
The South Baths and West Sanctuary Project
This was the second season of a three-year project
located in Contrada Agnese that focuses on the complete
excavation of the South Baths, a Greek bathing complex dated
to the third century BCE, and the adjacent West Sanctuary of
Demeter and Persephone. Both buildings were discovered and
partially excavated in 1971, and were briefly investigated in
2004, 2005, and 2009, with more formal excavation of the
South Baths undertaken again in 2010. The 2014 excavations
were directed by Sandra K. Lucore and Monika Truemper, and
the project was generously funded by grants from the Loeb
Classical Library Foundation and the Gerda Henkel
Foundation. The staff included Henry K. Sharp, field
supervisor of the South Baths; Italo Giordano, supervisor of the
West Sanctuary; Giancarlo Filantropi, draftsman; Shelley C.
Stone, ceramicist; and Karen Abend, conservator. Student
volunteer Eleni Gizas (Bryn Mawr College) assisted Karen and
served as the project registrar. The excavation team consisted
of American, Canadian, German, and Italian student
volunteers: Dakota Jackson (Bryn Mawr College), Emma
Buckingham (University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill),
Timothy Shea (Duke University), Susan Grouchy (University
of Western Ontario), Todd Caissie (Rutgers University), Neele
Theunert (Freie Universität Berlin), Charlene Hartisch (FUB),
Annegret Klünker (FUB), Alica Ioannou (FUB), Thomas Heide
(FUB), Marc Lecloux (FUB), Emilia Trovato (University of
Catania), Roberta Castronuovo (University of Pisa), and
Alessandra Andreocci (University of Rome/La Sapienza).
Three local residents of Aidone worked with the team on most
days: Filippo Campanella, Bruno Cristiano, and Gaetano
Caniolo.
Our second season focused first on the complete
excavation of the South Baths complex at the intersection of
Plateia B and Stenopos W 14. Our aim was to reveal all rooms
and features that had not been completely excavated in 2013: a
large room in the NE (5), the little known area in the NW (now
12 and 13), the furnace (7) below the level of the secondary
cooking oven found in its eastern half last year, and the
praefurnium/service area to the W of the furnace (now 11). The
second aim was to identify the extent and plan of the West
Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone, which lies just S of the
South Baths.
The South Baths are located across the ancient
intersection from the contemporary North Baths. The building
is much less well preserved than its northern counterpart,
owing to conditions of the natural topography, and especially
as a result of both reuse and spoliation in antiquity and
intensive agricultural deep plowing in modern times. The deep
ruts visible in the opus signinum floor are vivid evidence of
why very little survives above foundation level; in fact, the
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most extensive and most significant evidence was uncovered in
areas cut in the bedrock below ground level, where the plow
could not reach (furnace 7 and service area 11; hypocaust in
room 12). These conditions notwithstanding, full excavation of
the South Baths yielded extraordinary results. The baths
occupy one standard lot of the orthogonal city plan of about
17.50 x 17.50 m, and the plan now consists of 14 rooms
(numbered, for now, 1-4, 5a, 5b, 6-13).
This season’s results confirm that the bath building
conforms to the standard of Greek public baths in Sicily and
south Italy, providing two separate and distinct bathing
sections: a cleansing section that includes a tholos with hipbathtubs (6), a small entrance room with bench (4) and a
connecting corridor with bench (3); and a luxury bathing
section, whose defining features were fully excavated and
identified this year. The latter section includes a small entrance
room (10) with a ramp-like threshold, entered from a small
square in the NE of the building lot; a large distributive room
(8); and a large room with a communal heated immersion pool
(12), of which only the bottom of the hypocaust channel and a
small section of the plastered entrance step survive. Both
bathing wings of the complex were served by the large central
bottle-shaped furnace (7), which, after removal of the cooking
oven (post 211 BCE), yielded conclusive evidence for the
much-debated reconstruction of an intricate heating system:
eight platforms supported four roughly round built structures,
which in turn carried containers for heating water. The
praefurnium and service area to the W of the furnace (11) was
accessible only from an as yet unidentified space in the W. The
bedrock floor was trimmed to descend gradually towards the
firing chamber, with several steps from W to E, and it served
not only to access and work the large furnace, but also to
access and work the semi-circular testudo/hypocaust of the
immersion pool, located at the NW corner of the service area.
South Baths, furnace 7 E end, detail of two round constructions or
supports for water containers
While the South Baths share with the North Baths central
features such as the double circulation system and the general
organization of the bathing program, they also include a series
of shops and related rooms, which, however, did not
communicate directly with the bathing spaces of the complex:
room 1, the area W of the tholos which was probably a storage
space for the shops; rooms 2, 5a, 5b, and 13, which was
probably subdivided into several smaller rooms. These shops
can be identified from their earthen floors and, at least in the
case of rooms 5a and 5b, the high number of coins (esp. half
coins) found in them. The presence of shops is not typical of
the Western Greek public baths, but they are also found in the
bath building located adjacent to the agora at Megara Hyblaea.
The similarity of the South Baths and North Baths
raises again the question why two such buildings were built in
proximity to each other at roughly the same time – a situation
that remains unique in the entire Mediterranean. Perhaps our
building was less extensively decorated than the North Baths,
although further analysis of particular extant details (e.g. the
opus signinum floors) could clarify this. Whether or not the
South Baths included rooms with tubular dome and/or vaults
remains an open question; however, the extremely poor state of
preservation of the building in general could explain the fact
that only a few fragments of vaulting tubes were found in
excavations, and none in situ. And in the case of room 12, for
example, the most innovative and luxurious bathing room in
the complex, where one could expect vaulting, the walls are
thick enough to have supported a vaulted roof. If each bath had
been differentiated, to cater to a different clientele, there is
currently no evidence to indicate how precisely the bathers
were differentiated, by gender, social status, financial
circumstances, or any other criteria. The presence of shops in
the South Baths distinguishes this complex from the North
Baths, and their entrances on Stenopos 14 West suggest that
they might have functioned in relation to the large building
located on the opposite side of the street (for more on this
building see the report by A. Walthall on the 2014 Contrada
Agnese Project in this newsletter). Further exploration of the
surroundings may provide additional clues to the specific
functions of one or both of the baths.
Plan of the South Baths
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The West Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone is located
south of and adjacent to the South Baths. Current evidence
indicates that the sanctuary was constructed and functioning
before the South Baths were built, although a more precise
chronology of the building is one of the aims of this project.
Like the South Baths, the West Sanctuary was discovered by
Hubert Allen in 1971, when one room (2) was fully excavated,
yielding finds (esp. terracotta figurines) that motivated the
identification of this building as a sanctuary. Further
exploration in 2004/2005 focused on three rooms (2, 5, 6) all of
which had been significantly disturbed by clandestine activity,
but still produced fragments of a large decorated terracotta
altar, which further substantiated the identification of the
Clockwise from top left: West part of South Baths;
Conservator Karen Abend; South Baths trench tour; West
Sanctuary from West 14th Street; West Sanctuary in plan;
South Baths/ Sanctuary group 2014.
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News from the North Stoa
building as a sanctuary. This year’s campaign concentrated
on the complete excavation of room 6, where undisturbed
areas remained, and on identifying the extent and plan of
rooms that had not yet been identified by the previous
projects.
Room 6 yielded a most intriguing result: a dense
sequence of several different floor levels, which is currently
unparalleled in Hellenistic Morgantina; some of these were
combined with structures (bench, platform, altar?) that
probably were used for cultic purposes. While one of the
lower floor levels included a coin from about 310-270 BCE
(Find 46, VI 31-6.53, Bucket 25; cf. MS II 436), no other
evidence was found that securely date the many changes
above this floor level, particularly to before or after 211 BCE.
Currently, 9 rooms have been securely identified, of which
two in the western part include small structures paved with
opus signinum in their corners, located at a high level
(immediately below topsoil). Cleaning of the western exterior
wall revealed that construction continued further west,
extending over and beyond the presumed ambitus. The 2015
season will focus on the complete excavation of the newly
identified rooms (7, 8, 9) and on further exploration of the as
yet unknown southern extension of the sanctuary.
The end of the campaign was overshadowed by
clandestine intervention in the night before the last day of
excavation. The clandestine diggers came with metal
detectors and made holes in seven locations, in one case even
cutting through the well preserved opus signinum floor of
room 4 of the South Baths. In order to prevent further
damage, we backfilled parts of the South Baths (esp. furnace
7 and hypocaust channel in room 12) and all unexcavated
rooms of the West Sanctuary (1, 4, 7-9). Security was further
enhanced in the area of the South Baths and West Sanctuary
by the reinstallation of the security lights (funded by FoM).
With a length of 101 m. the North Stoa is the longest
of the three porticoes that bordered the upper Agora.
Although the building was called a gymnasium in 1961, we
have long doubted that identification, preferring the more
neutral designation of stoa or portico. Occupied for three
centuries, the North Stoa suffered many changes over time.
Research on the building since 2013 has shed new light on its
initial design, original purpose, and strange later history.
There have been some real surprises.
A series of probes this past spring (funded by FoM)
confirmed the recent hypothesis that the original plan of the
North Stoa was based on the principle of precise bilateral
symmetry—in plan the ten rooms east of the central room 11
are indeed the mirror image of the ten rooms to the west. This
sort of designing seems to have originated ca. 340 BCE at
Aigai/Vergina in the royal palace of Philip II of Macedon,
father of Alexander the Great. Our building, which replaced
an earlier structure on the same site, dates about seventy years
later. Among Greek stoas it is certainly one of the most
complex examples of mirror-image design, perhaps
influenced by a major building on the agora at Syracuse. Like
King Philip’s palace, the North Stoa was equipped with
several banqueting rooms—a feature that often accompanies
bilaterally symmetrical planning.
In reviewing the objects recovered in the stoa
excavations between 1955 and 1967, a major rediscovery was
a fragmentary inscription with the name Hestia, or as spelled
in Greek Sicily, Histia. The inscription was found in 1963 in
the area of room 19, where an altar with fine plaster
mouldings was also uncovered. For the Greeks Hestia was
one of the children of Kronos-- her siblings included Zeus,
Hera, and Poseidon. Her name is also the word for hearth, the
fixture in the house that was sacred to her. In the Greek city
Hestia was worshipped at a common hearth that symbolized
the city’s very identity and was often found in a public
building called a Prytaneion, where magistrates met and
dined.
Sandra K. Lucore, AEM
Monika Truemper, Freie Universität Berlin.
North Stoa, third century BCE, Prytaneion in rooms 19-21 with shading.
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At one time the excavators of Morgantina gave this
name to another building in the Agora, known today as the
Public Office, although firm evidence for the claim was
always lacking. Now, on the basis of the inscription, the
hearth-altar, and an adjacent dining room, we believe that the
Prytaneion should instead be recognized in rooms 19-21 of
the North Stoa, which are marked on the plan by shading.
The dining rooms at either end of the building are shown
with the couches on which Greek men reclined while eating
and drinking—and here discussing city business. The six
paired rooms in the stoa probably served as offices for
magistrates.
This spring the hearth-altar of Hestia was reexcavated and studied for the first time. Unexpectedly, it
turned out to belong both to the North Stoa and to its
predecessor on the same site, a building of the late fifth
century BCE that was constructed not long after the
refoundation of Morgantina. The stratigraphy of floor levels
in room 19 revealed that the much older hearth-altar was left
in place when the North Stoa was built ca. 260 BCE, and that
it continued to serve as the common hearth of the city. As
documents from other Greek cities specify, the hearth-altar
of Hestia could not be moved; it was akinetos, unmovable.
So too the hearth of Hestia at Morgantina. Once the
importance of this feature had been recognized, we realized
that it required immediate, even urgent conservation. This
was carried out in May by Raffaella Greca and Mario
Arangio of Enna, with support from the FoM.
Renewed fieldwork in the North Stoa was
conducted this past April and May by Hal Sharp, with the
assistance of Filippo Campanella; the drawings were made
by Erik Thorkildsen. Funding from Duke University is also
most gratefully acknowledged.
As for the later history of the North Stoa, the
building proved to be quite useful to the Spanish
mercenaries who inherited Morgantina after 211 BCE,
though not in the ways you might expect. The conversion of
the stoa to entirely new uses probably took place after the
city suffered major earthquake damage in the second
century BCE (this was when the barrel vaults and cupola of
the North Baths collapsed, perhaps around 190 BCE). As a
major structure on the Agora, the stoa was repaired with
many changes, and the formerly public building was now
given over to commerce and industry.
A particularly dramatic example of the transformation can be seen in the Prytaneion of rooms 19-21,
where a new wall was constructed directly over the
abandoned remains of the hearth-altar of Hestia, and the
adjacent magistrates’ dining room was converted into a
bronze foundry. The new evidence for the stoa’s later
history helps refine our understanding of the mercenaries’
use of public space, as it sheds some light on their economic
and political attitudes.
Malcolm Bell, III
University of Virginia and co-director AEM
The hearth-altar cut by the Roman wall, before restoration
The hearth-altar after restoration, May 2014
ABOUT FoM
The Friends of Morgantina came into being in 2010, with the objective of furthering excavation and conservation, carrying out
projects in landscape maintenance, supporting publications, and providing support for exhibitions and artifact storage. The
Friends of Morgantina is a tax-exempt organization as specified in Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Our mailing
address is 3270 Horseshoe Bend Road, Charlottesville, VA 22901.
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Volunteer reports
Annie Truetzel , Ph.D Candidate (Princeton)
I first became involved with CAP in 2013, hoping to
deepen my understanding of archaeological fieldwork as
part of my development as an ancient historian. I had no
idea just how rewarding an experience it would be! I've
been encouraged to take on more responsibility than I
could have imagined in several exciting areas. Our Finds
Team has worked together to develop a streamlined findsprocessing system, so that all project teams can have
almost immediate access to information on the objects
discovered in the field. This experience has helped me
better understand how the activities undertaken by various
project teams fit together. But most importantly, I've had
the opportunity to join the CAP family. I feel so fortunate
to be part of this community, which is not only talented
and hardworking but also collaborative, supportive and
incredibly fun.
Jasmine Akiyama-Kim, Undergraduate senior (UOregon)
The first time I heard the name Morgantina was in
February, 2013, when Dr. Alex Walthall presented his
research at my university. Only five months later, I found
myself as a volunteer in the Contrada Agnese—trowel in
hand, drenched by sun, and speckled with dirt. In the field,
I worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the other students who
had come from universities across the US, as we excavated
the walls of an ancient building. After the workday, Aidone
welcomed us with its worn and textured cobblestone
streets, bar counters teeming with delicious sweets, and a
majestic view of Mt. Etna. My experience working with the
Contrada Agnese Project for the past two summers has
inspired me to continue my on-site education in Italy with
the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. I
even had the chance to visit Morgantina this Fall with my
fellow Centristi!
Chris Jelen, M.A. candidate (UOregon)
The American Excavations at Morgantina gave me the
opportunity to experience the material culture of the
classical world in a new and exciting way. As a graduate
student focusing on ancient languages, it can be easy to lose
sight of the realia of the ancient world. As a volunteer this
summer I had the chance not only to see these objects in
person but also to interact with them. It is one thing to
experience the classical world through texts, but it is quite
another to hold it in your hands. Above all, participating on
the Contrada Agnese Project allowed me to be part of a
remarkable community of scholars and archaeologists.
Having the opportunity to be part of this community has not
only encouraged me in my academic pursuits, but it has
also lead to many lasting friendships. It is certainly an
experience I will never forget.
Auschere Caufield excavates a second-century fill in Trench VI.36
Robert “Ben” Gorham, Ph.D. Candidate (UVa)
The CAP 2014 field season marked an exciting and
challenging new chapter in our team’s excavations.
Excavation volunteers teamed up with the Geospatial
Team in the computer lab to learn all the best methods for
using high-tech data management tools (total stations,
UAV drones, and 3D modeling) to transform the way CAP
produces our data. Our drone, Tina, was launched on her
maiden flight this summer (followed by dozens more) to
capture high-resolution aerial images of the excavations as
they were underway. Learning to use photogrammetry
software has allowed us to employ these images to create
detailed 3D models of the trenches themselves, resulting in
a daily 3D catalogue of our progress in the field. These
exciting steps are only the first in what we hope will be a
long list of future innovations and discoveries.
CAP Teammembers test out the drone’s aerial photography
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