Ostie et l’embouchure du Tibre

Salomon, Ferréol; Goiran, Jean‐Philippe; Pleuger, Elisa; Mazzini, Ilaria; Arnoldus-Huyzendveld, Antonia; Ghelli, Alessandra; Boetto, Giulia; Germoni, Paola

doi:10.4000/cefr.1062

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Further research in the area may prove that there existed a navigable access to the lagoon at that time, which would strengthen this hypothesis. In the same way, a coastal area that was open to the sea, like offshore Ostia, could also be used as a harbour [ 32 ]. PADM charts constructed from the evidence of cores drilled on the coast, in lagoons, channels and lakes can give us an idea of the depth of water columns and their degree of closure.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But far less is known about its harbour facilities and maritime façade. This has been remedied somewhat in recent years by the results of the geophysical survey carried out on the fluvial harbour of Ostia [ 14 , 31 ], and the cores drilled in the harbour [ 13 , 14 ] ( Fig 3 ) and river mouth [ 32 ], as well as in the palaeomeander of the Tiber to the east of Ostia [ 33 ].…”

Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Central to any consideration of the functionality of the harbour basin at Ostia is the accessibility of the harbour from the Tiber and the navigability of the river mouth [ 33 ]. River mouths are particularly dynamic sedimentary environments, and the formation of sandbanks at the mouth of the river was clearly a major obstacle [ 32 ]. Livy ( Ab Urbe Condita , 29, 14 [ 51 ]) recounts how a ship bearing the Magna Mater ran aground on a sandbank at the mouth of the Tiber in 205–204 BC, while Strabo ( Geography , 5, 3, 5 [ 52 ]), who was writing in the 1 st c AD, described Ostia as alímenos , or without a sheltered harbour.…”

Section: Developing the Case Studies Of Ostia And Portusmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Development and Characteristics of Ancient Harbours—Applying the PADM Chart to the Case Studies of Ostia and Portus

et al. 2016

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Over the last 20 years, the geoarchaeology of ancient harbours has been a very active area of research around the Mediterranean basin, generating much palaeoenvironmental data from many sites, including estimations of sedimentation rates, the height of the ancient sea-level at different dates and palaeo-geographical reconstructions. Combining this information has proved a major challenge. This article proposes a new chart called the Palaeoenvironmental Age-Depth Model (PADM chart), that allows the researchers to combine all relevant indicators in order to estimate harbour potential of a given ancient port, and to generate comparable data between harbours in terms of degree of closure and water depth available against a synchronised chronology. This new approach, developed in the context of the ERC-funded RoMP Portuslimen project, takes into account estimations of water depths relating to differing Roman ship draughts at different periods. It is tested against the palaeoenvironmental evidence published over 10 years from two Roman harbours located at the mouth of the river Tiber: Ostia and Portus. This reveals that: (1) there has been an underestimate of the real sedimentation rates due to the margins of error of the radiocarbon dates; (2) there was effective control of the water column by dredging; (3) there were different periods of control of the sedimentation. We suggest that the navigability of the Ostia harbour by ships with shallower draughts was maintained until sometime between the 2nd c. BC and 1st c. AD, while at Portus it was retained until the 6th—7th c. AD.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Developing the Case Studies Of Ostia And Portusmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Development and Characteristics of Ancient Harbours—Applying the PADM Chart to the Case Studies of Ostia and Portus

et al. 2016

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“…To reveal and understand all these traces, we will need extensive surveys (Campana 2019), combined with remote sensing, geophysics, and geoarchaeological investigations. The latter must be aimed both at the dating of the various natural and artificial palaeochannels, as done in the similar port city of Portus, near Rome (Salomon et al 2020), and at systematically reconstructing the reclamation processes documented in both written sources and historical cartography, as done inland of Ravenna (Abballe 2022;Abballe, Cavalazzi, and Fiorotto 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Traces around a capital: the hinterland of Ravenna through remote sensing

Abballe,

Cavalazzi

2023

GROMA

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Remote sensing has been a fundamental tool in reconstructing the urban landscape of the abandoned Late Antique city of Classe, near Ravenna (Italy). However, much of Classe urban plan is not yet known, while the vast area north of Ravenna has been generally ignored for the presence of thick alluvial deposits. The number of freely available aerial and satellite images has increased exponentially in the past decade, yet no study has exploited these sources. The features mapped by analysing these sources allowed us to identify new structures in Classe and shed new light on water management and land-use practices around Ravenna.

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“…Texture analysis is carried out from a fraction of 30 g of dry sediment. The samples are sieved under water and the sieve residues are weighed to obtain the percentages of the different fractions (coarse fraction (> 2 mm), sands (2 mm-63 mm) and silts/clays (< 63 μm) (Salomon et al, 2014). For particles < 2 mm, laser granulometry was performed on bulk sediment, using a Malvern Mastersizer 2000 (Re-searchUnit Inorganic and Structural Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, University of Liège).…”

Section: Sampling and Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploration of the maritime façade of Utica: The potential location of the Phoenician and Roman harbours

Pleuger

Goiran

Delile

et al. 2019

Quaternary International

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According to ancient literary tradition, Utica is considered to be one of the first three Phoenician foundations in the Western Mediterranean, supposedly founded in 1101 BC by Levantines from Tyre. In the Phoenician and Roman periods, it was an important merchant coastal town, on a promontory facing the sea. Over the centuries Utica lost its access to the sea, and its ports silted up as a consequence of the activity of the wadi Medjerda, which flowed to the south of the city. Despite over a century of investigation by archaeologists and associated researchers, the location of the city's harbour structures from the Phoenician and Roman periods remains unknown, buried under sediments resulting from the progradation of the Medjerda. Based on the study of sedimentary cores, the research presented here highlights the existence of a long maritime façade to the north of the Utica promontory in Phoenician and Roman times. A deep-water marine environment is attested in the former bay from the 6th mill. BC and the depth of the water column along the northern façade was still 2 m around the 4th -3rd c. BC. Another core to the east of the Kalaat El Andalous promontory showed the possibility that this sector was a sheltered harbour during the Phoenician and Roman periods. This paper illustrates the contribution of geoarchaeology to address this archaeological problem and to understand the relations of this important port city with the sea.

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Ostie et l’embouchure du Tibre

Cited by 5 publications

References 8 publications

The Development and Characteristics of Ancient Harbours—Applying the PADM Chart to the Case Studies of Ostia and Portus

The Development and Characteristics of Ancient Harbours—Applying the PADM Chart to the Case Studies of Ostia and Portus

Traces around a capital: the hinterland of Ravenna through remote sensing

Exploration of the maritime façade of Utica: The potential location of the Phoenician and Roman harbours

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