Practicing Urban Archaeology in a Modern City: The Alessandrino Quarter of Rome

Abstract

This article describes the documentation according to FAIR principles of the first phase of the excavation of parts of the Alessandrino Quarter-an area of central Rome that has largely remained unexplored, although situated in the center of what is today one of the most visited cities in Europe. Archaeological fieldwork in modern cities presents excavators with a particular set of challenges. Prominent among these is archaeological complexity-the dense and complex stratigraphies, preserving vast amounts of accumulated data, that result from the often continuous transformation of urban space over millennia. While archaeologists readily acknowledge this, they seldom make public the lessons learned from conducting urban archaeological projects in modern contexts. This article seeks to make a contribution specifically in this area.

Glass in Rome during the transition from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages: materials from the Forum of Caesar

“…Author details 1 Centre for Urban Network Evolutions (UrbNet), Aarhus University, Moesgård Allé 20, 8270 Højbjerg, Denmark. 2 Accademia di Danimarca, Via Omero 18, 00197 Rome, RM, Italy. 3 Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, Direzione Musei archeologici e storico-artistici, Via delle Tre Pile 1, 00186 Rome, RM, Italy.…”

“…In 2017 a large-scale excavation project began focusing on the last non-exposed 2000 square metres of the area known as Caesar's Forum in central Rome [1][2][3][4]. This area is known for housing the famous first enclosed forum, the Forum Iulium, which became an architectural model for the self-display of the emperors during the following centuries.…”

Disease control and the disposal of infectious materials in Renaissance Rome: excavations in the area of Caesar's Forum

“…Located in central Rome, on top of the remains of the Roman-period fora and between Piazza Venezia and the Colosseum, the Alessandrino district was established during the second half of the sixteenth century (Meneghini & Santangeli Valenzani 2010: 141–230; Bernacchio 2017; Jacobsen et al . 2020; Jacobsen et al . 2021).…”