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ARCHAEOLOGY. Digging up the past
An excavation at S. Severa north of Rome has yielded much information about Lazio's Etruscan, Roman and mediaeval past
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There are few of us who have never wondered what relics lie beneath our feet and how the people lived who left them there. In just about any part of Italy, that curiosity is constantly fed by the visible remains of previous civilisations and the knowledge that wherever a blade is put into earth, something will turn up.
Every now and again, we read about how previous ideas were modified and occasionally changed dramatically by new archaeological work and maybe we have questioned the point of all this meticulous digging: is it just to give us insights into the pure knowledge of the past? Or to prove some very contemporary political point? Or to create an upmarket intellectual Disneyland or just increase the tourist trade?
For a fortnight this writer was privileged enough to be on the other side of the question, actually sitting in the dust and trying literally to piece together the past and make a small contribution to the knowledge of the history of Lazio.
The site was S. Severa, an imposing keep, castle, hospital complex and much else on the coast 50 or so kms north-west of Rome. S. Severa is the site of ancient Pyrgi, the port of Cerveteri, and its quays are still visible just under the water for a few hundred metres out to sea. There are Etruscan temples south-west of today’s castle where trilingual Etruscan-Phoenician-Greek gold sheets were discovered 50 years ago, and there is plenty of evidence that Pyrgi and Cerveteri were important centres from at least the eighth century BC. Then there is the Roman part, a massive castrum, a square camp guarding the sea and the nearby Via Aurelia. There is plenty of evidence of the mediaeval and renaissance periods in both documents and buildings, ending with the castle and the surrounding village being owned by the S. Spirito hospital in Rome. For most of the 20th century, S. Severa was a holiday spot for friends of the hospital.
In looking after its cultural heritage, Italy has always had a rivalry between the professionals (the ministry of culture and the university departments of archaeology) who have the legal control and the presumption of competence, and the amateurs (the local councils and volunteer associations). In the past, the professionals had the monopoly except when this was broken by tomb robbers of all sorts. But this has changed over the last few years as local politicians have wanted to display their own treasures and local associations have become increasingly vocal and competent and have filled gaps when the professionals have not had the resources.
At S. Severa the curator of the local museum, Flavio Enei, has built up an enviable reputation both as an archaeologist who digs and as a manager and teacher who presents what is found. He also leads the local archaeological association, Gruppo Archeologico del Territorio Cerite, which organises trips abroad for its members and conferences at S. Severa, as well as local digs.
Since 2005, the new owner of the castle and village, the province of Rome, has been trying to conserve them and find a new vocation for the whole site, including creating a conference centre there. Since 2006 the archaeological association has been trying to beat the developers and persuade the province that S. Severa deserves all the attention it can get.
The association has made some stunning discoveries during digging, including the proto-Christian church to S. Severa, a saint who only exists in legend but nonetheless had a church dedicated to her in the fifth century. The association discovered that the normal Etruscan and Roman grid pattern was indeed used, but off square with respect to the great walls which surround part of the site. Many other everyday details have been documented, including a late mediaeval cemetery just outside the main walls and a fine late imperial Roman villa below on the sea front.
All of this has been achieved with almost no funds, one or two professional archaeologists and constant negotiations with the contractors trying to lay sewers, water tanks and electricity cables, while the province, the region, the local council and the ministry of culture had no clear idea of what should be done.
My own contribution was in a space, due to be filled with a water tank, in which Enei hoped to reach clear evidence of the Etruscan layer.
The excavation equipment went from a toothbrush to a mechanical digger via plastic-haired household brushes (surprisingly effective in removing large amounts of dirt from around a stone or shard), a trowel and a pick and shovel. The crew was made up of people with a passion and time to indulge it: a secondary school student who had two weeks before going back to school, a retired carabiniere, an expert in weapons ancient and modern, a shop assistant from a haberdashery, a clerk from the railway complaints office.
It was an exhilarating and relaxing fortnight and in a minute way, two or three sqm by 10 to 20 cms, I took possession of the site for a time, passed on the contents of that dirt to others to make sense of and gained a very solid idea about why it is worthwhile looking after our cultural heritage. The Etruscans, the republican and imperial Romans and the mediaeval Italians became very much part of our own modern Italy.
For general information about the Gruppo Archeologico del Territorio Cerite see www.gatc.it . For information or volunteering for the dig contact Dr Flavio Enei, muspyrgi@tiscalinet.it.
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