Thanks to its geographical position along the maritime routes towards the mineral resources of Northern Etruria, the Etruscan town of Caere (Cerveteri, RM) and its harbors played a fundamental role as a commercial hub in the Mediterranean sea. Its international political role was so relevant, that Caere was the only town in the Tyrrhenian area to own a thesauros in Delphi's panellenic sanctuary. In addition, the Etruscan metropolis was connected to its main military and commercial harbor by the monumental Caere-Pyrgi road, more ancient than the one linking Athens to the Pyreus; this highlights its early strategic ability in territorial organisation.
Pyrgi played different functions: port, settlement, sanctuary. Moreover, since it was abandoned after the Romanization period, the site is an exceptional case-study because of the possibility of a full analysis of its different topographical components and a large-scale research over its territory.
The excavations have brought to light a large sacred district, including the famous Sanctuary of Uni-Astarte and a demetriac cult place dedicated to the couple of deities Sur and Cavatha. Since 2009, investigations have focused on the sector N of the Sanctuary, where a "Ceremonial Quarter", next to the terminal trait of the Caere-Pyrgi road, was discovered.
Research program for the year 2020 aims to improve the knowledge of the relationship between Caere and its Port and maritime Sanctuary, through geophysics and topographical research focused on strategic contexts along the Caere-Pyrgi road.
The excavations of the Ceremonial Quarter, based on the results of the georadar prospections, will allow us to reconstruct the topographical asset of this area and its relationship with the port. The project implies a strong interdisciplinary approach, matching different research fields in a coherent framework: archaeology, geography, biology, multispectral remote-sensing and drone thermal mapping, restoration, landscape architecture.
Despite several studies on the routes and commerces in the ancient world, the emporia and the port cities of preRoman Italy has never been systematically analysed, taking into consideration their complexity and peculiarity. As a matter of fact, the overall investigation of the different districts of an Etruscan port is an extremely rare circumstance. For this reason, the informative potential of Pyrgi is great and will also shed light on the choices of the metropolis Caere on the organisation of public and religious structures institutionally dedicated to the mediation with the foreigners, nature and forms of exchange, mobility phenomena between the 7th and 3rd c. BC.
The excavation in the Ceremonial Quarter located between the sanctuary and the settlement is becoming a wide-range research thanks to the involvement of an interdisciplinary équipe (from Polo Museale and 8 Dept. of Sapienza University and 10 Research Institutions) to reconstruct the original landscape and the evolution of the landing place, and to plan restoration works and 3D restitution.
The strong interdisciplinary approach matches different research fields and techniques in a coherent framework: archaeology, history of institutions, geography, biology, non-invasive techniques, restoration, landscape architecture, digital humanities.
The project foresees a detailed diachronic analysis of the territorial structuring process and management made by Caere, through the data collection, the study and the documentation of all archaeological evidences falling in the strip of land between the Etruscan town and the coastline. The digital archive, including textual, photographic, video and virtual contents, will be uploaded on a next generation GIS platform.
The GIS will be totally shared, therefore it can be elaborated and modified by several people from the team at the same time. This sharing of data, allowed by a WebDatabase, will guarantee not only a constant updating of geographic data, but also an infinite range of diffusion possibilities on the web (e.g. a WebGIS). The data will be open access to be shown to the great audience.
This archive is meant to reinforce the network between the cultural enterprises, research institutions and institutions connected with Cultural Heritage management. It will be used in the setting-up of the new Antiquarium of Pyrgi in the Santa Severa Castle.
Thanks to the experience acquired focussing the areas around the Sanctuary of Montetosto and the Sanctuary of Pyrgi (Publ.P.I. 13,15; Part. 3) new geophysical surveys will be conducted along the Caere-Pyrgi road (Tenuta di Zambra, Montetosto, Quarto di Monte Bischero) in order to evalutate the extension and topographic asset of the archeaeological sites.
Non-invasive and complementary methodologies will be used: magnetometry, electric resistivity, Ground Penetrating Radar, multispectral remote-sensing mapping of the vegetation indexes. The latest survey method has been recently tested in the Etruscan town of Veii in collaboration with Droinwork s.r.l. (see Materazzi, Pacifici in ScAnt 2020); it is extremely useful for the mapping and analysis of the so-called crop-marks, e.g. the effect of underground structures on the growth of vegetation.
The non-invasive surveys will also support the research project conducted by the Istituto di Scienze dell'Atmosfera e del Clima (CNR-ISAC) in collaboration with the Regione Lazio-Area Tutela e valorizzazione paesaggi naturali e geodiversità, addressing the evaluation of the sea ingression and hydro-geological and alluvial risk in the coastline of the ancient Pyrgi harbour settlement. This will support the reconstruction of the ancient landscape and environment; furthermore, it will provide useful information for the safeguarding of this exceptional archaeological site, the preservation of which is presently a problematic issue.
A project regarding the virtual reconstruction through the 3D acquisition of structural remains of the temples and terracotta revetments has been promoted to improve the dissemination (Publ.Part. 26,28,29). During the 2019 campaign, the drone flight covered the entire area including the Roman colony: this will allow a complete virtual reconstruction of the sacred area and its infrastructures by means of photomodelling and loaded on a same GIS platform (Publ. Part. 34; PhD. 27).
Particular attention will be paid to open archaeology activities. Video-streaming of the field activities performed during the whole period of the campaign, and a number of live sessions will allow the visitors connected from the Villa Giulia Museum to ask questions to the excavators (E.1).
According to the aims of the project "S.E.A.-Sailing Experience Accessibility" visitors on site will enjoy a faithful virtual reconstruction of the Sanctuary, based on the 3D collected data from the field, laboratory and museum, and supported by interdisciplinary specialist study. This project fully exploits the new technologies' opportunities.