August 2023 Archaeological Discoveries Across Italy

Multiple archaeological discoveries were made across Italy in August 2023. In Ostia, two new fragments of the Fasti Ostienses were unearthed during the second excavation campaign of the OPS – Ostia Post Scriptum project, led by the Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica with the University of Catania and the Polytechnic University of Bari. The fragments, found in Area B (Forum of Porta Marina), join a previously known piece from 126-128 AD, revealing that on January 1, 128 AD, Emperor Hadrian assumed the title pater patriae and his wife Sabina became Augusta, celebrating with a congiarium. At the Terme di Cerveteri (Acquae Caeretanae), maintenance work uncovered a marble bust (headless, missing left shoulder, with a gorgoneion on a cuirass) and a rectangular pillar with a circular incision, decorated with a situla and sistrum reliefs and an inscription to the goddess Isis. In Coccanile di Copparo (Ferrara province), a large 1st-century AD Roman necropolis emerged, with fifteen cremation burials excavated by Chiara Guarnieri, Flavia Amato, and Marco Bruni; grave goods include terracotta lamps and glass balsamaria. In Corinaldo (Pesaro e Urbino province), the skeleton of a Roman woman with rich grave goods was found in the same area that yielded a 7th-century BC princely tomb in 2018; the woman was buried in a wooden coffin lined with mortar and bricks, with footwear, a silver balsamarium, and ornaments including bone and gold-and-glass paste pins.