A Roman emperor's most ambitious and personal building project will be uncovered and analyzed by a team of students and scholars from the University of Colorado at Boulder as part of a new five-year excavation and field school in Italy.
The fourth-century A.D. Villa of Maxentius, located just outside the walls of Rome, was digitally surveyed this summer by CU-Boulder classics and art history Assistant Professor Diane Conlin and a team of archaeologists and graduate students. For the next five years, Conlin will join Italian scholars and colleagues from Michigan's Kalamazoo College to lead excavation and field school activities at the site.
The opportunity for American scholars and students to excavate and document a major imperial site in Rome is rare, Conlin said.
"The Italian archaeological ministries are highly selective when issuing permissions to excavate ancient sites, especially significant historical sites in Rome," she said. "This project is a major coup for archaeology at CU-Boulder. The fact that CU students will have the opportunity to participate in the discovery, analysis and publication of Roman imperial architecture and artifacts is the most extraordinary and exciting aspect of this collaborative venture."
The American team, including Conlin, CU-Boulder classics Professor Noel Lenski and graduate students Rachel Kahn and Holly Scripter, completed initial mapping of the site this summer and collected a number of artifacts. They used a custom-made digital mapping system and database designed by the project's technical team to streamline the sharing and publishing of data and to eventually produce virtual walk-throughs of the site.
The Villa of Maxentius is a key site for scholars studying ancient Rome's transition from paganism to Christianity, as well as the development of Late Roman imperial palace architecture, Conlin said. It is among a number of important archaeological sites located on the Via Appia, the first and most well-known ancient Roman road.
The suburban stretch of the Via Appia, where the Villa of Maxentius is located, was once lined with tombs, temples and luxurious countryside retreats for Rome's wealthy elite. Maxentius ruled Rome from 306 to 312 A.D. and built monuments at his villa to commemorate his only son, Romulus, who drowned in the Tiber River at age 9.
"One major question that we hope to answer is why Maxentius built this grand villa complex outside of the defensive walls of the city when he had full control of pre-existing imperial palaces located in the heart of the capital," Conlin said. "Was it an architectural demonstration to the Roman senate and people of Maxentius' confidence, power and respect for Roman traditions? Or was Maxentius perhaps attempting to associate himself with the increasingly powerful Christian community of Rome by constructing his villa next to the various Christian structures located along this section of the Via Appia?"
Limited investigations of the site were conducted in 1825 and again in the 1960s, but three decades of damaging, invasive vegetation had to be cleared by Italian authorities before the American team could begin survey work this summer.
Conlin and the other project leaders plan to start the site's field school in summer 2004 with about 20 American undergraduate and graduate students and a staff of 15 professional archaeologists and specialists. Organizers hope that as the field school becomes established, student tuition and fees will help the project become increasingly self-supporting. Finding patrons to support the excavation remains a top priority.
Conlin holds a joint appointment in the CU-Boulder departments of classics and art and art history. She has taught Roman and Greek art and archaeology at the university since 1998 and has made numerous trips to Italy to study Roman archaeology, architecture and sculpture. In 1990 she was awarded a two-year fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, and her book, "The Artists of the Ara Pacis," was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Book by the Association of College and Research Libraries in 1997.
For more information about the excavation and the CU-Boulder classics department visit .