Villa Magna

Site D excavation summary, 7-12th July 2008

We returned to digging Site D this week after a weeklong vacation. Our site was eagerly awaiting our return and yielded exciting new discoveries. On Monday we expanded the trench six meters to the west, which makes our site twenty by twenty-six meters with a five by ten meter extension to the south. The rough and ready members of the team spent a long week cleaning off the mixed topsoil down to the destruction layer that covers the extent of the extension. The walls visible within the destruction layer suggest that we may not yet have the full extent of the building.

Our colleagues to the east ran a far more intricate operation this week. Room seven yielded surprises beyond our expectations. Cuts upon cuts revealed burned layers and an infant burial as well as a robber trench where the northern wall used to be. We will return to this area next week to reveal more of the complicated stratigraphy. Together with the revelations from excavated rooms five and six, we believe that we are dealing with a secondary phase within a more functional space associated with the more grandiose aspects of imperial villa life. Suggestions we are considering (under advisement) include barracks, stables, and slave quarters.

Finally, we commenced excavating the drain in the corridor (area nine). This foray into stratigraphic excavations proved very fruitful. As the destruction layer, slumped into the cut of the drain, was removed, we revealed large, white basalt lining the sides (in part) of the cut. The pottery coming from the destruction layer was abundant, and a plethora of coins suggested that there are greater things to come when we excavate the actual fill of the drain next week. We plan to continue excavating the drain and room seven along with opening up new rooms, which will hopefully reveal a more complete picture of the secondary and primary lives of our building.

— Ryan Ricciardi· Jul 13, 16:31