“If you want to become an archaeologist, then you have to get to work with your cock,” says Brechtje Hartong van Ark, a 22-year-old student of antiquity sciences, specialization Archeology, at the University of Amsterdam. “Or with other materials. For the medieval skeleton I just dug out, was a year or I think a tea with a tea
Together with 24 other students, the archaeologist in training has just finished four weeks of excavations and research in Satricum, an excavation location in present-day Le Ferriere, a hamlet of the Middle-Italian municipality of Latina, about an hour’s drive from Rome. Archeology is also intense manual labor. Meter -sized spaces have carved and excavated the young people. In shorts and shirts they go to work before day and dew. But it gets hot quickly. After one o’clock in the afternoon they stop digging. Later in the afternoon they will wash shards for two more hours.
Satricum is not so well known and that is unjustified, says Marijke Gnade (69), emeritus professor at the University of Amsterdam. “This site offers us a wealth of information about pre-Roman, Italian peoples such as the Latin and the Volsken who lived here before the Roman Empire was formed, but also contains traces of a large Roman villa from the first century AD.”
The Satricum excavation location, an hour’s drive from Rome.
Photos Rocco Rorandelli
This is the longest -running archaeological research in the Mediterranean by the Dutch
Judging by all marble shards that the researchers have listed and the remains of a column gallery, the villa – a large men’s farm from antiquity with slaves and cattle – must have been very luxurious, Gnade says. “We found too Giallo Anticoor numidic marble, with its beautiful yellow color, back from Africa. The marble in this villa came from the entire Roman Empire. “
The professor specializes in that pre-Roman era and ended up in Satricum for the first time as a student in 1980. “What immediately fascinated me is that you will find almost 3,000 years of history here in one place – in the ninth century BC there was already a hut settlement here,” says Gnade, who is still in the field after decades, with shorts and loose shirts, but now as supervisor of the students.
Her team found remains of cemeteries of the Volsken, but also of skeletons from the Middle Ages, when the location became a cemetery again. A tunnel, used by the Romans as a storage place, was given a new life as a hiding place for American soldiers during the Second World War. “There were bullets and cans from the 1940s in the tunnel.”
Archaeologists at work on the pre-Roman site.
Terracotta floor of the Roman villa.
Photos Rocco Rorandelli
In Italy, Satricum cannot compete with more spectacular sites such as the antique cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum at Naples, or even Ostia, the ancient Roman port city not far from Rome. In the sixties, the Roman villa of Satricum was demolished to make way for agricultural land. The remaining walls are only half a meter high at the highest point.
Yet there is a lot of fascinating to discover. Gnade shows the remains of the thermal complex that belonged to the villa. The site also offers a lot of insight into the ingenious Roman sewer system and water supply. “Water came from a higher source and was supplied via an underground aqueduct,” says Gnade, while we step over the aqueduct. The water was collected in a huge cistern, which has been preserved, and in which 200,000 liters of water can be done. She also shows a piece of a lead water pipe, with the stamp of Auruncleius Chresimus, a plumbarius Or plumber from Antium (present -day Anzio).
The remains of the thermal complex that belonged to the villa.
Photo Rocco Rorandelli
Goddess of the dawn
The Amsterdam emeritus has made its life’s work from the research into the site. After that first visit in 1980, she became devoted to the place. “This is the longest -running archaeological research in the Mediterranean by the Dutch,” she says proudly. But honor who deserves honor: a Frenchman was first. Hector Graillot discovered the remains of a temple in 1896, dedicated to Mater Matuta, the goddess of the dawn. This followed two years of research by Italian archaeologists. The material was stored to be removed from under the dust until 1976 for a large exhibition in Rome.
“A year later, the Satricum investigation ended up at the Netherlands Institute Rome (NIR), which became a concessionaire with money from the Dutch Ministry of Education and Sciences,” says Gnade. After the NIR, the project came under the care of the University of Amsterdam, and later again at the Royal Netherlands Institute. The excavations are nowadays funded by the Private Study Center for Latium. The Dutch work together with Italian researchers and workers.
Marijke Gnade in an underground storage room.
Photo Rocco Rorandelli
Etruscan urns found at the location.
Photo Rocco Rorandelli
A real patronage
The area on which the archaeologists work is also private, and is part of Casal del Giglioa large wine company that produces wines that are called Satricum and Mater Matuta as a tribute to the site. “Owner Antonio Santarelli behaves like a real patron,” says Gnade. He lets the archaeologists work on patches of land between his vines without asking, and has also made room for two storage spaces on his estate. They are now protruding from the amphoras, jugs, burial objects and hundreds of marble shards that Gnade and her team have listed in recent years.
The archaeologist fervently hopes that the municipality of Latina will also keep a recently made promise, and that the site will be an archaeological park with a museum in the future. “During fascism, former swamp soil was drained in this region. The local historical knowledge often ends there. While the history of this piece of Italy is so infinitely richer.”
The most important departure of the Roman villa, with vines in the background.
Photo Rocco Rorandelli