University of Southampton and British School at Rome (BSR) archaeologists, leading an international excavation of Portus – the ancient port of Rome, believe they have discovered a large Roman shipyard.
The team, working with the Italian Archaeological Superintendancy of Rome, has uncovered the remains of a massive building close to the distinctive hexagonal basin or ‘harbour’, at the centre of the port complex.
University of Southampton Professor and Portus Project Director, Simon Keay comments, “At first we thought this large rectangular building was used as a warehouse, but our latest excavation has uncovered evidence that there may have been another, earlier use, connected to the building and maintenance of ships. Few Roman Imperial shipyards have been discovered and, if our identification is correct, this would be the largest of its kind in Italy or the Mediterranean.”
It has long been known that Portus was a crucial trade gateway linking Rome to the Mediterranean throughout the Imperial period and the Portus Project1 team has been investigating the port’s significance over a number of years. Until now, no major shipyard building for Rome has been identified, apart from the possibility of one on the Tiber near Monte Testaccio, and a smaller one recently claimed for the neighbouring river port at Ostia.
A recent new grant of £640,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) has made this latest phase of excavation possible. These AHRC funds, together with financial support from the Archaeological Superintendancy of Rome, the University of Southampton and the British School at Rome have allowed extensive excavation to be undertaken at the site this year.
The huge building the team has discovered dates from the 2nd century AD and would have stood c. 145 metres long and 60 metres wide – an area larger than a football pitch. In places, its roof was up to 15 metres high, or more than three times the height of a double-decker bus. Large brick-faced concrete piers or pillars, some three metres wide and still visible in part, supported at least eight parallel bays with wooden roofs.
“This was a vast structure which could easily have housed wood, canvas and other supplies and certainly would have been large enough to build or shelter ships in. The scale, position and unique nature of the building lead us to believe it played a key role in shipbuilding activities,” comments Southampton’s Professor Keay, who also leads the archaeological activity of the BSR.
Investigations by his team in 2009 concentrated on the remains of an ‘Imperial palace’ and amphitheatre-shaped building, which lie adjacent to this building. He argues that together these formed a key complex where an imperial official was charged with coordinating the movement of ships and cargoes within the port. Furthermore he believes that the shipyard was an integral part of this.
The building is rectangular in form and extended from west to east for a minimum of 145m along the northern side of the Trajanic hexagonal basin, at the heart of the port. Its primary face dates to the Trajanic period (possibly AD 110-117). The main body of the building was articulated around a series of massive brick-faced concrete piers that defined eight parallel bays around 60m long that ran from north to south and opened onto both the Claudian and Trajanic basins.
The current excavations have uncovered a wide vaulted passage that defined the western side of the complex, as well as the most westerly of the bays. They suggest that the individual bays were approximately 12m wide and 58m long, that the rectangular piers measured approx 2m x 1.5m, and piers at the southern end measured approx 3m x 1.7m. The finish and sheer size of the latter makes it clear that the principal entrance probably lay to the south and that it comprised a massive arch; it is also clear, however, that could be entered by a substantial opening on its northern side.
This work complements extensive geophysical survey and topographical work carried out in recent years and suggests that the building as a whole comprised around ten of these bays that together would have presented a monumental arched façade onto the Trajanic basin. Their scale is best appreciated when it is realised that the vaulted bay would have originally stood to upwards of around 12m or more: the impact of this best appreciated by looking at the surviving vaulted hall of Trajan’s Markets at Rome (AD 100-110), which has a similar bay with a width of 9.8m which stands to a height of 12m. In terms of layout, the building is without a ready parallel at Portus or Ostia, and its closest parallel is the building traditionally identified as the Porticus Aemilia (190 BC) at the river port of Rome itself, and which has a total length of 487m composed of 50 bays with a length of 60m and width of 8.30m.
The scale, position and uniqueness of the building lead the team to believe that this building played a key role in the construction and repair of ships at Portus. In particular, it is suggested that it may have been used for the construction of ships, and to shelter them in the winter months. It could also have been used for housing the large supplies of wood, canvas and other supplies that would have reached the building by way of the Claudian port and fed through the northern entrances
Additional supporting evidence comes in the form of inscriptions discovered at Portus referring to the existence of a guild of shipbuilders or corpus fabrum navalium portensium in the port. Also, a mosaic, which is now in the Vatican Museum, but once adorned the floor of a villa on the ancient Via Labicana (a road leading south east of Rome), depicts the façade of a building similar to the one at Portus, clearly showing a ship in each bay.
“The discovery of this building has major implications for our understanding of the significance of the hexagonal basin or harbour at Portus and its role within the overall scheme of the port complex,” says Professor Keay.
He continues, “We need to stress there is no evidence yet of ramps which may have been needed to launch newly constructed ships into the waters of the hexagonal basin. These may lie beneath the early 20th century embankment, which now forms this side of the basin. Discovering these would prove our hypothesis beyond reasonable doubt, although they may no longer exist,” says Professor Keay.
Geophysicists from the Archaeological Prospection Services of Southampton and from the British School at Rome have been making geophysical surveys of the area around the building to gain additional information about its still partially buried structure. Members of Southampton’s Archaeological Computing Research Group, led by Dr Graeme Earl, have also created a computer graphic simulation, to provide both valuable visual data on its layout and construction and an impression of how it appeared and may have been used.
Professor Keay’s team is also working with Angelo Pellegrino from the Archaeological Superintendency of Rome to extend earlier excavations by the Portus Project, and the restoration of standing structures, relating to ‘the Imperial palace’, to better understand key issues about its layout and development.
This discovery has major implications for our understanding of the role of Portus. It is generally assumed that this, and indeed, many of the buildings at Portus were warehouses, and that the port was primarily an area of transshipment. This discovery, however, adds to evidence that it was the focus of other vitally important activities that helped define Portus’ role as the maritime port of Imperial Rome. In addition to suggesting that the port was the site of the shipyards of Imperial Rome during the early to later 2nd century AD, it also raises the possibility that ships from the imperial fleet headquarters at Misenum (Miseno), on the Bay of Naples, might have been sheltered or repaired here. If so then it becomes easier to accept the idea that Portus may have had some kind of naval role to complement that of the great naval base at Misenum to the south.
It is hoped that a new phase of excavations taking place during September and October 2011 will provide an answer to this question. They will also help shed light on the later history of this building, which sees the function of this particular bay transformed with the construction of a series of adjacent rooms within it on a new east-west alignment in the later 2nd/early 3rd centuries AD, and the conversion of these into granaries in the later 5th century AD. In the early to mid-6th century AD, parts of the building were systematically demolished, probably as a defensive measure during wars between the Byzantines and Ostrogoths (AD 535-553).
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Sources: University of Southampton, Pontus Project
