The ancient port built along the Tyrrhenian coast by Roman Emperor Claudius (mid of 1st Cent. AD) and enlarged by Emperor Trajan (beginning of 2nd Cent. AD) was Rome’s principal maritime port. The remains of the port and of the town raised in the close vicinity are at present ca. 3 km away from the present coastline, in the Tiber delta. Historical sources report that the imperial harbour was excavated both in terra firma and in lagoons. The harbour town named Portus developed together with the port itself and expanded in the following centuries. The study concerns two cores drilled in the dock and canale Trasverso of the Claudius harbour (Mazzini et al., 2011. J. Paleolimnol. 46: 243–256; Pepe et al., 2013. Quat. Int. 303: 73-81; Sadori et al., 2010. J. Archaeol. Sci. 37: 3294-3305) and one core taken in the centre of Trajan harbour, at present an artificial hexagonal-shaped lake. The chronological framing of the cores was carried out using magnetostratigraphy, radiocarbon dates, archaeological evidences and historical sources. The three cores, partly overlapping, cover different periods of time of the port history, from the middle of the first century onwards. Detailed sediment analyses were carried out on Trajan core. Pollen, Non Pollen Palynomorph (NPP), microcharcoal and plant macroremain analyses are integrated by dinoflagellate cysts, ostracod and foraminifer analyses to provide a detailed reconstruction of the air and water environments. The dock core shows the first phases of the harbour activities, re- cording first a marine and then a brackish environment. The plant landscape is typical of a coastal environment and appears rather preserved. The human presence is clear, but not of great impact outside the port area. The channel core (spanning a time period more recent than that of the dock core) records mainly a brackish water environment and a strong human impact related to the presence of Portus, the port town. The lake Trajan core shows the clear evidence of the huge works for the port excavation and records the history of the area also after the abandonment of the port and its isolation from the sea, even recording the reclamation of the area occurred in the early twentieth century. The combined use of the different paleolimnological analyses al- lowed to disentangle between natural and human induced changes in the port management and in the history of Lake Trajan.
The landscape history of the Imperial harbour of Rome / Sadori, L.; Bertini, A.; Di Bella, L.; Florindo, F.; Giardini, M.; Giraudi, C.; Goiran, J. -P.; Macri', Patrizia; Mancini, M.; Masi, A.; Mazzini, I.; Pepe, C.; Ruscito, V.; Wagner, B.. - (2018), pp. 103-103. (Intervento presentato al convegno 10th European Palaeobotany & Palynology Conference tenutosi a Dublin, Ireland).
The landscape history of the Imperial harbour of Rome
Sadori L.;Bertini A.;Di Bella L.;Giardini M.;MACRI', Patrizia;Masi A.;Mazzini I.;Pepe C.;Ruscito V.;
2018
Abstract
The ancient port built along the Tyrrhenian coast by Roman Emperor Claudius (mid of 1st Cent. AD) and enlarged by Emperor Trajan (beginning of 2nd Cent. AD) was Rome’s principal maritime port. The remains of the port and of the town raised in the close vicinity are at present ca. 3 km away from the present coastline, in the Tiber delta. Historical sources report that the imperial harbour was excavated both in terra firma and in lagoons. The harbour town named Portus developed together with the port itself and expanded in the following centuries. The study concerns two cores drilled in the dock and canale Trasverso of the Claudius harbour (Mazzini et al., 2011. J. Paleolimnol. 46: 243–256; Pepe et al., 2013. Quat. Int. 303: 73-81; Sadori et al., 2010. J. Archaeol. Sci. 37: 3294-3305) and one core taken in the centre of Trajan harbour, at present an artificial hexagonal-shaped lake. The chronological framing of the cores was carried out using magnetostratigraphy, radiocarbon dates, archaeological evidences and historical sources. The three cores, partly overlapping, cover different periods of time of the port history, from the middle of the first century onwards. Detailed sediment analyses were carried out on Trajan core. Pollen, Non Pollen Palynomorph (NPP), microcharcoal and plant macroremain analyses are integrated by dinoflagellate cysts, ostracod and foraminifer analyses to provide a detailed reconstruction of the air and water environments. The dock core shows the first phases of the harbour activities, re- cording first a marine and then a brackish environment. The plant landscape is typical of a coastal environment and appears rather preserved. The human presence is clear, but not of great impact outside the port area. The channel core (spanning a time period more recent than that of the dock core) records mainly a brackish water environment and a strong human impact related to the presence of Portus, the port town. The lake Trajan core shows the clear evidence of the huge works for the port excavation and records the history of the area also after the abandonment of the port and its isolation from the sea, even recording the reclamation of the area occurred in the early twentieth century. The combined use of the different paleolimnological analyses al- lowed to disentangle between natural and human induced changes in the port management and in the history of Lake Trajan.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
