L’impiego del laterizio a Roma tra tecnologia, morfologia e contesti d’uso. Stratigrafie e strutture tra Palatino e Velia dall’età repubblicana alla prima età imperiale

This paper aims at a quick re-examination of brick use contexts within the northeastern slopes of the Palatine Hill excavation, in Rome. The investigations carried out by La Sapienza since 1986 have allowed to reconstruct the topographic layouts of the area before the great fire of 64 CE, with a dense road network that separates – between the Orientalizing and Julio-claudian periods – neighborhoods with houses and sanctuaries. The presence of fragmentary red and augitic impasto tiles will characterize the assemblages connected to the 7th – 5th c. BCE dumps. Only in the middle of the fourth c. BCE the augitic impasto tiles are used within the channels that cross the area. In the first decades of the second century, it is possible to witness the transition from the Archaic and early/ middle Republican augitic impasto to the regular brick impasto that will characterize the next phase of production, until the end of Antiquity and beyond. As for the use of brick in the wall curtains, the earliest examples date back to the Augustan age and include the use of tiles without the raised edges. However, the structures built up to the age of Caligula still bear witness to the minority use of this technique, since for the most important structures the opus reticulatum is still used. The use of bricks will become exclusive only from the Claudian age, when the opus testaceum technique will be used systematically in the reconstructions following a devastating fire documented in the area.