Elaiussa Sebaste in età tardoantica e bizantina. L’archivio di una missione archeologica della Sapienza in Turchia

Whoever oversees an archaeological fieldwork needs to have stable, coherent, logically organised, and easily accessible archives. Excavations, as is well known, are a destructive process. This is true either for those carried out in the past by digging into the soil irrespective of strata, or those most recent, which are based upon a close recording of every minimal clue found on the ground, should it be the product of an anthropic intervention or of a natural phenomenon. For decades long, such a kind of considerations was to be found in the handbook of archaeological research methodology. Those who undertook the first large-scale excavations worldwide did not feel the problem of archives: it was their action that created these latter. However, since between the 19th and the 20th centuries archaeology evolved into a discipline with its own rules, the need to support archaeological interpretation through the evidence collected on the field or by means of subsequent analyses became apparent. Archive materials are crucial when any analysis and/or re-interpretation is to be done of the ‘destruction’ of an excavated area. Archives are somewhat like excavations; they too have their own ‘stratigraphy’. An archaeological archive is a unit based upon a manifold documentation. On the one hand, we have what we collected during the project phase, either on paper or in digital form: written reports and drafts, drawings, photographs, 3D models, geophysical surveys, Lidar point clouds, etc. On the other, we should consider the evidence of material culture, including ceramics, metal objects, stone, wood, bone, environmental remains. Thus, it clearly appears that maintaining archives is a basic condition for archaeological research. They are ‘vital’ for us, in that they allow us to reassess old results or to do further research. More generally, they give everyone concerned with our common past the key to access it. Excavations at Elaiussa Sebaste (Ayaş, SE Turkey) started in 1995 under the direction of Eugenia Equini Schneider. The writer of these lines took over as director in 2020. To deal with the management of such long-established excavations is not just a routine gesture. Indeed, the Elaiussa project developed itself during a period characterised by a worldwide radical technological improvement. The Elaiussa dossier, as well as those of many similar archaeological sites, was of course affected by these transformations. Suddenly, traditional methods and tools became obsolete, and, unfortunately, some deplorable loss of data is being reported. Nonetheless, by taking advantage of the digitalisation, we are now able to use the clouds or set up a central server within our university computer system. This latter is expected to offer a repository where each member of our archaeological mission can upload the documents or photographic materials and put all of them at disposal of internal and external users. Thus far, for Elaiussa’s archive to be functional it is necessary to transfer all the information from the obsolete media to the most updated one. The core of the archive should be placed in the headquarters of the mission, ideally in a server located at the Sapienza University of Rome. All the materials will be organised and made accessible to all those who work there. To date, a substantial part of them has been already filed under specific categories. The available data was for the first time divided according to the 25 excavation areas, and further subdivisions by year of acquisition and document type were introduced. Given these preconditions, we will proceed to create digital files in almost every sector of our work – from data collecting to the production of images and the editing of written reports. All the data shall be managed in a way that ensure that they will remain secure and accessible both now and in the future. The research about the early Byzantine phase of the centre of Elaiussa Sebaste took advantage – mostly through recent years – of new sources of documentation and the image of a key harbour-city became clearer and clearer. Not incidentally, this means that the bulk of the archive of the archaeological mission is being increasing in size and quality year after year. To deal with this body of information is what all those who wish to process the data collected from the excavation campaigns are expected to do. At Elaiussa, the monuments – rather than the written sources – would tell us about the history of the settlement. This is all the more true because the rich architectural and epigraphical evidence of the late antique city may somewhat compensate for the very few surviving texts. At this stage of research, it may appear simplistic to postulate a ‘continuity’ between the Graeco-Roman and the Byzantine city. In most cases, public and private spaces are in fact maintained by means of a radical reinterpretation of their function or use. It is no coincidence that the nuclei of the Hellenistic and Roman city – i.e., the promontory, the so-called ‘island’, the area of the theatre and the suburban temple – promptly underwent, between the fifth and sixth century AD, to architectural remodelling or functional conversion. This was undoubtedly done through the agency of new social and economic factors linked to the relatively flourishing regional framework. The second part of this contribution will show the impact of the archive of the Elaiussa archaeological mission and the relevant publications in offering a comprehensive view of this renewal of the urban fabric in the Early Byzantine period.