Le ricerche archeologiche alla villa romana di Cottanello: aggiornamenti e prospettive

The Institute for Studies on the Ancient Mediterranean (ISMA) of the National Research Council has been conducting a series of archaeological investigations at the Roman villa of Cottanello since 2013, thanks to the excavation permission granted by the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and also thanks to the collaboration of the Superintendency, the Sapienza University of Rome as well as the Municipality of Cottanello. Although the main results of this research have already been published, my intention is firstly to offer a brief summary of the work that has been done until now and, then, to give the latest updates (in particular with regard to the results of the 2017 archaeological excavations). Finally, I will address the future outlook of our project. In July 2017, we conducted a brief excavation campaign with the aim of improving our understanding of the thermal bathing area. We decided to continue the investigation of room 25 where we previously had documented a large amount of building materials. We found some new elements useful for the reconstruction of the villa's bath system. In addition to this essay, we publish an appendix by Flavia Campoli, which centers on the analysis of the ceramic materials found in 2017.