I prodotti vascolari di una nuova fornace nella Centuripe augustea/giulio-claudia

The discovery of a kiln which manufactured thin-walled vases dating back to the Augustan/Julio-Claudian age, in Centuripe, represents one of the few reliable data, from a chronological and topographical point of view, concerning this city during the proto-imperial age. With regard to the period considered, archaeological evidence is random and fragmentary. In fact, it is difficult to identify other structures that can be unequivocally dated between the Augustan and Julio-Claudian ages or evidence of presumed building works that Strabo attributes to Octavian Augustus for the help that the city would have offered him during the civil war. On the basis of the available archaeological data, however, it is possible to locate three residential districts, two (maybe three) artisan districts and a place dedicated to the imperial cult. The need that led Centuripe and other centres in Sicily to produce a ceramic class typical of central and northern Italy should be seen in a general process of Romanization of the ancient city of Hellenistic culture and of the island in general.