#MAREMonday 35

On 13.01.2025 we present the 35th session of our online lecture series with a contribution of

Elisabetta Rosatti
(Università La Sapienza di Roma)

Reconstructing the Roman port system of Altinum:
research approaches and some preliminary outcomes

Abstract:

Altinum was a Roman city in the Italian Northern Adriatic region, located near the ancient Venice Lagoon, along some key commercial routes between the Eastern Mediterranean and Central Europe. A natural and artificial waterways network with quays and warehouses bordered and crossed the city, connecting it with rivers, the Lagoon and the Adriatic. Therefore, Altinum was where various water-based trades converged, and it worked as a multiple scales and integrated port system.

This contribution will present the ongoing research project, which aims to clarify how this system worked by studying the port spaces, their “users” – goods and boats – and the mutual interaction between them. The presentation will outline the reasons and the ideas beyond this project, the objectives, and the main challenges encountered in the research. The focus will be on the investigations already conducted to reconstruct the port spaces, mainly archive research, a coring campaign, and a GIS project to manage and analyse the dataset. Eventually, this contribution will discuss some preliminary outcomes and mention future research perspectives.