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Interamna Lirenas: A Roman town in Central Italy revealed

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https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/353559

Interamna Lirenas: A Roman town in Central Italy revealed

By Alessandro Launaro & Martin Millett

The Roman town of Interamna Lirenas (Southern Lazio, Central Italy) was established as a colony in 312 bc and was occupied until the 6th century ad. Despite its long life, it has since almost disappeared from view: until recently, the site consisted of a series of crop fields, its visible archaeology amounting to little more than a dense ploughsoil assemblage, with very few standing remains. However, since 2010 an integrated archaeological project by the Faculty of Classics of the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with various other institutions, has explored both the town and its surrounding countryside through geophysical prospection, field survey and excavation. The research presented in this volume covers survey work over the urban area. It provides an account and discussion of the results of our application of non-destructive archaeological methods (geophysical prospection and systematic surface collections) to the study of the urban site. It includes a review of what was known of the town prior to our involvement, and also a discussion of the development, potential and limitations of the kind of high-resolution, extensive groundpenetrating radar survey which was carried out. This study places special emphasis on the earliest colonial phase as well as later transformations, and explores how the inhabitants of Interamna Lirenas responded to the challenges and opportunities presented by a growing Roman world, thus identifying the conditions that contributed to the town as a successful urban centre. This volume thus contributes substantial new evidence to broader historical debates about the political, social, economic and cultural development of Roman urbanism, in Italy and beyond.

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