98915 - Urban Archaeology (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

The student, at the end of the class, will be familiar with the methods necessary for investigations both in the area of preventative and emergency urban archeology and of abandoned sites. To reach this result, the student, initially, will acquire the necessary knowledge base to understand the shape and development of cities and their main architectonic features.

Course contents

Ancient cities offer an exceptional training ground for the archaeologist who must deal with particularly complex contexts and adapt research methodologies in consequence. Since ancient cities have come down to us with complex phenomena of continuity and discontinuity conditioned by environmental variations, these methodologies will in turn have to be declined in different ways. For this reason, the archaeology of the city can be considered a discipline in its own right that requires specific skills that are also very useful for those who want to approach the archaeology as a job.

But studying an ancient city also means knowing how to recognise its urban form and the buildings that form it, often inspired by urban planning schemes matured in the main monumental centres of the Mediterranean. This is, for instance, the case of Rome, which grows conditioned by the topography and develops innovative solutions thanks to the synthesis of architectural traditions coming both from the Italic peninsula and from the great season of Hellenism spread throughout the Mediterranean. In the same period, the Greek cities also underwent a significant evolution partly inspired by similar ideas and partly characterised by characteristic solutions. The outcome of the contact between these two dominant cultures is particularly interesting in some marginal areas of the Hellenic peninsula, such as Epirus, where field research is currently underway that can provide unpublished data. But the archaeology of cities cannot be understood without the archaeology of citizens, i.e. without comparing the various forms of citizenship developed in Rome or in the various autonomous communities of the Italic peninsula and the Greek world. Indeed, the various kinds of citizenship require spaces that necessarily condition the form of the city.

In the light of these considerations, the course will address the archaeology of abandoned cities and cities with continuity of life (urban archaeology), with a focus on the Hellenistic and Roman periods in the Mediterranean area.
In all cases, the archaeology of cities will be linked to the historical geography of the places in which these centres developed and to the archaeology of the surrounding landscape, seeking to highlight the phenomena of continuity and discontinuity with respect to pre-Roman and medieval times.
Through a number of case studies, attention will also be paid to some of the methodological aspects that make urban archaeology and the archaeology of the city in general a modern discipline, capable of dialogue with experts of various backgrounds.
To achieve these objectives, after presenting the course topics and the modalities of the final examination, the course will be organised in two parts.

The first part of the course, of an introductory and methodological nature, will serve to define the concept of the city itself, regardless of historical periods, in an attempt to highlight the distinctive features that can make it recognisable to archaeologists. For this reason, certain interpretative models will be recalled, starting with the theory of the urban revolution. At the same time, the forms of citizenship in the ancient world (politeia/civitas) and the settlement (oppidum, vicus, pagus, urbs/kome, chora, asty, polis) in the Greek (poleis and federal systems) and Roman (federated cities, Roman colonies, Latin colonies, municipalities, praefecturae, fora, conciliabula) spheres will be examined.
Then, the source categories (geography, archaeology, literature, cartography, toponymy) and the main methodologies of urban archaeology and archaeology of abandoned cities (remote sensing, geophysics, topography) necessary to produce archaeological maps will be focused on.
To this end, the role of physical geography will also be considered, both in the choice of location and the conditioning imposed on urban development by its topography. These dynamics translate into the perception of the stratified urban landscape, i.e. of the different cities insisting on each other in the various historical periods (topographic plans) from an original geographical context that must be reconstructed (palaeo-topography).

The second part of the course will be devoted to the genesis and monumental development of Rome and Roman cities and the urban phenomenon in a particular region of Greece corresponding to ancient Epirus. Various case studies will be compared through dialogue and discussion in the classroom.
With regard to the first Rome, the excavations on the Palatine, the changes in the republican city triggered by the new Hellenistic architectural models, the development of the Roman Forum, the Imperial Forums and the Campus Martius will be considered. Particular attention will be paid to the urban renewal programme desired by Augutus.
Finally, the models of the Roman city will be analysed through some exemplary cases from the rest of the peninsula. The relationship between town planning and military encampments, the programmatic plans typical of planned town planning, defensive systems, and the relationship with roads and waterways will be discussed.
With regard to Epirus, the forms of aggregation that led to the genesis and development of the city will be analysed, referring to the differences that characterise this area compared to other regions of Greece with a greater urban tradition, such as Athens itself. In order to develop this theme, reference will also be made to some sites that are still under investigation, such as Phoinike and Butrint with their respective territories.

Other Teaching Activities and Field Research


As part of the course, a number of opportunities will be organised to meet with other archaeologists involved in the investigation of ancient cities, in order to explore specific topics and case studies.


Right from the start of the course, some research projects of the University of Bologna on ancient cities such as Butrint in Albania, Suasa and Monte Rinaldo in the Marche region will be presented.


Students attending the course and those wishing to devote their thesis to these topics will be offered the opportunity to participate in field research, subject to logistical availability.

Please refer to the project websites for further details:

https://site.unibo.it/butrint/en

https://cumarcheologia.it/

http://www.progettosuasa.it/

Readings/Bibliography

The students attending this course will need to study, besides attending the lessons, the following mandatory book:

F. Fabiani, L'urbanistica: città e paesaggi, Carocci 2014.

Students who do not attend this course will need to study the following mandatory book:

N. Terrenato, La grande trattativa. L'espansione di Roma in Italia tra storia e archeologia, Carocci 2022.

The foreign students attending this course may replace the mandatory manual in Italian with the following text:

N. Terrenato, The Early Roman Expansion into Italy, Cambridge University Press 2019.

Students who also support the course of Archeology of the Roman city will need to study the following mandatory book:

P. Gros, L'architettura romana. Dagli inizi del III secolo a. C. alla fine dell'alto impero, Longanesi 2001, pp. 134-300 (Edifici del centro monumentale: templi, fori, basiliche, curie).

Reference bibliography
(Not mandatory but useful for optional further reading)

About Ancient Cities:

G. Childe, La Rivoluzione Urbana, Rubettino 2004 (1a ed. 1950);

C. Ampolo (a c.), La città antica, Laterza 1980;

C. Bearzot, Il federalismo greco, il Mulino 2014;

C. Bearzot, La polis greca, il Mulino 2009.

About Ancient Urbanism:

E. Greco, Ippodamo di Mileto. Immaginario sociale e pianificazione urbana nella Grecia classica, Pandemos 2018.

L.M. Caliò, Asty. Studi sulla città antica, Quasr 2012.

H. Von Hesberg, P. Zanker (a c.), Storia dell'architettura italiana. Architettura romana. I grandi monumenti di Roma.

H. Von Hesberg, P. Zanker (a c.), Storia dell'architettura italiana. Architettura romana. Le città d'Italia, Milano 2012.

P. Gros, M. Torelli, Storia dell’urbanistica. Il mondo romano, Laterza 2010, pp. 5-270 (senza l'ultima parte sulle città provinciali);

E. Lippolis, M. Livadiotti, G. Rocco, Architettura greca. Storia e monumenti del mondo della polis dalle origini al V secolo, Bruno Mondadori 2007;

M. H. Hansen (ed.), A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures, Copenhagen 2000.

A. Carandini, R, Cappelli (a c.), Roma, Romolo, Remo e la fondazione della città, Electa 2000, pp. 68-73, 95-150, 275-280.

About Epirus:

L. Mancini, Edilizia di culto presso gli ethne dell’Epiro. Architettura e paesaggi del sacro alla periferia nord-occidentale della Grecia, Quasar 2022.

E. Rinaldi, Agorai ed edilizia pubblica civile sull'Epiro di età ellenistica, Bologna University Press 2020;

E. Giorgi, J. Bogdani, Il territorio di Phoinike in Caonia. Archeologia del paesaggio in Albania meridionale, Bologna 2012.

About Methodology:

F. Vermeulen, G.-J. Burgers, S. Keays and C. Corsi (eds.), Urban Landscape Survey in Italy and the Mediterranean, Oxbow 2012 (un articolo a scelta).

P. Johnson, M. Millett (eds.), Archaeological Survey and the City, Oxbow 2012 (un articolo a scelta).

F. Boschi, Looking for the Future, Caring for the past. Preventive Archaeology in Theory and Practice, Bologna University Press 2016.

Teaching methods

Lectures will have seminar settings with the use of presentations and case studies in which teacher-led research is being conducted.


Students will be asked to intervene actively in the course of the lectures.


Depending on the number of students, it will be possible to propose in-class readings of passages from the reference bibliography that will be critically discussed and analysed.


Lecture series, additional and open to the public, will be organised on specific topics by researchers working on relevant aspects.

Assessment methods

The active participation in lessons, conferences and teaching activities will also be evaluated.

The final vote will be determined by an oral exam.

The questions will cover the following topics:

1. Urban Archaeology and Archaeology of Ancient Cities (Methods and typology);

2. Urban and Monumental Development of Rome;

3. Urban genesis and Development inAncient Epirus.

For non-attending students, the interview will focus on the same topics, paying particular attention to the volumes being studied.

The following evaluation parameters will be adopted, for attending students and non-frequenting students.

Attending Students

Excellent Evaluation (30 and praise-28): active participation of the student in the lessons; the student will have to demonstrate the possession of high level knowledge, the ability to interpret the landscape problems correctly and showing a certain autonomy of reasoning. The student will demonstrate the ability to move well within the "parure" of sources presented in class. Excellent oral expression skills including in the technical languages presented.

Good Grade (27-23): The student has attended the course and will demonstrate possession of knowledge at a good level, but mainly mnemonic; the interpretation of the problems proposed will be correct, but not always precise and autonomous. The language used will be appropriate with some problems in the more technical aspects.

Sufficient Rating (22-18): The student has attended the course, demonstrates possession of the basic knowledge of the discipline, but assumed in mnemonic form; the interpretation of the problems is mostly correct, but conducted with inaccuracy and little autonomy. The language used will be fair, but lacking in technical language.

Insufficient Evaluation: the lack of acquisition of the basic concepts of the discipline, combined with a poor ability to make use of the sources presented and an adequate language will be evaluated with insufficient score, which provides for the repetition of the exam.

Non-Frequenting Students
Non-frequenting students will be evaluated primarily on the basis of their ability to gain awareness of the issues inherent in Landscape resulting from manual and bibliographic study, combined with adequate language.

Excellent Evaluation (30 cum laude -28): the student will demonstrate a solid understanding of the subject matter, the demonstration of a critical sense in evaluating the sources to be drawn upon in reconstructing the ancient landscape. He/she will express him/herself in language appropriate to the subject, even in its technical parts.

Good Evaluation (27-23): the student will demonstrate a good knowledge and understanding of the subject, but will not have fully succeeded in developing a critical sense, with verbal expression and reasoning on the issues proposed not always perfect.

Sufficient Rating (22-18): the student will demonstrate sufficient knowledge of the subject matter, but will have failed to develop a critical sense, with verbal expression and reasoning on proposed problems not fully satisfactory.

Insufficient Assessment: lack of acquisition of basic concepts of the discipline, coupled with a poor ability to make use of the sources presented and adequate language will be assessed with an insufficient score, which requires retaking the exam.

Teaching tools

The presentations used during the lessons will be available on the web portal of the course.

Office hours

See the website of Enrico Giorgi