A treasure of ancient Rome is "revealed" for the first time: in Fiumicino the imposing imperial hexagonal basin, over 357 meters on each side and an area of about 32 hectares, in the port complex of Claudius and Trajan, is, in fact, under " the lens" of archaeological investigations, also with the use of new technologies.
The first activities started in February 2021 and the latest in recent days: they fall within the Underwater Cultural Heritage Protection service of the Ostia Antica Archaeological Park, under the coordination of the director of the Archaeological Park, Alessandro d'Alessio, and the head of the Protection service Underwater Cultural Heritage, the official underwater archaeologist Alessandra Ghelli.
Objective: to acquire data relating to the construction characteristics of the port basin,
to its frequentation and use, with the documentation and the recovery of any testimony useful for the reconstruction of the various phases of life, in a synchronic and diachronic sense, of what was the most important seaport of antiquity.
The first investigative activities, carried out underwater, with the operational technical support of the Rome underwater carabinieri unit and the Rome Tpc unit carabinieri, made it possible to recover some ceramic fragments belonging to transport containers (tips and amphora necks, handles ) and building materials (bricks and tiles).
Now a new phase of research for the basin incorporated within a private property and managed by the Portus Onlus Foundation, which has guaranteed its usability since 1993: "The visibility within the hexagonal basin,
for the quality of the water and the characteristics of the sediment that covers the seabed, it is almost nothing.
New impetus to the activities is provided by the use of new technologies, resorting to instruments for marine geophysics applied to cultural heritage, such as those made available by Codevintec Italiana Srl in the recent survey campaign conducted between 16 and 18 January last". explains Ghelli.Between 100 and 112 AD, the emperor Trajan conceived the new project which involved the excavation of a large hexagonal basin, internal to the port of Claudius, to implement the Port of Rome and, at the same time, solve the numerous problems, first of all the silting up, to which the "portus Augusti Ostiensis" was subject, i.e. the first port facility built,
2 km north of the mouth of the Tiber, by Emperor Claudius and completed by Nero.
The imposing imperial port complex had to fulfill the growing need for supplies of raw materials, but not only, of the City in relation to the progressive demographic increase.
The cornerstone of Trajan's port complex was, therefore, the construction of an internal basin with respect to the port of Claudius;
the hexagonal plan facilitated the docking operations of cargo ships and the unloading and loading of goods.
A system of artificial waterways, fossae, ensured direct communication with the sea and the Tiber.
In particular, it was connected to the latter via a transversal waterway which entered a canal, already present in Claudio's first plant,
which constituted the direct connection with the Tiber, the Fossa Traiana (today's Fiumicino canal).
In the 1920s, Trajan's hexagon was the subject of an impressive reclamation operation which freed the port of Trajan from oblivion which for many centuries had relegated it to little more than a muddy and unhealthy pond.
