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Archaeological research of a Roman villa in Soline Bay on the island of St. Clement (Pakleni Islands, Hvar) in June 2016
Marina Ugarković
; Institute of Archaeology, Zagreb, Croatia
Ivančica Schrunk
orcid.org/0000-0001-7145-9722
; St. Thomas University, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
Vlasta Begović
orcid.org/0000-0001-7145-9722
; Zagreb, Croatia
Marinko Petrić
; The Hvar Heritage Museum, Hvar, Croatia
Abstract
The tenth season of the international and interdisciplinary investigations of the Roman villa in Soline Bay on Sv. Klement near Hvar took place in June 2016. The objective was to continue the excavation of the production area of the villa. Two probes were excavated to the north and west of the standing wall B. Probe 17 had 9 stratigraphic units of soil layers and no architectural remains. It confirmed that there were no built spaces west of the perimeter wall documented in the previous seasons. Probe 18 contained another segment of this perimeter wall (SU 18005), which still continued north, outside the probe. Other architectureal remains in probe 18 confirmed at least two building phases and showed that production spaces extended to the north and east. A round structure SU 18011, built of rough-cut stone set in thick lime mortar (diameter 2 m) could have been a base of some agricultural structure (press?). It was adjacent to (and functionally connected with?) the basin with a floor in opus signinum and an imbedded stone bowl, uncovered in 2015. Under the round structure was a floor SU 18012, made of fine mortar with sand and small stones, which belonged to an earlier building phase and was associated with the wall SU 18005 and a perpendicular wall SU 18009. Another wall SU 18014 was parallel with wall 18005 and abutted the western wall of the basin. It could have been added to reinforce that wall. A very large number of white limestone tesserae of various sizes were found in both probes, but only one fresco fragment. Earlier residential spaces were perhaps repurposed for production functions. The ceramic finds included very few fragments of Hellenistic and early imperial ware in addition to late Roman African and Phocaean sigillata, Aegean and African kitchen ware and amphorae. There were also several fragments of ceramic beehives. The most significant was the find of an almost complete amphora in situ by the eastern face of wall SU 18005. Among the metal finds, there were 3 bronze coins and one small bronze plate, perhaps part of a belt buckle. The structures related to agricultural production and the ceramic finds indicate the economic, navigational and strategic role of this villa in the Mediterranean exchange.
Keywords
Pakleni otoci; the island of St. Clement; Soline Bay; Roman villa; Late Roman architecture; the economy of Roman villa; early and late Roman pottery
Hrčak ID:
189491
URI
Publication date:
21.11.2017.
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