Excavations and Discoveries in the Forum Romanum and on the Palatine during the last Fifty Years

Abstract

The first decade of the twentieth century ended with a substantial sum of important discoveries in the Forum to its credit. Between 1898 and 1903 Giacomo Boni's intensive work had resulted in sensational finds—the Lapis Niger, the republican Comitium and the archaic cemetery ; he had finished excavating both on the north side of the Forum, uncovering the front of the Basilica Aemilia and the Curia, and to the south, where the shrine of the Fountain of Juturna had returned to light, together with the approach from the Forum to the Imperial Palace and the series of early Christian paintings in S. Maria Antiqua. Excavation of the House of the Vestals was also brought to completion. Interest in republican and archaic development had led to investigation beneath the paving of the Forum itself (Equus Domitiani, Lacus Curtius, underground galleries and ritual wells and pits), and to a search for the ancient track of the Via Sacra, with exploration of its shops and wells of Republican date. A mass of information and material collected as a result of these excavations has unfortunately, although scrupulously catalogued, remained largely unpublished. Aerial photographs made at this time give a clear picture of the Forum valley during the first years of the century : one vast excavation stretching from the Vulcanal to the Arch of Titus.