ROMAN ERA IN MARATEA
Roman Villas
At the beginning of the 3rd century B.C., the village at Capo la Timpa was finally abandoned.
We do not know exactly what the subsequent settlement pattern was, but archaeologists assume that during the Roman era the territory of Maratea hosted a dispersed settlement, with small nuclei alongside the large patrician seaside villas.
One of these villas was found at the Castrocucco Silt Bank, where artifacts also indicate the presence of a fish-processing facility.
ROMAN AMPHORA
The Vicus in the Roman era
The territory was supposed to be under the control of a vicus; possibly located in the area of the current fraction of Fiumicello-Santavenere, where in the nineteenth century the ruins of some ancient structures described by scholar A. Lombardi could still be seen, including those of a small temple that popular tradition claims was dedicated to Venus and then transformed into a Christian shrine, and thus the origin of the toponym; or from a political-religious area on the top of Mount S. Biagio, where remains from the Roman Imperial period have been found and a site designated by tradition as the location of a temple dedicated to the goddess Minerva.
ONCE AGAIN & BEFORE
The main archaeological emergency of the Roman period is, rather than the coast or the inland, the small island of Santo Janni, where the largest deposit of anchors and amphorae in the Mediterranean has been found.
These artifacts, currently on display in the permanent underwater archaeology exhibition at Palazzo De Lieto, are the most direct evidence of the importance of Roman Maratea, whose name we do not know, in the panorama of ancient maritime trade: the anchors were left on the sea floor by ships that sailed routes throughout the Mediterranean, from Rome to Sicily, from Spain to the African coast.
Treasure Hunt
A NEW WAY TO EXPLORE THE CITY
AN EXCITING TREASURE HUNT
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MARATEA: THE SARACEN’S LEGACY
A StreetAdventures™ necklace adventure
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