WORKING DRAFT. DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHORS PERMISSION.

2013

Review of Lapadula, Erminia. The Chora of Metaponto 4: The Late Roman Farmhouse at San Biagio. Pp. xiv + 261, figs. 116, tables 15. University of Texas Press, Austin 2012. $75. ISBN 978-0-29272877-6 (cloth). The Chora of Metaponto 4: The Late Roman Farmhouse at San Biagio is a unique publication of a mid-sized farmhouse constructed in the mid-2nd century A.D. and abandoned in the mid-4th century. The book is in many ways a model publication of a distinct rural site. The authors take pains not only to detail the excavated material and architecture, but also to place the site in the regional context of South Italy and the Metapontino. While the excavations took place over three decades earlier, the appearance of the book is nevertheless a timely contribution to recent conversations about rural life in the Roman world and Roman Italy in particular and begins to fill the gap in our knowledge of Roman rural settlement below the level of elite villas. The authors reinforced the value of the work in understanding regional settlement by explicitly locating the site in the context of a landscape defined by over a half century of archaeological work in the Metapontino and Basilicata including the recently published regional survey. The organization of the book proceeds along standard lines. It begins with a discussion of the region of Basilicata in Roman times with particular attention to archaeological fieldwork conducted at the city of Metaponto and its chora. The excavations at the farmhouse of San Biagio is part of University of Texass Institute of Classical Archaeologys long-term research in countryside of Metaponto. This work has revised previous ideas about an economically stagnant Later Roman Metapontino and located the farmhouse within landscape of modest prosperity (p. 12). It appears that this was consistent with the development of the urban area of Metaponto. In sum, the scarcity of evidence for economy of the region in the 3rd century gives way to a vibrant 4th century in which Metaponto featured a basilica and a welldeveloped export port indicating that the city was deeply integrated within larger administrative and economic networks. This integration may well account for the moderate prosperity of the region as well. The second chapter focused on the site of San Biagio and its farmhouse. The authors set out the method of excavation, the stratigraphy of the site, and the phasing of the building. The excavators used modified Wheelerian methods at San Biagio, and this was consistent, evidently, with other excavations in the region. A similarly detailed description of the artifact sampling procedure during excavation would have contextualized some of the quantitative observations made in later chapters, but descriptions of this aspect of excavation practice remains rare in archaeological monographs. After the short treatment on method, the chapter

WORKING DRAFT. DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHORS PERMISSION. 2013

documented the results of work in each room of the building and included brief summaries of the finds, architecture, and function. Excavations revealed three phases to the house proper excluding earlier activity at the site revealed through deeper soundings. Revising the initial interpretation of the building phases published in 1980 by Joseph Carter in preliminary report, the authors argue that the basic plan of the building remained unchanged throughout its lifespan. The building featured 10 rooms with spaces identified as storerooms, a kitchen, cubicula, and, most notably, a small bath with hypocausts. Baths in buildings of this modest stature remain rare in Late Roman times. The building saw some minor changes in a second phases dated to the end of the 3rd or beginning of the 4th century including the division of two of the rooms using the same basic construction techniques. The farmhouse was abandoned and collapsed in the mid-4th century apparently in a single event. The abandonment does not appear to have been the result of fire or other dramatic event. Considering the modest level of preservation at the site, the authors do a commendable job analyzing the basic architecture and construction. The walls, of which almost nothing remains, were bricks of either sundried mud or pis, rammed-earth, set on a base of sand, pebbles, and fragments of terracotta. It appears that some of the walls received a cover of plaster with red pigment. The small bath with a floor set atop a hypocaust had a limestone mosaic floor, but most rooms had rather more modest opus spicatum coverings. The small bath may have also featured glass windows. A brief, but well-executed catalogue of building materials with special attention to roof tiles presents the evidence used in an innovative digital model that recreated the roof of the structure. Considering the modest level of preservation at the site and the traditional difficulties in understanding how roofs worked in ancient buildings, the model proposed in this volume represents a useful step forward. The brief section presenting a digital model for the reconstructed farmhouse balanced effectively between speculative and evidence-based reconstruction. The aesthetic character of the resulting model was fine. The authors dedicated the bulk of the book to the careful analysis and presentation of the materials discovered over the course of excavations and this work generally complemented the regional and landscape approach to understanding the site. Chapter 3 discusses the material dating to before the extant architecture at the site from the Neolithic to the Roman Republican period. While this material largely derived from secondary or residual contexts, it provided important evidence for early activity in the vicinity of the farmhouse. The handful of Neolithic sherds speak to the early activity at the site owing perhaps to the presence of a spring, and this fits into the larger structure of decentralized Neolithic settlement in the Metapontino. The material from the Classical period includes an impressive assemblage of worn architectural terracottas deriving from the near by sanctuary, upslope from the

WORKING DRAFT. DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHORS PERMISSION. 2013

farmhouse, at San Biagio on the Vanella dedicated to Artemis and Zeus. The sanctuary was destroyed in the Roman period, and its architectural fragments reused in structures across the area including an earlier farmhouse near the sanctuary itself. Other material from the before the construction of the farmhouse included amphora and finewares more likely to be residual material from earlier activities in the region that did not produce excavated architecture remains. A strength of this publication is that it integrates the residual and spoliated material from the excavation with data collected from various surveys and excavations in the region so that they contributed to a regional level understanding of activities in the Metapontino. Chapter 4 and 5 documents the material directly associated with the farmhouse itself. There is some effort to quantify the material present illustrating the relative frequency of the wares present despite the lack of any clear statement on the artifact sampling strategy. The rest of these chapters present nicely-organized and illustrated catalogues of major wares present at the site. None of the major wares present at the site will evoke much surprise from archaeologists specializing the Late Roman period. There is some discussion of the moderate quantity of imported utility, cooking, and fine wares produced locally or originating in the Aegean basin and North Africa. Recent research into Italian glass manufacture in the Roman period suggests that some of the glass may have originated at any number of recently studied southern Italian workshops in Campania, Pozzuoli, Literno, Cuma, or elsewhere, and this material likely represents the vitality of regional trade. Evidence for local, regional, and Mediterranean wide exchange suggests that the site was not only moderate prosperous, but also integrated to larger trans-Mediterranean networks of exchange. Nicely-arranged tables presented the chronology and origins of the most common wares. Chapter 5 extended this analysis to furnishings, utilitarian artifacts, and a well-preserved cache of coins in the hypocaust. Chapter 6 provided the result of scientific study of material from the site including archaeozoology, archaeometry, and ceramic fabric analyses. The results from this chapter are largely inconclusive. The archaeozoological data suggested that the residents of the site practiced animal husbandry of sheep and goats, pigs, and poultry and indicated that in the 4th century the residents enjoyed a diverse diet with substantial amounts of animal protein. The analysis of metal and glass objects might have fit better into the catalogue of artifacts. As it stands now, these more scientific approaches to material analysis offer few new contribution to the more traditional approaches presented in the artifact catalogues. For example, the results of the XRF study of the glass appears to offer little more in terms of conclusions than the more traditional study of the glass. This does not, however, take away from the value of publishing the composition of glass, pigments, and other material from the site. The conclusion is perhaps the most rewarding section of the book. It brings establishes the significance of the architecture and objects from the farmhouse of San Biagio for our

WORKING DRAFT. DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHORS PERMISSION. 2013

understanding of the Metapontino. As throughout this volume, this chapter depends upon a robust knowledge of the region to allow the authors to recognize that while Basilicata witnessed a decline in the number of small and medium sized sites (so-called villulae) in the 3rd and 4th century, the presence of buildings like the San Biagio farmhouse indicate that the region did not witness a steep decline in medium sized rural sites, perhaps owing to the absence of large villas. The architecture of farmhouse itself fit into a longstanding pattern of rural buildings in the region that lack atria. These relatively modest structures probably dependent upon animal husbandry and were largely self-sufficient, but nevertheless participated in both the regional and transregional economy. This book is a timely contribution to the growing interest in the archaeology of rural Italy and the Late Roman countryside. The careful location of the architecture and finds in a regional context ensures that this small site will have a significant impact on the Late Antique economy, settlement, and society.