This book collects the proceedings of the Terzo Seminario Ostiense, held at the École française de Rome in 2015. This event was of particular importance, for it resumed the organisation on a regular basis of this series of workshops on ancient Ostia and its territory; the most recent of these (Sesto Seminario) took place in April 2019. The city of Ostia continues to raise the interest of archaeologists and historians, due to its own characteristics and the connections with Rome, the Italian peninsula and the Roman Mediterranean. The range of international projects carried out at the site in recent years is exemplified by numerous colloquia and related publications, such as C. De Ruyt, T. Morard and F. Van Haeperen (eds), Ostia Antica. Nouvelles études et recherches sur les quartiers occidentaux de la cité (2018).
Before being published in print, the proceedings of the Terzo Seminario were released in 2018 as an open-access digital book (available at books.openedition.org/efr/3637), which allowed for its contents to become available to a broader, even non-academic, readership. The volume collects twenty-four contributions by international scholars, grouped into four thematic sections. The first section engages with the pre-Roman settlement trajectories of the Tiber's right bank in the region of the river mouth. The two papers by Francesca Romana De Castro and her colleagues outline the development of this territory throughout the protohistoric and archaic periods (3–26), discussing also a selection of materials discovered during the excavation at the site of Le Vignole (27–49).
The second section is dedicated to recent research in the Isola Sacra, with particular regard to the necropolis of Portus. Excavated in the 1920s–30s by Guido Calza and published in La necropoli del porto di Roma nell'Isola Sacra (1940), the necropolis has been the target of further investigations since the late 1960s. Ida Baldassarre and other scholars illustrate some of these activities (53–66), revisiting and updating the content of their valuable guidebook (I. Baldassarre, I. Bragantini, C. Morselli and F. Taglietti, Necropoli di Porto. Isola Sacra (1996)). Paola Olivanti and Marcello Spanu examine the relationship between graves in the ground and monumental tombs (67–77); while built tombs began to be set up in the Trajanic-Hadrianic period and continued to be erected, or modified, until the third century, most graves seem to date within a shorter time frame, c. 150–180 a.d. Another important point concerns the use of stamped bricks of different chronology in the construction of some burials. This should encourage us to address broader questions, such as the time span of the bricks’ circulation and possible stockpiling at Ostia and Portus, in view of their employment in future building projects.
In the same vein, Luciano Camilli and Franca Taglietti present a useful overview of stamped bricks recovered from the excavation of graves in 1988–89 (103–23). In addition to the importance of the brick-stamps themselves, the authors draw attention to the relevance of bricks and brickwork architecture for the study of construction projects in antiquity; for recent studies on this subject, see E. Bukowiecki, R. Volpe and U. Wulf-Rheidt (eds), Il laterizio nei cantieri imperiali. Roma e il Mediterraneo (2016). The necropolis of the Isola Sacra is a privileged context, as it offers a wealth of information not only on building processes, but also on the ornamental use of bricks on the tomb façades — a topic that would deserve to be investigated through systematic field research. Camilli and Taglietti also offer a paper on the presence of coins in local burials; their study shows a high concentration of coins around the mid second century a.d., fitting quite well with the chronology of the graves (79–102). Moving beyond the Isola Sacra's mortuary landscape, Paola Germoni, Simon Keay, Martin Millett and Kristian Strutt describe the results of their recent field survey (2007–2012) as part of the University of Southampton's Portus Project (www.portusproject.org) and as an ongoing collaborative programme of protection of the local archaeological heritage (149–68).
In the third section, the attention shifts to Ostia's south-east territory. Drawing on her extensive field research, Simona Pannuzi discusses the main topographical features of this area, such as the south-east necropolis, the via Ostiensis and the salt marshes (181–211). While cemeteries have traditionally been divided into different groups (Porta Romana, Porta Laurentina and Pianabella), the new discoveries rather suggest the existence of one large funerary area that encompassed all of them. The other papers are concerned with archaeological research in Ostia's southern suburbs. Some features of the ancient coastline are analysed by Ascanio D'Andrea, Lucia De Gregorio, Germoni and Carla Ninel Pischedda (215–26). The same authors also review the development of the extra-urban landscape in the area of Pianabella (227–44), which is complemented by the study of Cébeillac-Gervasoni, Maria Mimmo and Matthias Bruno on the related epigraphic materials (245–57).
The final section addresses various themes of archaeology and epigraphy. Massimiliano David illustrates the discovery of a fourth-century mithraeum in the Porta Marina district, characterised by an elaborate floor made of recycled coloured marbles (269–86). The much-debated issue of the identification of late antique layers at Ostia is the subject of Luke Lavan's paper, who discusses the methodological approach of the Kent-Berlin Late Antique Ostia Project and some of their preliminary results from the palaestra of the Forum Baths (287–317). With regard to Ostia's funerary inscriptions, Laubry engages with the local iura sepulcrorum (349–67), supplementing the data collected in F. Zevi et al., Epigrafia ostiense dopo il CIL: 2000 iscrizioni funerarie (2018). Through an accurate examination of inscriptions referring to public dedications and celebrations, Christer Bruun argues that such events at Ostia tended to be associated with significant dates of the calendar, although the extant evidence is not sufficient to understand whether this was a phenomenon specific to this city (369–84).
The variety of topics covered in this volume makes it an important addition to the scholarly literature on Ostia. Anyone who has an interest in this site will find plenty of information for their own studies and up-to-date references to other works. The book marks a clear progress of our knowledge of the archaeology, topography, history and epigraphy of Ostia and its region, as it puts together additional pieces of a complex puzzle. Beyond an academic context, the diversity of themes treated by the authors also testifies to the efforts of the Archaeological Park of Ostia Antica to open up to international partners (alongside long-existing relationships, such as those with the École française de Rome and other foreign institutes in Rome). Indeed, one of the Park's key targets since 2016 has been engagement with a non-academic audience. The enhanced fruition of the archaeological areas is another point that is currently being addressed. The necropolis of the Isola Sacra, which features largely in this volume, is an authentic jewel that deserves to be better known by visitors, students and researchers alike; it is to be hoped that some logistical problems related to its location can be overcome, so that this site will become more easily accessible.
