Byzantine fortress from Early Middle Ages found in Lecce, Italy

The Roman amphitheater successful Lecce, Italy. Credit: Benjamin Smith / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

Archaeologists successful Lecce, Italy, person uncovered a Byzantine fortress dating to the 5th–6th period AD. The find is reshaping cognition of the city’s medieval past.

The excavation is led by the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape for Brindisi, Lecce, and Taranto, funded by the Ministry of Culture, and supported by the municipal administration.

Work centered adjacent the Roman amphitheater

The excavation is focused betwixt Piazza Sant’Oronzo and Via Alvino, adjacent the Roman amphitheater that inactive dominates the historical center. Street resurfacing successful precocious 2024 had already revealed acquainted parts of the past monument, including the cavea, the ringing wall, and 3 perimeter pillars.

Unexpected walls uncover a fortress

What researchers did not expect was the emergence of monolithic walls conscionable northbound of the amphitheater. Excavations revealed these belonged to a fortification strategy that incorporated the Roman structure.

The main wall, 3.7 meters wide and preserved successful immoderate sections to much than 2 meters high, was built utilizing the “a sacco” method. Its halfway contained world and stone, portion the outer faces were constructed from ample reused blocks taken from the amphitheater and adjacent monuments.

Fortress built successful a turbulent era

The partition begins astatine the amphitheater’s perimeter pillars, runs northbound for astir sixteen meters, past turns eastbound beneath modern buildings bordering the square. Stratigraphic grounds dates its operation to the 5th–6th centuries AD, a turbulent epoch of governmental instability and insecurity.

By then, the amphitheater had already mislaid its relation pursuing the dispersed of Christianity and Emperor Honorius’s 404 decree banning gladiatorial games.

Tower strengthened defenses

In a aboriginal stage, inactive wrong the Early Middle Ages, the defenses were reinforced with a circular operation astir 12 meters successful diameter. Built from the aforesaid reused blocks, the operation apt responded to caller tactical needs oregon threats of siege.

The consecutive partition on Via Alvino resembles a reused-block operation identified by archaeologist Cosimo De Giorgi successful the aboriginal 20th period during the operation of the Bank of Italy building. Researchers present judge some belonged to the aforesaid fortified complex, which reused the bulk of the amphitheater, the astir imposing operation of Roman Lecce.

The amphitheater became a Byzantine kastron

This translation reflects a wider inclination crossed Italy, wherever Roman monuments were repurposed into fortresses. In Lecce, the amphitheater transitioned into a Byzantine kastron (from the Greek connection κάστρον, meaning fortress), serving arsenic some a subject stronghold and governmental center. The adoption of this Greek word highlights the taste and administrative imprint of Byzantium successful confederate Italy.

Roman Amphitheater – Lecce, Puglia, South Italy pic.twitter.com/SIEhaPuKwX

— Roman History (@romanhistory1) February 2, 2021

The 12th-century geographer Guidone described the metropolis arsenic a tiny assemblage whose inhabitants had entrenched themselves wrong the amphitheater.

Excavations capable gaps successful history

The findings supply uncommon worldly grounds from the Early Middle Ages, a play agelong considered poorly documented. They besides underscore the scope of the Byzantine Empire, which ruled overmuch of confederate Italy during this epoch and introduced its subject and administrative models.