Archaeological area of Decima

Excavation

This site was first discovered in 1953, as part of a construction project on the Via Pontina, during the course of which, several of the tombs were damaged. The artifacts found at the site in 1953 were stored in the Museo delle Terme. No systemic excavation was conducted in the area until 1971, when the Via Pontina was widened. Archaeological work continued at Castel di Decima until 1975. Since the cemetery was located on the border of the territory supervised by the archaeological superintendencies of Rome and Ostia, both organizations were involved in the excavation. The settlement area was excavated from 1971-1972 by the archaeologists M. Guaitoli and F. Piccarreta, whose work was later followed by another dig lasting from 1975-1978.

Settlement

Castel di Decima is situated on volcanic terrain in a plateau situated between two valleys. Atop the plateau lay an ancient settlement site, defended by various walls, including two aggers, one of which demarcated the southern end of the site. On the northernmost part of the settlement, the remains of ancient wall composed of square cappellaccio blocks dating to the 6th-century BCE were discovered. At the point where the wall intersected with a road, there was found a gate. It is likely that in antiquity the site had an acropolis-like structure that would have served as a defensible area for the inhabitants. The terracing on the south side of the acropolis was constructed in two distinct phases during the 9th-century BCE, the first of which was situated atop a layer of domestic remains, implying that the site was already inhabited.

The location of the settlement was advantageous for maritime trade; it was located by the shoreline, and also near a tributary of the Tiber, which is now naught more than a small stream, though the floodplain indicates that it was once much larger. During ancient times, the river would have enhanced the defensibility of the site, all while also facilitating trade and communication with the rest of Latium vetus. Moreover, the settlement is located less than 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Rome, and alongside a route connecting Rome and the inner parts of Latium, thereby granting Decima the ability to control commerce across the Alban Hills region. In terms of trade resources, the site was located within the vicinity of the salt beds in the marshes on the left bank of the Tiber. Besides all of the aforementioned benefits, the coastal location of the site was also beneficial for transhumance, as flocks of sheep could spend their winters at the coastline and then move inland during the summer, where the grass would remain fresh and green during the hot months. …

Funerary customs

The site contains around 350 tombs dating from the 9th to the 7th centuries BCE. Whereas no material from the sole known cemetery dates past c. 600 BCE, the nearby settlement itself remained occupied for some time, implying that they continued to deposit their dead as some other necropolis. Regardless, all tombs at the one known cemetery consist of fossa inhumations either covered in stone or, during the early 6th century, earth. According to the historian Tim Cornell, the stones was probably piled up high enough to slightly protrude from the grave, so as to mark the burial site. During period III, tombs at the site began to include a hollowed-out niche in the side the fossa, within which burial items could be stored. The niche remained in use at Castle di Decima until the end of the 8th-century, after which point it disappeared, though it remained present in other Latial sites such as Riserva del Truglio. The graves are organized into small clusters, each containing sets of burials situated closely together, and all emanating from the central nucleus of the site during the 8th-century BCE. The burial clusters, of which seven have been identified so far, likely represented kinship clans, with each entombed person belonged to the same family. The individuals within the tombs are sometimes chronologically separated from each other by upwards of twenty-five years, indicating that these clusters were maintained by singular families over multiple generations.

The majority of the graves at the site are oriented in a northwest-southeast fashion, though—for unknown reasons—there are some that are positioned at right angles adjacent to the more typical tombs. The oddly oriented burials also lack any funerary goods. One possible explanation for this phenomenon is that the right-angle burials date to the 6th-5th centuries BCE, at which time—throughout the rest of Latium—there was a sudden cessation in the practice of offering grave goods. However, the style of the tombs themselves is more reminiscent of Orientalizing period burials rather than anything of even the late 7th century, and, moreover, these right-angle burials are spread out across the whole site, not concentrated in one specific space, which may further contradict the notion that they belonged to one particular time frame. …