Puteoli and the ripa puteolana: archaeological and geological insights into a submerged Roman waterfront

Abstract

The submerged Roman districts of the ripa puteolana present along almost 2 km of coastline between the center of the port of Puteoli (now Pozzuoli, Italy) and the Portus Julius constitute an underwater archaeological area of extraordinary importance. The headquarters of merchants and peregrini from every corner of the Mediterranean in the vicus Lartidianus, and the endless rows of horrea (warehouses) at the service of the fleets of Rome in the vicus Annianus have been only scarcely explored in the past, due to the heavy and impactful presence of the industries that formost of the twentieth century characterized the west coast of modern Pozzuoli. With the project “Tra terra e mare. Studi e ricerche nelle aree costiere dei Campi Flegrei / Between land and sea. Studies and research in the coastal areas of the Phlegraean Fields”, born in 2021 from an agreement between the SABAP for the metropolitan area of Naples and the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli – with the collaboration, for the submerged areas, of the Scuola Superiore Meridionale, a systematic documentation program for the ripa puteolana has finally been launched. The underwater research conducted in 2021, 2022 and 2023 led to the reconstruction of the entire ancient waterfront, on the basis of an aerial photogrammetric survey calibrated with direct dives, to the identification of submerged horrea, granaria (granaries) and quays in the vicus Lartidianus and vicus Annianus, to the localization of a previously unknown peninsula, home to administrative premises of the harbour, and above all to the discovery of a submerged temple of the Nabataeans in Puteoli, unique outside of Nabataea. Together with these archaeological results, the collaboration established with the INGV enabled the collection of important new data on the relative sea level change in the bradyseismic area of Puteoli during the period between the 1st and 4th centuries AD, when an impressive effort was made to rebuild the breakwaters in response to the relative increase in sea level.