For 2025, a survey campaign is being planned in Sicily in the Etna area in the Ramacca territory, and a survey at the site of the Roman villa of Castellito. The activities scheduled for September-October 2025 are aimed at updating the archaeological map of the territory of the Plain of Catania. The archaeological and topographical data that emerged in the preliminary phase of the research already started in the bibliography – evidence of the heterogeneous elements that make up these landscape palimpsests (settlements, necropolis areas, elements of the road system, geo-sites, hydraulic infrastructures, etc.) – are currently being studied. Within the framework of an agreement for research already stipulated by the Department with the Catania Superintendency and the Catania Archaeological Park, non-invasive surveys will be conducted, i.e. surface reconnaissance (survey), intensive (GPR) and extensive (magnetometry) geophysical prospecting, pollen cores, proximal sensing. During the weeks of the campaign, in addition to field work, the study of the material culture that emerged during the research is also planned.
Collaborations
Unità di ricerca dell’Università di Napoli Federico II: R. Brancato
Parco archeologico e paesaggistico di Catania e della Valle dell’Aci (Giulia Falco)
Soprintendenza per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali di Catania
Research products:
Brancato R., Lamanna C., Mirto V., Manganelli L. 2023, Digital technologies and the archaeological topography of Castellito (Sicily): the reconstruction of a Roman villa, «Archeologia e Calcolatori», 34.2, 185-206 (https://doi.org/10.19282/ac.34.2.2023.10)
R. Brancato, C. Lamanna, M.T. Magro, L. Manganelli, V. Mirto, V. Platania, T. Tescione, La villa romana di Castellito (Ramacca-Catania): dalle indagini 2019-2021 al restauro digitale dell’edificio, in Come Federico opera sul campo 2022. Scavi e ricerche archeologiche dell’Università di Napoli Federico II, Roma 2024, 196-214.
