Dansk-italienske udgravninger på Cæsars Forum i Rom 2022
Name of applicant
Jan Kindberg Jacobsen
Institution
Danske Institut i Rom
Amount
DKK 580,900
Year
2021
Type of grant
Strategic Grants
What?
Rome constitutes one of the most famous and continuously studied urban centres in the world with human activity reaching back several millennia in time. Since 2017, a Danish-Italian team has been exploring the hitherto unexcavated parts of the area most renowned for having housed the extensive public building project by Gaius Julius Caesar initiated in 46 BC, namely his public forum. Aside from its importance in the late republican and imperial periods, the location is also central to our understanding of Rome's early developments from the Recent Bronze Age onwards and for the city's development throughout Late Antiquity until the time of Mussolini, when the Via dell'Impero was laid out. The excavations have so far uncovered the historical phases at the site.
Why?
The excavations are taking place on Caesar's Forum in central Rome which is a location of vital importance for Western European cultural identity. The area holds archaeological evidence covering three thousand years of Rome's prehistory and historical periods. Such a central excavation offers wide-ranging research possibilities connected to issues about the urban development of one of the Classical world's pivotal city centres. Using the latest technology and newest archaeo-science methods, the excavations on Caesar's Forum are increasing our understanding of the site's urban development as well as giving a better understanding of the site's other, previously excavated complexes.
How?
I am conducting my research as part of an international scientific joint venture. The excavations are undertaken as a collaboration between Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, the Danish Institute in Rome, and the Centre for Urban Network Evolutions, Aarhus University. My own contribution is taking place in Rome. Based at the Danish Institute my work is divided between the actual excavation and the ongoing research on the excavated archaeological material. I coordinate the Roman based research in collaboration with the two other directors Dr. Claudio Parisi Presicce (Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, Direzione Musei archeologici e storico-artistici) and Prof. Rubina Raja (Danish National Research Foundation's Centre of Excellence, Centre for Urban Network Evolutions).