Amiternum Archaeological Area, L'Aquila | Hours, exhibitions and artworks on Artsupp

The archaeological area of Amiternum, established in the seventies, consists of the areas of the theater and the amphitheater with two distinct entrances, separated by the current roads and the course of the Aterno river. These sub-areas represent the visible part today of an organic urban layout, developed during different historical and building phases and articulated in functional spaces. From the Italic village, originally located on the hill of San Vittorino, the settlement developed in the plain after the establishment of the praefectura, following the Roman conquest of the Sabine land, in the middle of the 3rd century BC. The city expanded along the Via Caecilia, according to a regular urban plan, in which spaces with public buildings alternated, numerous temples enclosed in porticoed squares, very large houses adorned with mosaics, wall paintings, and statues. Between the 3rd century BC and the 4th century AD, Amiternum represented the political and administrative reference for the series of scattered vici in the territory, being equipped with numerous urban services, such as the road network, the forum with curia and basilica, the theater, the amphitheater, the temples, the baths, the water supply and disposal structures, porticoed basins. The grandeur of the city is also evidenced by the presence of necropolises along the extra-urban roads, with burial monuments of remarkable wealth, which have yielded important sculptural reliefs and fine bronze beds, revealing the ideologies and funeral rituals of the Republican and Imperial ages. The theater, built in a peripheral area of the Roman city, was bordered by the Via Caecilia which represented the generating road axis of the city of Amiternum. Built in the middle of the 1st century BC, it is inserted in an urban layout already established in the Republican age with terracing works of the hill on which buildings stood. It faces southwest, partially leaning against the slope in its eastern part and partly built on radial wall sections. In the space behind the stage, several rooms opened up, suggesting a complex articulation of this section, even before the construction of the theater. In the lower area compared to the terracing wall, as part of a renewal project of this urban sector, a large staircase was built to access the theater, consisting of steps in white limestone; this monumental entrance was porticoed with brick columns in the Flavian era. The amphitheater was designed and built in the 1st century AD in the flat area beyond the Aterno river. The arena, the ring gallery immediately adjacent to the podium wall, and the external ambulatory, evidenced by the pillars surrounding the entire perimeter of the building, are still well recognizable. The structure, made of opus caementicium with brick curtain originally covered with cocciopesto, is characterized by the asymmetry between the northern sector, affected by heavy consolidation interventions, carried out in ancient times, which significantly varied volumes and paths, and the southern sector which does not present ancient restoration works. The peristyle house near the amphitheater, whose construction period can be dated to the end of the 1st century AD, preserves many details of the elevations brought to light by the archaeological excavations of the seventies. The building is structured around a large rectangular courtyard and features rooms of various sizes, equipped with mosaics and decorated walls with polychrome plaster.

	opens - closes	last entry
monday	Closed now
tuesday	08:30 - 13:30
wednesday	08:30 - 13:30
thursday	08:30 - 13:30
friday	08:30 - 13:30
saturday	08:30 - 13:30
sunday	08:30 - 13:30

Amiternum Archaeological Area

Amiternum Archaeological Area

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