
Vecchi e nuovi scavi nel tempio di Iuno Sospita a Lanuvio. Considerazioni sulla pianta del tempio tardo-arcaico
In: Archeologia Classica: 65, 2014
Permalink: http://digital.casalini.it/3443931
The temple of Juno Sospita at Lanuvium (RM) was identified and excavated by the archaeologist A. Pasqui in 1914. Further excavations were carried out between 2006 and 2011, furnishing new and important details of the lay-out of the late-archaic temple. Besides its foundations, already discovered in the previous excavations, trenches and cuttings now confirm the existence of a second row of columns behind the façade and evidence the exact position of the long northern wall and back wall of the building. Using the plans drawn with the first excavation and some old photographs, analysis has focused on a beaten earth floor which was attributed to the late-archaic temple and removed for the most part by Pasqui to continue the researches down to a layer which was wrongly considered virgin soil. A trench in this floor, located in the middle of the Mid-Republican temple cella, was interpreted by A. Galieti as the negative trace of a longitudinal dividing wall of the late-archaic building. Reconstruction of its position, along with the new data, rules out any traditional tripartition of the interior back part of the late-archaic temple as usually supposed for Etruscan-italic temples lay-outs. The only solution would be a temple with two cellae.