39. Scafati, Villa rustica in fondo Aquino, contrada Acquavitrara.
Excavated 1925 and 1927 and reburied.
Location
Villa rustica found on the fondo of Tommaso Aquino fu Michelangelo, in contrada Acquavitrara, in the commune of Scafati, almost at the border of the commune towards Poggiomarino.
Excavation
It was excavated 1925 and 1927 and then reburied.
It was found during the digging of two trenches for the extraction of lapilli, the major one in January 1925 and a smaller one in January 1927.
It was at a depth of 5m from the current cultivation level.
The two discoveries were parts of the north-west corner of the same villa.
Bibliography
Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1928, pp. 375-377.
Casale A., Bianco A., Primo contributo alla topografia del suburbio pompeiano: Supplemento al n. 15 di ANTIQUA ottobre-dicembre 1979, 147, p.50.
Day, J., 1932. Agriculture in the life of Pompeii: Yale Classical Studies, 3, tav. C, n. 43.
Rostovzev, M., 1973. Storia economica e sociale dell'Impero romano, Firenze, 5° ediz., p. 34, note 26, n. 37.
Plan
Villa 39. Scafati, Villa rustica in fondo Aquino. 1928 Plan.
See Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1928, p. 376, fig. 1.
Remains
The masonry, 0.45m width, was in opus incertum with pieces
of Sarno stone (mostly) and volcanic lava.
Brick material was generally used in the passage openings and also and the
opening in the dome of the oven, as in the low and wide circular podium and the
room “e”.
The walls, except some places covered with rough brick plaster, were bare.
The floors were simple beaten earth, except in “c”, where the floor was cocciopesto.
Of the two entrances from the outside into “a” and “c”, one
had a threshold of Vesuvian stone, the other of wood, according to the clear
imprint remaining in the ground.
The circular puteal “d” was masonry, covered with brick plaster and closed with
a lid of a clay dolia, from the underlying tank.
By it, set in the ground to function as a reservoir, was the bottom of a big dolium.
Finds
At the foot of the perimeter wall of “d”, the puteal, was found a big pile of clay;
In “a”, was found the skeleton of a goat with a collar with a bronze bell, 0.07m high, 0.045m wide, with a circular aperture, adorned with three circular striations at the base of the suspending ring.
On fragments of tiles and roof tiles, found in large quantities, were the following stamps:
M. Aerius
Min., [CIL X 8042, 6, a and CIL X 8042,
6, d]
(in 5 specimens in a rectangle in 1 specimen in a circle.)
L. Sagini [CIL X 8042, 90]
A fragment ... lis fe .....,.
According to Della Corte, this was interpretable, possibly based on Pompeian dolia stamps CIL X 8047, 11, and 19 in this way:
[M. Vibius
Libera]lis fe[cit],
or
[C. Naevius Vita]lis
fe(ćt].
Three other stamps, the first of which was collected in duplicate, were new, and all were arranged in a rectangle with letters in relief:
ATTIAE CALLISTE (sic)
P SITTI P F
L ARANI
See Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, 1928, p. 377.