THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF VIA NOMENTUM, ERETUM IN THE TOWN OF TOR MANCINA, INSIDE THE MACCHIA DI GATTACECA AND MACCHIA DEL BARCO

Twenty years of archaeological research conducted in the Municipality of Monterotondo, in Tor Mancina, in the CREA site, by the Archeoclub d’Italia Association, based at Mentana – Monterotondo, on a ministerial excavation grant, have brought to light 140m of street and a burial ground, both of them vintage Roman.

The road, paved in limestone, was the continuation of the road Nomentana, which after passing the town centre of Nomentum, is it joined the Via Salaria at Eretum (locality of Casacotta, Montelibretti).

Along the sides of the Via Nomentum-Eretum a vast burial ground was found, which can be seen between the 1st century A.D. – 1st century A.D. (first phase) and the 2nd-3rd century A.D. (second phase), in which 6 tombs and 28 pit graves were found, of the type with cappuccina or with deposition in bare ground, and 2 envelope (incinerations).

The processing of archaeological data and analysis of burial types found indicate the belonging of the tombs to persons of middle – high social rank, such as the owners of the numerous villae rusticae of the territory, while for the buried graves in pits one can think of individuals of slave condition, employed by them.

The anthropological analysis of skeletal remains from burial in pits has  returned an interesting photograph of the population that lived in this portion of the Nomentanus ager.

The study showed that the female sample, equal to 44%, is slightly higher than the male sample which corresponds to 39%, while subadults (individuals up to 19 years of age) represent 17%.

As regards the distribution of age at death, the age group with the highest mortality rate is between 30 and 40 years.

The majority of skeletons show alterations due to very hard living conditions: traumas, enthesopathies, pathologies of the spine, indices of heavy work of servile and agricultural type.

The found trousseaux are very modest, further confirmation of the social condition of the deceased. The objects are characterized by their value purely funerary, linked to religious ritual, such as lucerne, coins laid as obolo for passage into the afterlife, single nails with apotropaic value or even balsamari related to the use of pouring ointments on the corpse.

BURIAL OF THE CAPUCHINS  

The skeleton belongs to a female individual placed in a supine position, probably in a coffin and with his head resting on a block of brick used as a funeral pillow.  

The equipment consists of a lamp of the type Deveneau VI/A, beak I, placed between the lower limbs in inverted position, as an allusion to the irremediability of death and dated between the 1st century A.D. and the middle of the 2nd century A.D.  

There is also a single iron nail with apotropaic value (which drives away the evil eye).  

The anthropological analysis gives an image of a woman, probably belonging to a modest social class, who died between 25 and 30 years. Although the deceased was of weak physical constitution, he was presumably devoted to servile work in life: he shows some alterations attributable to the biomechanical stress affecting the limbs and the spine. The pelvis also shows characteristic birth signs  

The second century AD.  

from the archaeological area of Via Nomentum-Eretum in Tor Mancina (Monterotondo), burial at No. 19, excavated in 2014.