Canals and their Infrastructures

VEiL team has identified today a new potential archaeological site at the fringes of the ancient city of Aquileia. Set in the vicinities of the Canale Anfora – once a natural stream rearranged by the Romans that paved it with marble slabs and used it both as water drainage and a waterway to connect the city to the Adriatic Sea – the new site has been initially identified by the remarkable concentration of Roman artefacts laying on its surface. The artefacts identified comprise building materials as well a variety of ceramic objects, including amphoras, fine and coarse ware and glass. The site lays in an area along the canal where it is supposed that workshops and other infrastructures related to the maritime activities taking place there should have been located. The area was at some point abandoned, possibly in late antiquity with the dismissal of the canal due to excessive deposit of sediments or when the canal broke its levees and the water started to flow out, undertaking a new course, heading first to NW then curving sharply and taking a NE-SW orientation and finishing in the Lagoon.