CONTINUATION OF THE OSTIA-I PROJECT (Excavation, evaluation & publication of a newly discovered sanctuary of Apollo and volcano under the Forum of Ostia)

The earliest main altar and presumed founding altar of Ostia will be excavated with its surrounding layers in project year 1 (2023/24). In 2016-2019, several superimposed floor altars were already uncovered. The position of further, but lower altars is indicated by georadar images from 2019, but so far not proven by excavation. Their excavation is therefore essential for all further questions: the design, functioning and worshipped deity(ies), i.e. the entire material legacy of this early phase of the sanctuary is completely unknown. In the planned project year 2 (2024/25), the question of the temples belonging to the altars will be addressed. Building surveys and test soundings from 2020-2021 made it possible to reconstruct the main features of the latest and surface temple in particular. As part of the extension project, the earliest temple, which had already been discovered by georadar in 2016, would have to be excavated. Have we perhaps located Ostia's oldest temple here? In project year 3 (2025/26), the areas that have not yet been investigated at all are to be subjected to systematic test soundings (since a complete excavation here would not be possible in the time available, but test soundings can certainly cover wider areas). This will make it possible to determine the extent of the sanctuary at different times, but also to search for further cult buildings. It is clear today that by 2021 far less than 10% of the area had been systematically explored: the previous interpretation on the basis of finds therefore had to rely primarily on test soundings, whose statistical significance only increases appreciably with larger contiguous excavation areas (cf. project report SHU October 2021). Reliable statements on the deities worshipped or the type of votive offerings (and their statements on, among other things, the international connections of the donors, the significance of the sanctuary for Ostia or Rome) have so far been based on an isolated, non-area-wide analysis of the findings. Project year 3 would therefore be of great testimonial value for generalisable statements on the entirety of the shrine. Systematic research of the entire sanctuary area would provide unique insights into Roman religion: Especially for Ostia, Rome's first and most important colony, it is an absolute exception to find an entire sanctuary, and apparently the oldest and at the same time most important sanctuary of the city, completely untouched in modern times. Only thanks to its later overbuilding is there still a chance to excavate it as a context using state-of-the-art technology and to analyse it comprehensively in cooperation with natural sciences.