Il rione della “Rocca”, posto nel punto più alto della roccaforte di Giulia, era il luogo più fortificato con i suoi tre torrioni: “La Rocca”, all’angolo, e a breve distanza gli altri due, detti “il Buscione” e “il Mozzone”, oggi non più esistenti. La cinta muraria venne completata con ogni probabilità già entro il 1480, a pochi anni dalla fondazione. La torre, dal 2001, è la sede della sezione archeologica del Polo Museale Civico dove sono conservate le testimonianze della vita della città romana di Castrum Novum Piceni, fondata dai romani attorno al 290 a.C. alla foce del fiume Batinus, l’odierno Tordino a Sud della città, su un insediamento preesistente, come anfore, vasellame, oggetti vari che provengono da sepolture.
Tra i reperti spiccano le interessanti lucerne istoriate che prodotte a Castrum, venivano imbarcate dal suo porto e raggiungevano gli angoli più lontani dell’Impero.
English
The Roman Town of Castrum Novum and the Museum
Giulianova has got distant origins, with a history dating back to the Romans. The today's town is the ancient Castrum Novum, which became a Roman colony in the third century B.C.. The colony was established on a hill parallel to the sea, in order to avoid the surrounding marshland. Excavations showed that the town was built in a previously populated area: fragments of cups and pots for ointment are the clear testimony of commercial exchanges with South of Italy. Reached by a branch of the ancient Salaria main road, Castrum Novum bacame an important trading centre and a road link to the biggest towns of the Adriatic coast.
The Roman settlement probably reinforced the natural resorces of the soil thanks to the buildings of fortifications along the plain land. These fortifications were built in the strategic points crossing the town and the interregionals roads. Archaeological researches lead in the 80's have brought to life various remains of structures made of river stones, bricks, fragments of amphorae and of mosaic flooring. Two cisterns of different dimensions, found in a private house and in a villa in the steeper part of the town to the east, document the system of water supplyng. A zone covered by tombs has been dicovered in the north-eastern part of the hill. This Necropolis found itself along the slope of the hill on which the ancient Castrum Novum colony rose. The fifteentombs emerged by now lie not on the same level but at different height, one above the other, according to the period of burial. Some of them are very near to each other , forming specific groups, probably belonging to the same family. The tombs were covered with fragments of big roofing tiles, sometimes recycled, sometimes whole (bipedales), or of terracotta plates previously used as a basis for doors or windows fixtures. These ancient populations used to bury their dead relatives together with their dearest personal belongings, which changed in quantity and richness according to their social status. Only four of the fifteen tombs have been found without this equipment: the others, instead, containes small jugs, cups, and little ceramic pots, and then oil-lamps or simply small sandals iron knobs.
During the Republican era, in the period which preceded the Necropolis, the area had a completely different destination. Indeed numerous amphorae have been found in earth strata below the tombs. The most valid hypothesis is that these amphorae were used as a sort of storage of the loading and the unloading of the goods. According to the different forms of the amphorae, it has been possible to identify the kind and the area of production. Those found in Giulianova are identified and classified with the so-called Lambroglia form: these were produced along the coasts of the Adriatic sea between the end of the II and the end of the I century B. C.. The various containers produced on the Adriatic side were very diffused in the whole Mediterranean sea, especially in the east part. They were mostly used to carry wine, oil and the so called garum, a special fish sauce, across the sea.
The picture of the town life during the I century A. C. has been enriched by the discovey of a deposit of oil-lamps which probably belonged to a handicraft workroom. The orderly disposition of the varipous objects upon a stratum with substantial traces of burning suggests the hipothesys of an exhibition of them on a wooden table. The oil-lamp was indeed an inseparable friend of everyday life: very often the plates were decorated with personal drawnings showing different iconographic themes: taken from mythology, sexual life, fighting, hunting, real people in daily routine, animals and flowers.
20 years after the discovery of the first Roman remains near the Bivio Bellocchio area, in 2001 the Archaeological section of Giulianova Museums has been inaugurated inside the Reinassance tower "La Rocca". Built under the wave of the humanistic zeal, it is today the ideal place to keep and to emphasize the origins and the historical remains of the ancient Giulianova.
