Campaign 2022

The Ostia Forum Project has been working in Ostia between February 12 and March 18 2022. The campaign was very similar to the last two campaigns in 2020 and 2021. No excavations have been conducted, since the discoveries in 2017 and 2019 have yielded much evidence that need to be examined, before going further into the earliest phases of the centre of Ostia. The material has been divided into different doctoral topics.

We will soon publish some online articles regarding our work as well as creating new Campaign Photo Gallery for the campaigns in 2021 (September and October) and 2022 (February and March).

As always, the Ostia Forum Project has been delighted with the collaboration with the Parco Archeologico di Ostia Antica, its direction and staff.

Virtual Reality

Monday January 24, 2022, we had an interesting workshop with our corporation partner, Jakob Korbel. He is part of our project, because he is reconstructing TFR 2 in its present form, but also in its Republican form until the Hadrianic period, where the area was part of a large sanctuary. All this is being done in virtual reality. Jakob visited us on site in October 2021, where we went through most of the details. We have since had a couple of meetings, where we provided Jakob with the newest results, and where he informed us about his process and his ideas behing the virtual space. This day, we were presented for the version in the making. We are all very excited about his work and the hitherto results.

The purpose of this virtual reality sub-project is to present our research in a different manner to the public. From April 1 until September 30 2022, the Ostia Forum Project is having an exhibition in the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin, where this virtual space is going to be available for guests. Along the virtual reality aspect of the exhibition, the exhibition will also include the projects from the Ostia Graduiertenkolleg as well as the focal areas of the Ostia Forum Project and its history.

Below you can see some photos from the day and maybe a little preview of the virtual space.

  • Introduction to the day
  • Jakob Korbel is preparing the VR glasses
  • Ph.d. candidate Trine Bak Pedersen is trying it for the first time
  • Employee Steven Götz is trying to scale a lion's head waterspout from the Temple of Roma and Augustus in a VR space
  • Part of the world, Steven Götz is experiencing

Presentation

Wednesday February 2, 2022 at 19.15 (local Berlin time)

Prof. Dr. Axel Gering will present our latest results from our campaigns 2016-2019. The presentation will be held in German, but the presentation will contain a vast amount of photos, which should ease the burden for non-German speakers.

The presentation is titled

The discovery of a sanctuary below the Forum. Excavations by the Ostia Forum Project 2016-2019 (German: Die Entdeckung eines Heiligtums unter dem Forum. Zu den Ausgrabungen des Ostia-Forum-Projects 2016-2019)

Update Publications

We have updated our publications for 2021 and initiated the year 2022.

The two new publications are from:

Undine Lieberwirth, a cooperation partner, who took part in the project in 2011. The publication is about the development of 3D and 4D cartography. This is being done on the back drop of her results from 2011.

Prof. Dr. Axel Gering, the project director, who has published some results about the geophysics and 3D documentation during our campaigns. The anthology, in which his article is, will be published in March 2022, but can already be accessed online.

Exhibition in the Tieranatomisches Theater, Berlin

It is with great pleasure that the Ostia Forum Project together with the Ostia Graduiertenkolleg can reveal that we are going to make an exhibition at the Tieranatomisches Theater in Berlin starting April 1 2022. For now, it is planned to run until September 15 2022.

At the moment, we are all working hard on how to approach exhibiting an excavation and what this should involve. Indeed, the exhibition does not only concern the excavation as such, but does also include the scientific results. We are going to have different types of presentations regarding the ongoing research and results in the heart of Rome’s ancient harbour city, but we are also going to provide the opportunity of experiencing our research through Virtual Reality made by our new cooperation partner, Jakob Korbel from the Technische Universität Berlin.

We are all very excited about this new perspective and opportunity of our projects.

Last but not least, we also wish everybody a io Saturnalia.

Updates

Dear all,

We have finally uploaded the less scientific pages of this website. You can now read more about our excursions and also get some information about the Borgo that is located just outside the archaeological site.

If you are interested, you can click here and read more.

Presentation November 17, 2021

Daniel Damgaard will be presenting parts of his research in the Research Colloquium of the DFG-Graduiertenkolleg 1913 “Kulturelle und technische Werte historischer Bauten” in Cottbus, Germany, November 17, 2021 at 09.30 (AM).

His presentation is titled: Unknown Forum Structures in Ostia: The Synthesis of Stratigraphy and Geo-physical Excavation Data regarding the Development of the Forum’s Area.

For more information about the colloquium and how to participate online, click here.

The second Ostia Session

Wednesday May 26 at 19.15 o’clock (ECST) local Berlin time, the Ostia Graduiertenkolleg (Graduate College) will have the last of two sessions.

This session will concern temples, architectural marbles and the search for the first Forum of Ostia. For more information of the three projects, you can click here: Theme 1, Theme 5 and Theme 6.

You can get access through the following link at 19.00 o’clock:

https://hu-berlin.zoom.us/j/61515827204?pwd=emN2TXFBS05YbnRaUUlnZlM1WU5HUT09&fbclid=IwAR1pKS4gfgl1C-MIQxPAjvhU-MiS1PJJNePavZcmIoXUQVtTxxgQio0NG9I#success