Ancient furnishings, coins and a terracotta lion's head. But also game pieces and glasses with the "factory" brand still perfectly legible.

These are the first gifts that the excavation in Piazza Andrea del Sarto, in Pisa, is giving to archaeologists and history buffs.

The works, a stone's throw from the famous Tower, began last September and are bringing to light the remains of one or more Roman domus of the early first century AD, still equipped with exceptionally preserved decorated floors and uncovered spaces, probably gardens flanked by arcades.

Surprisingly, a well-preserved triclinium emerged from the excavations: in the dining room, where the guests ate and conversed lying on three beds arranged on the sides, the floor panel appears clear as a sort of richly decorated carpet.

Large quantities of fragments of wall coverings are also emerging from the site of the works, which, despite the years, still retain the extremely bright colors used and which also indicate the considerable level of wealth of dwelling in the house.

The dishes found bear, clearly visible, the trademark of the Pisan workshops of the first century AD. Along with them, archaeologists found transport containers for wine, oil and fish sauces, oil lamps, game pieces, engraved gems and numerous coins.


At the moment, the excavation, directed by Professor Fabio Fabiani of the Department of Civilizations and Forms of Knowledge of the University of Pisa, concerned only a portion of the square, but the remains of the ancient structures certainly extend over the whole area.

It is likely to hypothesize that the domus belonged to the same residential neighborhood as the houses already found in the nearby Piazza Dei Miracoli, flanking the ancient river Auser. The latter, now disappeared from the urban landscape, characterized, together with the Arno, the Roman Pisa.

The excavation in Piazza del Sarto has in fact investigated a further stretch of this ancient river, in addition to the one already excavated at the Pisa San Rossore station where the wrecks of the now famous Roman boats were found. Among the sands of the ancient riverbed, large quantities of transport containers, goods of various types and fragments of the wooden planking of ancient boats have been recovered.

In the following centuries this area was gradually abandoned. In the fourth century AD, when the domus had ceased to be used, this area of the city continued to be frequented: proof of this are the remains of structures (walls and floors in rammed earth) and the ceramics that the excavation has allowed to recover. Between the end of the IV-V century AD, in the area that has now become peripheral, the dead began to be buried in simple pits dug into the earth.
Between the sixth and seventh centuries AD, finally, the area became a place of recovery of building material. At a time when the city was evidently 'hungry' for materials to carry out new works, operations began to dismantle the walls of the domus, to recover the stones. The traces of this intervention are long and deep trenches that run through the entire excavation.