Project Details
Projekt
The Constantinian Bishop's Church at Ostia: Structure – Development – Context
Subject Area
Classical, Roman, Christian and Islamic Archaeology
Term
since 2022
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 507752214
The project aims to study the unique situation of the Constantinian Episcopal Church at Ostia. Through stratigraphic excavations, the project will explore the architectural ensemble of basilica, atrium, presumed episcopium, and a later baptistery. The excavations will focus on the building typology and on chronology, from the church’s construction around 320 to its expansion in the late 4th/5th centuries and its abandonment in the 8th century.The Constantinian Episcopal Church at Ostia is a key monument for early ecclesiastical architecture. Unique among all of Constantinian church foundations, this basilica is the only church never reshaped by later interventions, so that it alone is available in its entirety for typological, architectural and liturgical investigations. Moreover, it is the first example of a "standard" basilica that was built neither as an ex voto foundation, nor as an architectural shrine surrounding a venerated tomb, nor as a cemetery church. Discovered in the course of an urbanistic research project using geophysics and aerial photos and subsequently verified by a few sondages, the episcopal church at Ostia is only known in its basic outlines. Yet the cathedral ensemble lies directly under the surface and can therefore be comprehensively investigated. The unique potential of the site already evidenced itself in a limited preliminary investigation. Situated against the Republican city wall and above two older buildings, the original church-ensemble also included a building to the south of the atrium, whose high-quality interior decoration suggests its function as an episcopium. In the late 4th/early 5th century, an additional baptistery was built, and from the later 5th century onwards, numerous burials were placed in the atrium and church nave. From the 6th century onwards, the church was gradually abandoned and reused for residential purposes until finally being abandoned in the 8th century. Nothing is known, however, about the incorporation of the complex into the existing street system, the internal layout of the basilica, its architectural and liturgical furnishings or the dynamics of the building’s modifications and their chronological order. All these aspects can be clarified in stratigraphic excavations, which are expected to answer not only fundamental questions about architectural typology and chronology, but also address the building’s function as a bishop's seat, baptistery, and burial church and confirm the conversion for residential use, and the context of its final abandonment. These insights are a central piece of the puzzle for the (Christian) sacred topography of Ostia and the processes of use and abandonment, and are of exceptional importance for the understanding of Constantinian building policy and early ecclesiastical architecture in general. In addition, the particular situation promises new insights into the long-term urban development of Ostia, from the late Republic to the early Middle Ages.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
