Le crustae marmoree dalla mansio tardoantica di Equilus-Jesolo (Venezia). Ipotesi interpretative per le ricerche future

Recently, an archaeological project conducted by the Ca' Foscari University of Venice investigated a late antique mansio in the countryside around the present-day town of Jesolo, formerly called Equilus. The ancient Equilus was inhabited by a lagoon community between Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and played a crucial role in relation to the development of coastal settlements in the northern Adriatic basin, especially in relation to the Venetian lagoon. This paper aims to describe and discuss the assemblage of marble finds (crustae), probably used to decorate some buildings of this Late Antique mansio. Although all the finds of this class were recovered from secondary depositions, the stratigraphic analysis and the comparison with other coeval sites allowed us to propose some hypotheses on their original location and use. In particular, the most likely interpretation seems to be that they decorated ‘first class’ accommodation or a bath-building. The validation of the presence of this kind of buildings is important to evaluate if the mansio was promoted and managed by public or private agency and to know which community frequented this site. Furthermore, the aerial photos analysis associated with a geophysical survey contributed to recognize many traces, some of which can be attributed to yet unexcavated structures related to the mansio. The combination of archaeological data derived from different methodologies and scales of 1 analysis seems to be promising for developing future fieldwork and interdisciplinary research in this lagoon site.