The Roman villa of Mutteron dei Frati in Bibione (Venice), hidden in the Valgrande pine forest, is providing new and very useful data for understanding this large complex of buildings that archaeologists identify as a maritime villa. It begins to amaze with its rather complex layout, composed of at least two residential buildings.
Watch the video report on the excavation of the Roman villa of Bibione 2024 (subtitles in English):
Evidence lies in the fact that, in addition to the already known mosaic floors, in the ongoing excavations in March 2024, three more mosaic floors have been discovered, black and white tesserae, including one quite large. Two mosaics are completely unedited, while there was some rare information about a third in a survey relief from the 1930s, since the site was partially investigated in that decade and in the 1990s. Mosaics, of course, are not present in the buildings of the villa with productive purposes.
What kind of Roman villa in Bibione?
The ongoing excavations, carried out by the University of Regensburg and University of Padua (with Professors Dirk Steuernagel and Alice Vacilotto for the German university and Professor Maria Stella Busana for Padua), are much more ambitious than the important opening of fairly extensive trenches to investigate the structures.
It is a three-year project that seeks to understand the coastal strip in which the villa was located, the area between the Nicesolo canal (the Tagliamento riverbed in Roman times) and the current Tagliamento between the municipalities of Caorle and San Michele al Tagliamento, metropolitan city of Venice. The villa is considered “maritime” precisely because it was built between important sandy dunes (the Mutteron dei Frati) on the coast, which is currently about 1,5km away from the excavation.
Roman ceramic, metal, and coin finds
Some finds, such as fishing net weights, suggest that part of the production could also be linked to marine resources. The Roman period is well represented by fragments of African imported ceramics, bricks, and numerous metal finds related to construction, such as nails.
Among the metals found in the 2024 excavation campaign, there is also the tip of a small spear and a knife, as well as three coins that, completely absent in the previous season, can now provide chronological data, ranging from the middle imperial age to late antiquity. Some medieval and Renaissance ceramic fragments complete the picture, which nevertheless sees a flourishing of the villa for a longer period than previously hypothesized, at least from the 1st century AD to late antiquity (5yh century AD), in short, not far from the 500 years of occupation. The stripping of building materials in a later period appears evident, although the irregular terrain may have helped preserve well-readable traces.
Note: The Ancient Bibione Archaeological Project “The Roman maritime villa of Bibione and its context” is a project financed by the DFG – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, supervised by the competent ABAP Superintendence (archaeologist Alessandro Asta) and supported by the property of the Ferri de Lazara family and the tenant of the valley.