Sentinum Archaeological Park: the ancient Roman city

Sentinum is one of the most important archaeological site in Marches. At first glance, you can have a view of the ancient city that is collocated in an area where there has not been construction in modern age and so the urban planning is still visible, with its streets and some remains of important buildings. If you have tour of the park and the museum and observe carefully, you can discover fine details like decoration in marble, wonderful mosaics, and precious sculptures.

Indice

History

In Sentinum occurred some important events in roman history, first of all the Battle of Sentinum in 295 B.C., between Romans and Gaul and Italian indigenous population. This battle let the Roman take control on the median Adriatic area, and Sentium, under the power of Rome, became an important center, because of its position in the middle of some important roman streets.

The city was destroyed in 41 B.C. during the war of Perugia between Antonius and Octavian, but it has been rebuilt again, and preserved previous importance and economic stability that characterized this city. Sentinum was involved in the economic and political crisis of the Roman Empire and became to see its population drift away in IV century A.D. In V century A.D. the city was completely abandoned because of the incursions of Lombards.

The archaeological park of Sentinum

After the first and occasional discoveries of archaeological remains and epigraph between XV and XVIII century A.D., in XIX century the real dimensions of the site were discovered and the archaeological park was opened.

The site includes the citadel that is surrounded by Augustan walls decorated in opus vittatum style and reinforced inside with cement.

It is still visible the typical city planning of the Romans: the streets were organized in an orthogonal structure, and the center of this scheme was in the forum, in the point in which the main streets Cardus Maximus and Decumanus Maximus cross each other. You can see some streets well preserved, in which it is possible to see the pavement, the sidewalk, and under there are the pipes of the sewer system.

On Cardus there are the remains of a bath built in III century A.D. with a central pool, a peristilium, calidarium, frigidarium e ad a room with an apse decorated with polychrome marbles.

There is also another bath, out of the wall of the city, in location Santa Lucia, in which there are some other rooms like a tepidarium and a l’apodyterium.

An area of the ancient city is named “insula del pozzo” were there are some different spaces, and one was dedicated to processing of bronze.

The mosaics are very interesting and well preserved. A polychrome mosaic “Aion’s mosaic” was discovered in 1806 and portrays some personification in a natural landscape: there is Aion (the personification of the eternity of time), that is represented by a young boy standing in the left part of the mosaic, then Tellus, the personification of the Earth, sit in the right corner next to three seasons. The moisaic is now in Munich.

Other mosaics are in Sentinum, for example in the park there is a pavement decorated with mosaic black and white discovered in 1922, and in the museum there is a mosaic of the abduction of Europa. In the museum are visible many remains from the excavation, in particular there are some important votive statues in bronze, and marble sculptures, for example a precious bust of the goddess Isis in alabaster.

Sentinum

History

The archaeological park of Sentinum

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How to get to Sentinum