We have not been active for a while and you may have been wondering what is going on…Over the past few years we have been truly touched by the support and encouragement we have received online, on the ground in Italy, throughout the USA, and even across the globe. It is because you share our enthusiasm for Libarna and LULP that we knew an announcement like this would be disappointing. After much deliberation, we decided that it was best to postpone the start of excavations until summer 2020.
This was due to a variety of different complications, so good and some bad. It’s been a difficult year for some in our personal lives and in terms of health. For others there have been exciting developments like new job opportunities and we also have a new member of the LULP team – the addition of a beautiful baby girl in May!
With these various complications and obligations in our lives, we realised that it would not be possible for us to conduct the quality of fieldwork that Libarna deserves. We want to emphasize our commitment to Libarna and the local communities of Arquata Scrivia and Serrvalle Scrivia. We will be back in the field in July 2020 when we will begin excavating two trenches located in one of Libarna’s insula (a city block with houses, shops etc.).
For now, we will be focusing on some of the other necessities of an archaeological project: publication and grant writing. We have two papers in the pipeline – one is a report on our last field season and the other is about those amazing crop marks that helped us to flesh out Libarna’s urban plan in 2017. (If you don’t know what we’re talking about, check out our previous blog all about crop marks!) We will let you know when those are published.
We can’t wait to get back into the field and continue our research into life at Libarna and the mechanisms of Roman colonialism. Libarna has so much more to tell us! Expect more content from us as we begin to gear up for an exciting new season!
For more regular updates make sure you are following us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook at @LibarnaULP
Libarna Urban Landscapes project 