La topografia antica di Oria tra l'età del Bronzo e l'epoca tardo-antica: sintesi dell'evoluzione e delle trasformazioni dell'abitato

The paper concerns the reconstruction of the organization of the ancient settlement of Oria (Apulia Region, Brindisi Province) between Bronze age and Late Antiquity according to archaeological documentation collected in particular in the last fifty years thanks to small-scale excavations. At this regard, also old cartographies and aerial photos are very important. The ancient settlement is quite completely covered by the modern city, with a continuity of life of more than 3,000 years. The paper discusses about the structure of the settlement, in particular the location of inhabited areas, necropolises, worship sites, and about the characteristics and routes of fortifications according to a diachronic perspective. Between Late Bronze age and Iron age, the structure of a large village with separated groups of huts is clearly identifiable; it corresponds to an organization of the settlement in groups of families. During the Archaic period, from the half of the 6th century BC, the village was progressively transformed in an urban settlement, with houses in masonry and an articulated road network; around the inhabited area, there are large necropolises, articulated along the main routes that leaved the settlement. The period of main growth of Oria corresponds to the first century of the Hellenistic age, when in the fortified acropolis there were monumental buildings and the inhabited area and mostly of the necropolises were included inside city walls built of large blocks and about 3,900 m long, which surrounded a surface of about 110 hectares. During this period, Oria was one of the main settlements in the central-northern Messapia, along the ancient road between Taranto and Brindisi, which will be retraced by via Appia, arranged in the last decades of the 3rd century BC. After the Roman conquest, in the second quarter of the 3rd century BC, and in particular starting from the end of the Hannibalic War, during the late Republican age and the Imperial period, the importance of the settlement of Oria progressively decreased to the status of rural village and the inhabited area was reduced; moreover, it is not sure that it was a municipium.