The stones paving the ancient Roman roads like the Via Appia are a distinctive material feature. My PhD-project builds on the legacy of The Roman Hinterland Project and tries to look at the provenance of basalt in the roads of the Roman Suburbium using non-invasive techniques like p-XRF. The provenance data is later used as a base for a study on the supply of materials, construction of roads and the impact on the Roman economy. This black lava stone is known as k-rich leucitic lava in modern geology. During this paper, I would like to invite you to look for and at this stone in different ways. Going beyond the geological maps and lava samples, trying to answer several questions ranging from: How did the Romans write about stone? To: How do we think about road construction and do we see the same in ancient Rome?
Period
22 Jun 2026
Event title
AIAC Incontri : Extraction and Production in the Landscape