Thesis title: Il sistema portuale di Altinum: spazi, strutture e funzionamento
The Roman city of Altinum, near the northern Venice Lagoon, was a strategic hub connecting regional routes with river, lagoon, and maritime traffic. Its urban canal network, equipped with landing stages and functional buildings, created a port system integrated with the lagoon up to the Adriatic Sea.
This research investigates the port system, focusing on its urban dimension. It aims to understand how it functioned by analysing port operations. The study examines the spaces and structures of the port – from canals to urban buildings – by using both reassessed excavation records and new data, namely from a coring campaign. Functional knowledge of these spaces, together with the study of users – cargo and vessels – supports a reconstruction of flows, timing, and material constraints of port activities.
The resulting dynamic reconstruction captures the complexity of Altinum’s port system, thereby contributing to a better understanding of one of the major Roman ports of the northern Adriatic.