Resumen de Fortified city’s heritage and urban archaeology. The Neapolitanfortified port town through the archaeological discoveries
In this presentation I would like to emphasize the importance of the urban archaeology for the urban historynew methodology. Particularly I would like to illustrate the Naples’ port town significant archaeologicaldiscoveries and the evidences of the ancient harbour’s fortifications. Moreover the Mediterranean urbanarchaeology discoveries in the port town of Marseille, Puteoli etc. and their mise en valeur.Naples is a port town with a long continuity of life since its foundation in the Greek period; due to theexceptional stratification of its urban heritage it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, since 1995.The port town has developed a continuous increase of the city walls along the southern coast line belowthe ancient Greek centre, from the Roman port dock, discovered 15 metres under the Municipio square tothe East. The ancient waterfronts fortifications have come to light under the level of the contemporary citywith the scientific archaeological interventions as consequence of the public works into the MetrolinesUnderground-Line.1, running for about 3 kilometres in the historical ‘low city’, along the ancient sea coastline, with their towers and gateways. The same public works brought to light the Angevin Beverello pierfacing the Chateau neuf, with its towered Renaissance turreted/bastioned Citadel in the South 16th centurycity walls. Moreover these discoveries shed new light on the long dimension of the Southern city wallsand its relationship with the continuous advance of the sea coast line from the port to the Sperone Castle.One of the most important transformation inside the fortification system during the long period (Angevin,Aragona-Spanish) emerged with evidence, unit with the preservation, enhancement and managementdifficulties to make visible this heritage to a vast public, in observance of the International Charters’related to the conservation of archaeology and fortifications. The archaeological evidences have allowed anetwork of technical resources that contributed to outline the urban Mediterranean fortifications with thepossibility to redesign the ‘new maps’ of the ancient fortified waterfronts with the ‘reconstruction’ of thefortified port-towns urban history.
