Alumni Blog
From Richland to Rome: James Bilella ’19
Posted July 28th, 2024
James Bilella is a Historical Archeologist and member of the St. Augustine Prep Class of 2019. James earned a B.A. in Anthropology and History from the University of Maine and is currently completing his Graduate Degree in American History. In this reflection, James shares his recent fieldwork experience on an archeological site in Italy over the summer of 2023. #HermitsAlumni
As the team’s bus made its way along the tight winding roads of the Sabine Hills, it was hard not to feel some nervous excitement about the weeks that lay ahead. Five weeks in the countryside of Rome, far from the comforts and tourist attractions that so many people visit Italy for. Under the joint supervision of Rutgers and Brown Universities, much of the team were undergraduate college students, many of whom had never been out of their home countries or had even picked up a pickaxe. Vacone, the town that hosted both the team and the archaeological site itself, was an authentic village: situated on the side of a mountain, with quaint little apartments for the town’s 70 residents, none of whom spoke any English. There is one grocery store and one cafe that are open at sporadic times during the week. Our accommodations for the field school were just as quaint. Run by an elderly farmer and his family, the Agriturismo Le Colline was a working form and hotel that was a popular tourist destination for backpackers in the 70’s and 80’s but had more recently found itself less frequented by travelers. Between the three buildings that the dig team would stay in over the coming weeks, there was no air conditioning, towels or sheets for the beds, and bathing was limited to one six-minute shower per person per day, so that we did not drain the water supply for both the farm and the entire town of Vacone. Meals were cooked by the farmer, named Ferminio, in a traditional Latzian fashion, similar to the most simplistic of Italian cuisine. We were not allowed out of our rooms after dark, as wild boars roamed the countryside looking for truffles, and would attack anyone brave enough to challenge them. At night, Ferminio would walk around with a double-barreled shotgun and his guard dogs, on the hunt for boars. It was certainly a different world than life in New Jersey, to say the least.
As an archaeologist, I have the unique opportunity to be able to travel around the world, visiting exotic places and experiencing sides of cultures not many people get to see in their lifetime. The other side to this opportunity is that I am not just visiting as a tourist. I have a dedicated mission to uncover the buried past and learn as much as possible about the people who lived there before. This summer, I was a part of a team tasked with uncovering an ancient Roman villa in the Italian countryside.
Each week on the digsite was relatively routine, with your schedule and tasks being laid out for us each day. Each morning we would wake up around 5:30 in the morning and head to breakfast. Now, in Italy, breakfast is not a traditionally large meal, if they choose to have it at all. So breakfast was always the same at the agriturismo. A slice of hard bread, typically layered with nutella and jam, a piece of small fruit such as an apricot, and coffee American-style. At 6:30 our group would begin the hike up the hill to the archaeological site, typically a mile-and-a-half to two miles each way. To give a little background on the site itself, the “Villa at Vacone” was a massive Roman era structure that housed the wealthy planter family that owned a large network of olive groves in the area. Similar to a southern-style plantation, the villa was a working farm that was immensely expensive to construct and was quite ornate. Slaves of the family would work around the villa to cultivate and collect olives, turning them into olive oil in the stone presses situated underground of the villa itself. Built around 100 years prior to the rise of Julius Caesar, the villa saw the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. A massive renovation was done to it sometime between 27 BC and 14AD. Some renovations included intricate and colorful mosaics, extra work rooms, and large, heated bathhouses. The villa was occupied and maintained until around 200 AD, when changing economies and devastating earthquakes caused the Romans to abandon the site. Sometime around 600-700 AD, Lombard-era peasants began to inhabit the ruins of the villa sporadically, keeping animals in the still-habitable basement areas and burying their dead where they found suitable. The villa was once again abandoned sometime later, and would not be touched again until farmers in the years 1300-1400 AD would cut through the mosaics and ruins of the villa to plant agricultural trenches to feed their families. Our job this season was to uncover some of the inner rooms, the portico (the villa’s massive wrap-around porch), the peristyle (the pool located in the center of the villa), and the bathhouses. Work on the site would begin approximately at 7am, just as the sun had risen. The 20 students and I were divided into groups, known as trenches. Each of us were sent to our supervisors in those four trenches mentioned above. Much of the work day would be spent removing the about three and half feet of “topsoil” that separated the surface and the mosaic floors of the villa, being careful to not damage any artifacts or structures (walls or columns) embedded in the soil. This was done mainly by pickaxe, in which teams of pickaxes would remove around an inch of soil at a time, and shovelers and wheelbarrows would haul away the dirt. You would only use your trowel or a brush when you got within an inch or so of the floor. The work was difficult and tedious, especially the pickaxing, which required a great deal of strength and stamina. We would receive two breaks during our six hour work day, one 15 minute break at 9am, where we were fed Italian sugar cookies; and one 30 minute break at 11am, where we were provided a slice of focaccia (pizza) bread and another piece of fruit. Work would be finished around 1:15 pm, and by 1:30 we would head back down the hill for lunch at the agriturismo. Lunch and dinner were relatively the same, and followed the traditional Italian eating customs. First a primi was served, typically some form of light pasta. Then a secondi- at lunch it was salad (insalata), and a platter of cured meats and cheeses (affettati), at dinner we were served some meat dish, whether it be sausage or thinly breaded chicken. Dessert was always either watermelon or cantaloupe. Between lunch and dinner we were given side work, such as washing pottery shards found from the earlier weeks. This was our routine day in and day out within the 5 weeks we were there. The only time anything changed was due to weather, and of course the first few weeks we were there was scorching hot. The temperatures within the first and second week regularly climbed up into the 110s, and even peaked one day at 120. By 7am, it was around 85-90 degrees. After it hits 110, you really don’t feel the difference in the temperature other than it’s unbearably hot. But still, we were on a schedule, and work persisted when it could.
We consistently found interesting artifacts at the site, ranging from coins with the face of Constantine, to oil lamps with imagery of dogs chasing lions! Some of our larger finds included a large stone basin used for bathing, and some beautifully ornate column heads. Animal bones were everywhere on site, which supports our theory that the villa was later used to house animals. We actually found an entire cow buried at the bottom of the pool, about 8-9 feet below the ground level of the rest of the peristyle. The most fascinating find of the dig, however, was our uncovering of some beautiful mosaic designs. Mosaics are a great way to discover the financial and artistic aspects of any building in the Roman empire. Typically, the more ornate the mosaic was, the wealthier the owner was. After all, many of the materials for the mosaics, such as the different colored marble and stone, had to be transported from quarries around the empire and chiseled into extremely specific tiny square pieces. In our case, several of the rooms in the villa had basic designs, mostly reds and blacks in rectangular patterns. However, some of the rooms included these beautiful colorful mosaics that included blues, greens, yellows, and pinks, also known as poly-chrome. Seeing these mosaics uncovered, knowing that this was the first time in almost 1,800 years that someone had laid their eyes on such designs was moving. The fantastically preserved colors and patterns were so remarkable that I found myself unable to keep my eyes off of them. I still at times wonder to myself how they came up with each design and how each room would have been decorated to compliment the mosaic.
There is a poetic beauty in archaeology, as many of the things archaeologists find have been touched by humans who lived thousands of years ago, you feel a sense of closeness to them. You remember that these people had the same conscious feelings that you do, and that although they were born into a world much different from ours, their emotions and basic instincts were the same. They still felt fear, anger, joy, and excitement just as we do. They loved their family and felt attachment to the beauty of nature and of their world. Being an archaeologist is more than just to dig up junk from past civilizations, it is to put yourselves in the shoes of a people who lived before you and appreciate their experiences and culture. To lend a voice to those who would otherwise be silenced by the passage of time. The privilege of being that voice to past peoples is truly humbling, and is something that I will never forget for as long as I live.