Tauriani Archaeological Park

Source www.parcoarcheologicodeitauriani.org

The Taurian Archaeological Park "Antonio de Salvo" is located in the area where the ancient city of Tauriana (or Taurianum) once stood on an area of about three hectares, lying on a coastal plateau overlooking the Costa Viola.

The park is named after the Palmi doctor Antonio de Salvo (Palmi, June 25, 1851 - January 20, 1924). It was he, in the nineteenth century, who first made the discoveries of archaeological excavations of the ancient Brettian and then Roman city of Tauriana. The park was built with funds from APQ Cultural Heritage Calabria and a grant from the Reggio di Calabria Provincial Administration and was opened on September 17, 2011.

Scientific research on the plateau began towards the end of the nineteenth century, after the De Salvo map was drawn up, dating back to 1886.
In the twentieth century, starting in 1995, important excavations were initiated in the area by the Archaeological Heritage Authority of Calabria, in collaboration with Italian and foreign universities.

Among the structures discovered and identified inside the park:

- huts built 4000 years ago, discovered at a depth of a few meters;
- urban city systems (first Brettia, then Roman);
- "house of mosaics";
- the " town sanctuary", better known as the "House of Donna Canfora";
- the Roman road;
- the circular building for exhibitions. As early as the end of the nineteenth century, the historian De Salvo, in his opera Metauria y Tauriana, thought it was an amphitheater.
- Spanish tower of 1500.

Roman road

The first structure encountered in the park is a paving stone that represented the main city road of ancient Tauriana. Next to it you can see the tiers of a building for spectacles. The road led to via Popilia, the ancient "highway" connecting Reggio di Calabria and Capua Rim.

Amphitheater

Next to the sidewalk, on the west, opens the majestic building of the amphitheater, a unique example not only in Calabria in its architecture and possible uses. Battles were conducted here, as well as games and theatrical performances. It is estimated that the amphitheater could accommodate about 3,000 people.

Residential area

Continuing our visit to the park, past the amphitheater on the right we find a Roman sanctuary and a Mosaic house.

Mosaic House. This is part of the Brettio-Roman residential area (1st century BC), where we can see overlays of Roman structures on the buildings of Brittany. It is named after the discovery of a figural mosaic with tiny polychrome mosaics that, together with a bronze bed decorated with silver and precious stones are decorated the space defined as a banquet hall. The bed is currently exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum of Reggio di Calabria. A hunting scene is represented with two knights and a spearman standing on either side of a wounded bear. A large tree, a dog, an animal of the cat family and a wild boar complete the scene.

Roman sanctuary

In local tradition, the Templars' italicized building was always called the Palazzo di Donna Canfora.
Donna Canfora was a particularly beautiful woman who was kidnapped by corsairs, attracted by her beauty while buying exquisite goods from the navy, and who threw herself into the sea from a boat, preferring death to renunciation of her land. From the sacred area dedicated to an unknown deity, we can see the remains of a tall podium (about 10x20 meters) and a triportico. The construction of this sacred building required the reorganization of the previous Brettian settlement. It was oriented to the north-east; it was accessed by a staircase, which is no preserved today; and it was surrounded by a triportico, of which the foundations on three sides are preserved, according to a building system common to religious architecture of the time.

Prehistoric village

Beneath the Brettian and Roman phases, which are not yet visible, are the remains of the huts of a Bronze Age village that existed for about a thousand years, starting 4,000 years ago. The huts are made with high stone walls and a roof of perishable material.