The excavation campaign carried out by the UniTS Humanities Department team in the area of the ‘House of Dancing Putti’ (near today's Via Gemina), entrusted with an excavation concession by the Ministry of Culture - Friuli Venezia Giulia's Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape Heritage, led to a number of important discoveries, including the discovery of a marble statue of Dionysus.

The ‘quarter’ under investigation, to the northwest of the forum, was characterised by its centrality with respect to the political and commercial heart of Aquileia and to the network of water and land communications within and outside the city. Inside was a vast and luxurious late antique residence, known as the House of the Dancing Putti, which had occupied the entire quarter since its first settlement (mid 4th century AD).

Thanks to the investigations of the University of Trieste, it has been possible to rediscover a series of rooms, once decorated with mosaics, whose characteristics and dimensions can be identified with some of those identified in the 1930s by the archaeologist Giovanni Brusin and subsequently re-interred. This yields important data for scientific research.

The first new development is of a topographical nature: the team georeferenced these remains and verified the actual correspondence between them and archive data (plans, photos, drawings, etc.).

The second concerns the chronology proposed for some mosaic floors that have been dated so far, in the absence of contextual data, on the basis of stylistic typological analysis. New dating proposals can now be made on stratigraphic bases and on the association with the materials found.

A further fundamental result was that of being able to ‘link’ the remains identified in the 1930s with those of the House of the Dancing Putti, of which, in all probability, they constituted a representative sector.

Also of great importance was the work carried out inside an uncovered area, possibly used as a garden, where, thanks to the absence of mosaic floors, it was possible to descend in depth and intercept, more than a metre from the floor level and under a clay fill, an opus signinum (a type of Roman concrete) floor whose chronology is still being defined, but probably predates the mid-1st century AD. Precisely from the excavation in this area, it was possible to recover a valuable marble statuette depicting Dionysus, a rare testimony of the sculptural decoration of this late antique house.

The dissemination of the significant data discovered over the years at this site is also possible thanks to the extraordinary openings of the excavation sites, organised by the Fondazione Aquileia in collaboration with Friuli Venezia Giulia's Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape Heritage (Soprintendenza Archeologia, belle arti e paesaggio del Friuli Venezia Giulia), on the occasion of the European Archaeology Days, held this year on 13th, 14th and 15th June, and the next European Heritage Days (28th and 29th September). These events, like all other public archaeology initiatives supported by the University of Trieste in the excavation site of Aquileia, provide an opportunity to share our archaeological heritage and contribute to strengthening the value of the traces of the past as a shared public asset.