← Back to the map19th-century photograph of the Macellum of Pozzuoli, historically misidentified as the Temple of Serapis
Giorgio Sommer, 19th century (historic photograph) · Wikimedia Commons

Pozzuoli

Italia · Roman province·Italy·Founded 194 BCE (Roman colony)

Roman Puteoli, Italy's main port for eastern grain and luxury goods before Portus took over. Its Flavian amphitheatre — the third-largest in the empire — was newly built at our snapshot.

A living port city of around 77,000 near Naples; Roman ruins including the Serapeo market and amphitheatre sit within the modern town, beside the active Solfatara volcano.

Excavation history

1750-1753
Bourbon-era excavation — The macellum (market building) was first excavated; a statue of Serapis found in 1750 led it to be mistakenly identified as a 'Temple of Serapis' for over a century.
1907
Charles Dubois — Established the building's true identity as a macellum (marketplace) rather than a temple, correcting more than a century of misidentification.
1839-1947
Italian excavation campaigns (three separate seasons) — The Flavian Amphitheatre was excavated in three separate campaigns; only the final 1947 campaign fully cleared the accumulated debris from the arena.

Notable finds

Statue of Serapis
This 1750 find in the macellum's ruins was so convincing that excavators mistook the whole market building for a temple of Serapis for over a century, a misidentification only corrected in 1907.
National Archaeological Museum, Naples
Scabillarii Mosaic
A round mosaic inscription in the amphitheatre's Room 10 names one Pulveris among the scabillarii, the foot-clapper musicians who kept rhythm for the arena's fights — a rare trace of the ordinary performers who worked the games rather than the gladiators who fought them.
Flavian Amphitheatre, Pozzuoli
Puteoli Marble Block
Unearthed in 1908, this block carries two separate imperial stories on its two faces: a relief from a Trajanic triumphal arch on one side, and on the other, an honorific inscription to Domitian that was chiseled off, unevenly and incompletely, after the Senate condemned his memory in 96 CE.
Penn Museum, Philadelphia
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