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Modern photograph of the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia interior, Ravenna · Wikimedia Commons
Ravenna
Italia · Roman province·Italy·Founded 1st c. BCE (Roman municipium)
Base of the Classis Ravennas, the Adriatic fleet, from Augustus onward. In 117 CE Ravenna sat directly on the coast — the shore is now 8 km east.
A living Italian city of around 160,000; eight Early Christian and Byzantine monuments with famed mosaics are UNESCO World Heritage, woven into the modern town.
Excavation history
1897-1906
Corrado Ricci, Superintendent of Monuments in Ravenna — Directed restorations at the Basilica of San Vitale and other Byzantine-era monuments, stripping later additions to reveal original sixth-century brickwork and mosaics.
Notable finds
Funerary Stele with Shipbuilding Scene
Carved in limestone in the late 2nd century CE, this Ravenna funerary stele pairs portrait busts of the deceased with a relief of shipbuilders at work, a rare glimpse of the trade that fed the Roman fleet's home port at nearby Classe.
National Museum of Ravenna, Italy
Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra Mosaics
Construction crews digging an underground car park in 1993 broke into a buried mansion whose 400 square metres of polychrome mosaic floors include the Dance of the Geniuses of the Seasons, four Seasons shown dancing in a ring to piped music.
In situ, Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra, Ravenna, Italy
Throne of Maximian
Carved almost entirely from ivory panels over a wooden frame around 545-553 CE, well after this map's own snapshot, this episcopal throne was likely a gift from Emperor Justinian to Archbishop Maximian, its front framing the four Evangelists beneath the archbishop's own monogram.
Archiepiscopal Museum, Ravenna, Italy
Sarcophagus of the Traditio Legis
Carved from imported Proconnesian marble in the first quarter of the 5th century CE, three centuries past this map's snapshot, this sarcophagus shows Christ handing a scroll of the law to Saint Peter while Saint Paul looks on, its design borrowed from workshop models shipped in from Constantinople.
National Museum of Ravenna, Italy
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →