Studi e restauri archeologici a Sabratha e Leptis Magna dell’Università di Macerata (2009-2014)

The great but onerous legacy left by Antonino Di Vita to University of Macerata includes both the continuation of the restoration works of the painted tombs and the sacred-funerary area of Sidret el-Balik at Sabratha, and the conclusion of not only his unpublished if advanced researches on the Serapeum at Leptis Magna and on the frescoes of Sidret el-Balik but also of all the studies and publications of the monuments which he had entrusted to his pupils and collaborators, in the frame of the undersigned agreement with the Libyan Department of Antiquities, which had always supported him since 1962. Antonino Di Vita in these last years had turned his attention and his cares to the restoration of the extraordinary painted tombs of the Gorgon, of the Heroized Deceased and of Tanit. These monuments had been largely discussed in his studies but were in urgent need of restoration and reinforcement measures. In this regard, in order to guarantee their protection and preservation for the future generations they also require environmental preservation works as they are located outside the archaeological site, thanks also to the funds made available by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He had planned the study and the final publication of some buildings of Leptis, the temple of the Magna Mater (G. Montali) and the Curia in the Old Forum (G. Rocco e M. Livadiotti), and of some other monuments which he had himself discovered or which had attracted his interest during the long years he spent in Tripolitania and to which he had dedicated specific studies: the amphitheater whose excavation campaigns he started between 1962 and 1964, the circus and Severan forum entrusted to the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture of the Polytechic of Bari, the arch of Traian (G. Mazzilli), the Serapeum, on which he had prepared, after a series of stratigraphic excavation, a long text accompanied by survey drawing and reconstructions of the architectural phases including studies of the pottery findings as well as of the sculptures. He had also planned and started with M. Ricciardi the study of the Colonnaded Street especially after the disastrous flood which hit Leptis in 1988 and which led to the collection of new interesting data. And in Sabratha he had planned the study of the amphitheater, still unpublished since the ’20, (G. Montali) while he had kept for himself the study and the final publication, including a report on the complex anastilosis and restoration works, of Sidret el-Balik. And he did all this with the goal to arrive to the final edition of some of the most significant monuments of both cities convinced as he was that it was time to pay back all those scientific debts that Italian archaeologists had contracted so many years before.