Excavations in the Sacred Area of Sant' Omobono in Rome, June 2012

Sant'Omobono is a church in Rome at the foot of the Capitoline Hill in rione Ripa.

It was built in the 15th century and called San Salvatore in Portico. When the church was given to the "Università dei Sarti" (the association of tailors) in 1575, the church was dedicated to their patron saint, Saint Homobonus.

Outside the church lie excavated ruins of Roman altars and temples that date from as early as the 6th century BC. The temples have been identified as those of Fortuna and Mater Matuta. The sacred area lies between the Forum Holitorium and the Forum Boarium. The archaeological site is currently under re-investigation by a joint team from the Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali of the Comune di Roma, the Università della Calabria, and the University of Michigan.

Text from: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant'Omobono

and

The S. Omobono Project is a multi-year, international program of research aimed at investigating one of the most remarkable and least understood archaeological sites in Rome. Previous work in the area has revealed an extremely complex depositional sequence, comprising Middle and Late Bronze Age materials in secondary deposition, in situ traces of wattle and daub structures from as early as the seventh century BCE, and substantial evidence of continuous cult activity beginning in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE. The site thus offers both an important glimpse at the earliest phases of occupation at Rome in the latter half of the second millennium and an unparalleled opportunity to study the development of a major cult area in relation to the processes of urbanization and state formation from the eighth to the sixth centuries.

The site of S. Omobono is located just east of the Tiberine Island, near the heart of modern Rome. Throughout much of early Roman history, this area (known as the Forum Boarium, or ‘cattle market’) served as a nodal point for interregional networks of trade, which relied on the nearby island and on natural fords just south of it as crossing points of the Tiber. Thus, the Forum Boarium became established early on as a privileged locus of cultural contact and exchange, where Latins, Etruscans, Sabines, and other central Italian groups interacted with traders from throughout the Mediterranean.

Fortuitously uncovered during construction work in 1937, the site of S. Omobono preserves some of the earliest evidence of human activity in this important area of Rome. The limited excavations conducted in 1959, 1961-1962, 1964, 1974-1975, 1977-1979, and 1985-1986 by Italian teams have yielded tantalizing glimpses of at least seventeen distinct occupational phases, though the few and very cursory excavation reports published thus far allow only a general outline of this complex archaeological sequence.

By the second half of the seventh century BCE, one or more wattle and daub structures had been constructed on virgin soil; unfortunately, the small stratigraphic sounding conducted in this area did not yield sufficient data to determine the extent of this earliest phase of occupation or the exact nature of its associated activities. The late seventh and early sixth centuries saw the construction of a sturdier structure with a terracotta roof, whose religious nature is suggested by its association with a sacrificial pit and by a possible dedicatory inscription in Etruscan (the oldest attested Etruscan epigraph in Rome). In the second quarter of the sixth century, this building appears to have been replaced by a more permanent temple, which featured a sacrificial altar connected to a well and an early form of the high podium characteristic of later Italic temple architecture. This phase has also yielded an important inscription – the Etruscan personal name araz silqetenas spurianas, carved on the back of an ivory tessera hospitalis (a token of guest-friendship between aristocratic families from different cities).

The end of the sixth and the beginning of the fifth centuries BCE witnessed a substantial