Bronze casting in Late Antiquity in the Marche Region

Abstract

This essay reviews the discovery of three sites where deposits of bronze fragments have been found, in the Roman cities of Pisaurum, Sentinum and Potentia. Each site yielded small bronze fragments and some tools, which lead us to suppose that these were sites of Late Antique foundries, where large bronze statues and other bronze objects were broken up to be remelted. The foundries were located on land previously occupied by taverns in the forum area or by residential quarters. This means that the urban plan of the cities had already been partially transformed, probably due to Christianisation and the construction of churches, which became the new community centres, to the detriment of the older areas of the forum. The rampant poverty and shortage of raw materials, especially metals, made foundries indispensable and, consequently, their widespread presence, even within the cities, probably became customary. Perhaps the numerous bronze fragments found in other centres of the region should also be interpreted in this same sense, as indications of foundries, even if the structures where the metal was worked have not been preserved.