Taranto Saint Angelo Castle: a new approach to the cultural stratification of the landscape

Abstract

The archaeological work carried out inside the Aragonese Castle of Taranto since 2007, continuing previous studies of various scholars, has gathered a wealth of information propedeutic to the full comprehension of the architectural structures brought to light by the archaeological excavations, to their reconstruction and dating. Beside the excavations, this search is based on the studies of the archaeological finds that include cataloguing digital surveying and graphic rendering. The aim of all these activities is to produce an hypothesis of the historical evolution of the castle site, free of the tampering produced by the recent building programs. On this basis it has been possible to produce the first tridimensional reconstruction of the castle, from the morphology of the primitive rock bed that now constitutes the castle inner core, to the successive architectonic structures always shaped in accordance with the orografy of the site whose prevailing function, after the quarrying of the military defense of Taranto, from the Hellenistic bastion to the tower and walls of the Byzantine kastron. To the Swabian-Angevin castle and finally to the Aragonese fortress.