Exploring Samnite Strongholds and Medieval Frontiers on the "Gustav Line"
Ancient Rome Live (American Institute for Roman Culture), in collaboration with the Municipality of Vallerotonda and under the scientific direction of Professor Michele Raddi, Andrea Ceccarelli, and Darius Arya, recently concluded the 2026 excavation season at the archaeological site of Cardito Vecchio (Lazio, Italy), with a team of 3 participants on the ground.
Perched at 1,030 meters (3,380 ft), Cardito Vecchio occupies a commanding high-altitude position that once controlled the strategic passage between Lazio and Molise. The 2025 campaign has confirmed the site as a remarkably well-preserved archaeological context, revealing a complex, multi-layered history.
Excavations have brought to light a medieval settlement centered on a mastio (keep), with surrounding residential structures and an ecclesia intramoenia (a fortress church) accompanied by a burial area dating to the 12th–13th centuries. Beneath these levels, earlier phases emerge: Samnite-era polygonal masonry and fragments of black-glaze pottery point to the site’s origins as a pre-Roman defensive outpost of the Caraceni tribes. Even deeper in time, the presence of Middle Paleolithic flint tools underscores the long continuity of human activity here, making Cardito Vecchio a rare diachronic window into the history of the Central Apennines.
The 2026 season’s digging uncovered the outline of a surprisingly large religious building (about 20 by 10 meters) buried in Test Trench 3. Its size and the layers around it suggest this wasn’t a simple village chapel, but something more important: likely a baptismal church or a monastic outpost connected to the powerful Abbey of Montecassino.
Material found at the site, especially signs that people were using the building in the 12th and 13th centuries, confirms it played a real role in medieval life here. Excavators also turned up fragments of painted plaster with red, brown, and black designs in Sector 1 — proof the building was decorated, not just functional.
The Cardito Vecchio project offers a rare immersion not only in deep antiquity but also in modern history.
The site overlooks Montecassino, the epicenter of one of the most decisive battles of World War II, and lies directly along the historic Gustav Line. Here, excavation unfolds within a true “living landscape,” where traces of ancient occupation intersect with the material memory of 20th-century warfare.
It is a place where the terrain itself tells a layered story, and where archaeology and modern conflict converge in a single, powerful setting.
