La villa romana di Contrada Malvaccaro a Potenza. Nuove considerazioni architettoniche e cronologiche alla luce di una revisione della più recente documentazione di scavo (2013-2014)

Excavated several times during the 1970s, in 2005–2006, and most recently in 2013–2014, the villa rustica of Malvaccaro is the only significant archaeological evidence preserved to the present day within the municipal territory of Potenza (Basilicata, Italy). Despite its relevance for understanding the human settlement in the suburbium of Potentia and, in a broad sense, the inner part of Lucania during the Imperial Age, the knowledge of this rural building is still widely incomplete. The existing archaeological literature on the subject, in fact, comprises only brief summary reports, which moreover fail to account for the results from the most recent researches at the site (2013–2014), still completely unpublished. This paper aims to provide as comprehensive and accurate an overview as possible of the villa’s building and attending phases, through a critical review of all available archaeological documentation preserved in the archives of the SABAP- Bas. Particular attention is devoted to the planimetric, structural, and stratigraphic aspects of the villa, and a new and more rigorous graphic and photographic documentation is presented. An attempt is also made in order to re-contextualize the material data within its historical, topographical, and socio-cultural context.