L’AREA ARCHEOLOGICA DI SOPHIANA Rilettura critica degli interventi eseguiti per ristabilire i capisaldi di un progetto di fruizione

Any project for the protection and preservation of archaeological remains has an high degree of uncertainty, from idea to realization, which manifests from the first contact with recognized cultural value and, sometimes, correlates to the innovative audacity of some unusual approaches for the restoration. This is what emerges from the study that we recently started in order to retrace the first steps made on what would become the archaeological area of Sophiana. From the first campaign of reconnaissance, carried out in 1954 by Dinu Adamesteanu, emerged a system of remains recognized as the largest public spa of old Late Antiquity (IV A.D.) in the area. This original nucleus has been dug, from the evidences of the thirteenth century until the remains of Greek era buildings, with a contextual poor documentation about physiognomy of the places before the excavation. At the same time, it was made a questionable "archaeological restoration aimed to the conservation". The techniques and the materials used, between controversial anastylosis and atypical reconstructions of some masonry, were, however, those provided by the “Carte del Restauro”. The decision to review, from a technical point of view, the results of the excavations has already been undertaken with cognitive purposes, to evaluate other chronological and morphological hypotheses about the roman baths; a study that we intend to continue for giving a support to plan a desirable future to Sophiana's remains.