Classics M.A. Candidate Talia Chicherio Works on Archaeology Program in Italy

Talia Chicherio, an M.A. candidate of the University of Maryland’s Classics Department, was chosen to work on The Gabii Project in Latium, Italy over the summer of 2015.

Talia Chicherio, an M.A. candidate of the University of Maryland’s Classics Department, was chosen to work on The Gabii Project in Latium, Italy over the summer of 2015. The archaeological field program was initially launched in 2007 with the objective of studying and excavating the ancient Latin city of Gabii, a city-state that both neighbored and rivaled Rome in the first millennium BC. Members of the Gabii Project seek not only to explore the archaeological sites throughout Gabii, but also to establish and contextualize our overall understanding of the ancient city. The project is directed by Nicola Terrenato of the University of Michigan.

Talia applied to the Gabii Project’s field program, so that she could participate in an area of Classics that would allow her to engage directly with the material culture of the societies that she studies here at the University of Maryland. The program presented her with the rare opportunity to escape the typical classroom setting and approach her studies in a more hands-on manner. Over the course of the summer, she was assigned to Area D, which is the oldest part of the site that has been made available to students. It is a residential area with evidence of habitation starting in the Iron Age. She worked alongside a team of like-minded, hardworking individuals under the expert guidance of recent PhD recipient Marilyn Evans. Dr. Evans has been working at the site since its opening in 2007, and she even wrote her dissertation on the archaic burials in Area D.

One of the most valuable aspects of Talia’s experience working on the Gabii Project was that she was able to spend time working both out in the field and inside a variety of labs. In the Finds lab, she would wash and sort pottery sherds, measure and draw vessels based on those sherds, and record all of her team’s findings within a stratigraphic unit. In the Archaeobotany lab, she learned how to float soil, identify various types of seeds, and sort small pieces of artifacts from rocks and soil. She also worked in a zooarchaeology lab, where she learned how to identify different types of animal bones, including fragments. As a graduate student, Talia also had the opportunity to work with members of the topography team, who taught her how to survey stratigraphic units and enter data points into their computer system.

Over the summer, Talia and her team were able to complete the full exploration and excavation of Area D. The results of their findings will be published over the next few years, along with the work of previous teams who worked on Area D.

Overall, Talia immensely enjoyed her five weeks of experience working on the Gabii Project. Her time in the field helped her put the important work that archaeologists do every day into perspective, which has ultimately allowed her to explore her own work with the University of Maryland as it relates to archaeological finds and publications.

For more information about the Gabii Project, please refer to the program website at http://gabiiproject.org/.

Source: College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. “Gabii Project.” University of Michigan. Accessed October 16, 2015, https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/gabiiproject/.