SIPONTUM (MANFREDONIA), PUBLISHED IN POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGY USA by LUCIANO MAGALDI SARDELLA "SIPONTUM, THE ARCHAELOGICAL SITE AND INVISIBLE PORT CITY OF ANCIENT DAUNIA" SOURCE: https://popular-archaeology.com/author/sardella/ At last, Siponto speaks to the world. The first major popular account in English devoted to Sipontum, the invisible port city of Daunia, has been published in Popular Archaeology USA. For those who work on the archaeological heritage of Foggia and its province, it has long been a paradox: the Encyclopaedia Britannica dismissed Siponto in two lines as a “city abandoned owing to the encroachment of lagoons”, yet no comprehensive synthesis of its history in English existed for an international readership. This article at last fills that lacuna. It narrates a longue durée history spanning 7,000 years: from the Bronze Age lagoon to the Roman maritime colony of 194 BC, whose decumanus maximus survives today as the SS89 Garganica; from the grain port cited by Cassiodorus to the basilica rendered visible by Edoardo Tresoldi; through to abandonment through malaria and the transfer ordained by Manfred of Swabia, who founded Manfredonia in 1256–1263. And, above all, it recounts the present: the 2021–2025 campaigns of Global Archaeology by the Universities of Bari and Foggia, led by Roberto Goffredo, Maria Turchiano, and Giuliano Volpe, and the new Archaeological Park of the Gargano. A fundamental step towards affording one of Italy’s most underrated sites the international visibility it deserves.
