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Town quarters and insula 27

A chequered pattern of streets The so-called insulae, the town quarters constructed soon after 15 BC, are located between the Roman theatre and the present-day motorway. Wherever possible, the modern estate roads between the houses were constructed in line with the Roman streets. A particularly spectacular insula was only discovered in 2004. It is presented below.
- Virtual panorama from the courtyard of the urban villa in insula 30 - The urban villa in insula 27 (press release and time-lapse film)

Thanks to the consistent policy of carrying out archaeological excavations in advance of any new development project in the Roman town of Augusta Raurica, unusually large sections of residential and commercial quarters have been examined and their archaeology recorded before their final destruction. Consequently, we know for instance that wealthier people tended to live closer to the centre rather than in the peripheral quarters, that the various social classes ate different food and that the houses were more or less lavishly furnished, depending on the social status of the inhabitants. Despite the fact that the town was originally designed in regular parcels, several redevelopment phases resulted in an organically grown town with blocks of houses at varying stages of development and with stables for small livestock, workshops, retail units and backyards. (Unfortunately, no remains of town quarters have been conserved and only information panels refer to the buildings that once stood here.)
Urban villa in insula 30: More information about this 3D reconstruction Project of the University of Applied Sciences Basle, Department of Architecture (diploma theses, virtual 3D model of the town of Augusta Raurica)
Insula 27 Surprising discovery In the spring of 2004, the excavation team of Augusta Raurica started a rescue excavation at a private site located in the middle of insula 27, where builders planned to construct a detached house. The excavation area was located in the so-called 'Augst Upper Town' near the forum and the Roman town centre of Augusta Raurica. The property had not been built on in post-roman times and was still being farmed and used as pasture land. Therefore, the Roman features were extraordinarily well preserved. The wall crowns were revealed only a few centimetres below the topsoil, so it soon became apparent that the remains of a large building would come to light here, which there had been no prior indication of - not even from aerial photographs. The subsequent excavation revealed piece by piece that a well-preserved urban villa had been discovered, with a courtyard and portico, a so-called peristyle building. The dimensions of the building alone, but also the interior organisation with private baths, a courtyard with (initially) a beautiful decorative basin and (later) a sandstone fountain, a representative portal and heatable floors, some of which were adorned with mosaics, all suggested that this urban villa had been owned by a rich and influential family.
Today:		In Roman times:
Exemplary heritage protection On 31st May 2005, the Government Council of Canton Basel-Landschaft acted on the archaeological discovery of this Roman urban villa in Augst (in the block of houses known as 'insula 27'). Based on a report submitted by the Federal Commission of Historic Monuments, which had been commissioned by the Council, the rescue excavations were stopped, the private planning permission for the site was refused and a project designed to make the Roman urban villa publicly accessible. At the same time, the protective covering of the exposed construction remains with fine sand was authorised. This is the only way of preventing the decay of the remains in the open air and in wet and frosty conditions - until such time as the purchase of the property has been concluded and funding has been secured for the construction of a large protective building, in which to present the discovery to the wider public. This brave act, in terms of heritage politics, was based among other things on the archaeology law and on numerous letters to the Government Council from private citizens pleading for the protection of this well-preserved archaeological discovery.
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