Antico Porto Fluviale

Along Aquileia’s ancient river course, more than three hundred metres of Roman quays survive beside a long riverside warehouse. The port installations include loading platforms, mooring blocks and later defensive walls built over the quays.

Why it matters

The river port linked Aquileia’s road network with routes toward the Mediterranean. The Italian UNESCO portal describes it as a major series of warehouses and quays along the waterway. The Fondazione Aquileia identifies quays rebuilt in the early first century AD, a warehouse more than three hundred metres long and fourth-century fortifications added as the river narrowed.

What to notice

The quays are formed from vertical limestone slabs capped by interlocking blocks. A lower paved area, nearly two metres beneath the loading platform, provided access for small boats. Game-board diagrams scratched into the paving remain visible. Protruding blocks with vertical holes may have held mooring rings or wooden cranes; smaller blocks with horizontal holes may have been used to tie ropes. Behind the quay, the warehouse walls extend for more than three hundred metres and are about thirteen metres wide. Three oblique ramps connected the quay to the Roman street network. A late wall, nearly three metres thick, was built directly over the quay, incorporating the riverbed into the defences.

Context and history

The port occupied the ancient course of the Natisone, whose visible channel is now a paleochannel known as the Natissa. The excavated structures were brought to light in the 1930s. The harbour took monumental form in the early first century AD, replacing part of the Republican walls. Further work took place in the Constantinian period, 306–337. A new city wall was later built on the quays; as the river narrowed, the port declined. A further defensive wall, probably dating to the fifth century, was built deeper in the abandoned riverbed. Excavated material was used in the 1930s to lay out the cypress-lined Via Sacra between the port, the war cemetery and the basilica.