The Liquid Metropolis. Rethinking Urban Archaeology through the Mediterranean

Before terrestrial metropolises ever existed, the Mediterranean sea was already a great city: a network of ports, routes, and exchanges that created urban continuities beyond the coastline and above political boundaries. In his description of the Tyrrhenian coast from Miseno to Capo di Sorrento, Strabo reveals the perception of an uninterrupted urban form: a succession of coastal settlements opening onto the sea which, when seen from the water, formed the image of a ‘continuous city’. Starting from this concept, the paper proposes to overturn the land-centric perspective of the archaeology of the city, interpreting the Mediterranean not as a geographic backdrop or a space of transit, but as a true diffused metropolis, a liquid system of relations, exchanges, and maritime connections that – since antiquity – has shaped coastal settlements. The sea is read here as a connective device capable of generating form, perceptual connection, and spatial relations among terrestrial fragments. This vision expands the notion of ‘urban archaeology’ toward an ‘archaeology of the Mediterranean’, in which the city’s boundary extends well beyond the shoreline, encompassing submerged spaces and the invisible networks of ancient routes. The paper thus recognizes the Mediterranean as possessing its own morphological value: that of a city without a centre, yet endowed with structures, connections, and fluid public spaces that still shape the coastal territories today. In this perspective, the sea is not merely a setting or a resource, but a cultural subject and co-author of the landscape, capable of guiding both historical interpretation and contemporary coastal regeneration.