After some cursory investigations during the 1950s, the site of Satricum was brought to light again in 1977, as a result of a concerted effort by the Italian authorities to rescue the antiquities in the Roman "campagna" that were acutely threatened by large-scale urbanisation and agricultural reform. The alarm was first made public by the exhibition "Civiltà del Lazio primitivo" at Rome (1976). As a result, the Royal Dutch Institute at Rome was invited by the "Comitato per l'Archeologia laziale" to participate in a rescue project and to ascertain the state of preservation of the site.