This paper attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of "digging" into the archaeological archives, through the example of the Caseggiato delle Taberne Finestrate. This latter is a commercial complex built in Ostia during the II century AD on the remains of an older domus. Partial and unpublished surveys of the Soprintendenza, made in the years 1939 and 1973, revealed a very rich traditional Roman house, with a long atrium and what could be interpreted as a peristyle. The surveys of the 1970s unearthed also several pavements from the Julio-Claudian phase (including the only complete emblema in opus vermiculatum of Ostia) and a great quantity of beautiful painting fragments of Second and Fourth Style.