This article describes the preliminary diagnostic reconnaissance activity conducted at the site of Santa Maria in Cingla, from 2004-2005, by the University Suor Orsola Benincasa in Naples, in collaboration with the Technical and Materials department of ENEA. The project was commissioned by the municipal government of the city of Ailano (CE), where the site is located. Santa Maria in Cingla was founded as monastic structure in the second quarter of the 8th century, by a group of Lombard aristocrats from the Duchy of Benevento, who were residing in the area of the Medio Volturno. Ion the late Lombard and early Carolingian periods the structure was a middle-sizes convent for nuns, endowed mostly with local lands and the jurisdiction of the abbey of Montecassino. By the 10th century the convent was apparently no longer bound to Montecassino and subsequently its history as an independent religious community continued until the final years of the 11th century when the Norman count of Alife, Roberto Drengot, forced it again to submit to the control of the Abbey of Cassino, the abbot of which, Odorisio II, rebuit the church around 1130. The Abbey occupies an extremely important site in the territory; it is located at the confluence of the road which came through San Vincenzo al Volturno from the Abruzzese highlands (and consequently from Duchy of Spoleto) and the road which branched off from the via Latina at Teano and connected Montecassino (and indirectly, Rome) with Benevento, passing through the gastaldi seats of Alife and Telese. Research activity conducted in 2004 and 2005 consisted in the collection of data related to the site between the end of 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and comparison of this information with a new general topographical relief map of the area, geo-diagnostic research in the area of the abbey church and the systematic collection of surface finds. The chronological range of the ceramic finds is quite vast. And covers a period which goes from the centuries AD to the end of Middle Ages. This naturally implies that the area was frequented in the Classical era. However, the overwhelming presence of pottery painted with red bands with the shapes and decorations typical of the 9th to 11th centuries demonstrates the importance of the Early Medieval settlement phases, which were obscured by the remodelling done by Montecassino abbots at the beginning of the 12th century, of which the church which is now visible was the most significant element. It is probable that the last reconstruction of the monastery did not involve the entire cloister because the population of the religious community seem to have been drastically deduced after the monastery came under the definitive control of Montecassino. (A. M. XXXII, 2005).