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Excavation

  • Acropoli – Piano del Castello
  • Volterra
  • Volaterrae
  • Italy
  • Tuscany
  • Pisa
  • Volterra

Tools

Credits

  • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

    MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

    ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

    AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

  • AIAC_logo logo

Summary (English)

  • The 2010 excavations concentrated on two different areas, both situated in the south-eastern sector of the sanctuary. A series of cult pits of various types (partially excavated in 2009), situated a short distance from each other and cut into a floor level, were found outside of the southernmost of the open-air enclosures dedicated to the cult of Demeter (trench R4). The first was a circular pit (diam. 83 cm) lined with small stones, containing small animal bones, ash, charcoal and a few fragments of a small impasto jar. This was clearly a small hearth that had been filled, when it was abandoned, with the residue from animal sacrifices. The fill in a second pit (1.50 × 1 m) revealed a more articulated stratigraphy and was also constituted by the remains of animal sacrifices, an iron nail and three small pyriform balsamaria. Below, there was a layer of burnt animal bones and a series of drinking vessels placed upside down around a pyriform balsamario, that was cut in half and contained the bones of small animals.

    The large bothros attributed to a cult of an underworld divinity, probably Persephone, and already identified and partially excavated during the previous campaign, also opened in this occupation level. Continuing with the removal of the remaining fill, below a layer of small and medium sized stones, a layer of charcoally soil was exposed which contained a black glaze cup datable to towards the end of the 2nd century B.C. and a fragment from a mould for an architectural terracotta. A structure interpreted as a small conduit relating to a ritual during which liquids, water or other types of libation, were fed into the bothros from the far northern end of the pit.

    Part of a collapsed wall was uncovered in the western sector of the complex (trench Z1), where previous campaigns had revealed a series of service rooms on a north-south alignment, and so differing with respect to all of the cult buildings excavated so far. This belonged to the service structure, which it is known fell into disuse when temple A was built. Below a substantial layer of post-medieval in-fill, one room in particular was investigated in which the collapsed roof was still in situ, as attested by the overlapping arrangement of tiles and imbrices abutting the above mentioned perimeter wall. The excavation also ascertained that this system of rooms, dating to the mid 3rd century B.C., abutted what was probably an earlier building. To date, a section of wall on an east-west alignment has been uncovered and the rest of this building will be explored during the coming campaigns.

  • Marisa Bonamici - Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere, Università di Pisa 

Director

Team

  • Fabrizio Burchianti - Università degli Studi di Pisa, Scuola di specializzazione in Archeologia
  • Lisa Rosselli - Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere, Università di Pisa
  • Emanuele Taccola - Dipartimento di Civiltà e Forme del Sapere, Università di Pisa

Research Body

  • Università degli Studi di Pisa

Funding Body

  • Comune di Volterra
  • Fondazione della Cassa di Risparmio di Volterra

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