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Excavation

  • Aiano-Torraccia di Chiusi
  • San Gimignano
  •  
  • Italy
  • Tuscany
  • Province of Siena
  • Colle di Val d'Elsa

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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)

  • Excavations to date have identified an important part of the villa, probably relating to an area for otium (relaxation), centred around a large triangular-shaped room with circular exedra at its corners.

    The discovery of this reception room, of which circa 80 m2 have been excavated, revealed the residential nature of the structure and the high cultural and economic capacity of those who lived there. Furthermore, study of the archaeological evidence revealed that, over the entire area excavated during the last three years, there were a succession of construction and occupation phases which transformed the appearance, plan and even the function of the villa. In fact, if the origins of the structure date to the beginning of the 3rd century A.D., as attested by the pottery and construction techniques, substantial restoration was undertaken between the end of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century A.D. It was in this phase that an intervention transformed the plan of the trilobed reception room.

    A study of the walls showed that originally the triangular room probably had six exedra arranged around a hexagonal space. It was only later that alternate semicircular niches were blocked and at the same time a new pavement was laid.

    However, the entire complex did not undergo the same type of restoration. In fact, it was ascertained that outside the trilobed room, in a wide area delimited by a system of curved walls which encompassed the latter, between the 6th and 7th century A.D. there was a change in the villa’s function. It seems that the villa lost its primarily residential function to take on a productive role. In this phase, which revealed materials of Lombard influence, the old rooms of the villa, their marble and mosaic decorations removed, were divided up and converted into cisterns for water (clay settling?) and workshops for pottery production, as attested by the find, in situ, of a pottery kiln.

  • Marco Cavalieri - Universitè Catholique de Louvain, Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres, Département d’Archéologie et d’Histoire de l’Art 

Director

Team

  • Agnese Lodi
  • Alessandra Giumlia Mair - Laboratorio Archeoanalisi Merano
  • Enrica Boldrini - Università degli Studi di Firenze
  • Sofia Ragazzini - Associazione Archeologica Sangimignanese
  • Giacomo Baldini - Museo archeologico “Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli” di Colle di Val d’Elsa
  • Carlo Alberto Garzonio - (DIRES) Università di Firenze

Research Body

  • Universitè Catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Funding Body

  • Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS)

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