Fasti Online Home | Switch To Fasti Archaeological Conservation | Survey
logo

Excavation

  • Colle Massari Medievale
  • Colle Massari
  •  
  • Italy
  • Tuscany
  • Provincia di Grosseto
  • Cinigiano

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 excavation is part of “The Roman Peasant Project”, developed by Pennsylvania and Cambridge universities.

    The site, known as the “Colle Massari Medievale” to distinguish it from others excavated in the same area, was identified during a survey as a small scatter of pottery datable to between the 9th and 10th century. As present research suggests that medieval settlements in Tuscany were almost exclusively hill-top villages and castles, the presence of isolated settlements in low-lying areas, like Colle Massari Medievale, constitutes an important exception and a new problem for current archaeological research on medieval landscapes. For this reason and because similar sites would seem to constitute a sort of continuity with the types of farms and small Roman rural settlements, which constitute the Roman Peasant Project’s main area of research, the decision was made to excavate here.

    The excavation revealed a terrace measuring about 7.5 × 10 m, the remains of a structure in perishable materials, possibly a dwelling, situated on the terrace, and a drain running along the south side of the terrace. The podium was formed by layers of clay and small cobbles and its level surface projected out from the hill slope. The drain contained a large amount of pottery, while no finds were present within the terracing.

    While it is possible that these anomalies represent two moments of the same construction phase, it is equally feasible that they represent a succession of attempts to channel the groundwater that had begun to endanger an existing structure. All pottery seems to date to between the 9th and 10th century.

  • Emanuele Vaccaro - University of Cambridge 
  • Mariaelena Ghisleni - Università degli Studi di Siena 
  • Kimberly Bowes - University of Pennsylvania 

Director

Team

  • Anna Maria Mercuri - Università di Modena
  • Michael MacKinnon - University of Winnipeg
  • Alessandra Pecci - Università di Barcellona
  • Cam Grey - Università della Pennsylvania
  • Antonia Arnoldus Huyzendveld - Società Digiter-Roma
  • Alessia Rovelli - Università della Tuscia

Research Body

  • University of Cambridge
  • University of Pennsylvania

Funding Body

  • Fondazione Montecucco
  • The Loeb Classical Library Foundation

Images

  • No files have been added yet