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Excavation

  • Cavità n. 254
  • Orvieto centro storico
  •  
  • Italy
  • Umbria
  • Province of Terni
  • Orvieto

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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)

  • The excavations concentrated on room A, previously used as a truncated pyramid-shaped cellar. A series of distinct fills were identified, dating to the second half of the 5th century B.C.
    The dating is based on the Attic black glaze pottery present in the fill, in particular a fragment of a ”delicate class” skyphos , fragments of a black glaze cup with a white painted olive shoot, and a kantheros fragment with impressed decoration illustrating the story of Perseus.

    This season, a large dump of material that had been thrown down from the stairway on the west wall was removed. The matrix was predominantly dark brown clay, characterised by the presence of tufa lumps and terracotta fragments, mainly concentrated along the north and east walls. The stratigraphy also presented lenses of diverse consistency and composition, however all part of the same obliteration.

    A large amount of archaeological material was recovered, grey bucchero and coarse ware open forms were predominant. Among the coarse wares, there were notable examples of cylindrical-ovoid jars and bowl-lids of the so-called “Officina della Spirale a Stralucido”. At least 15 inscriptions were found on the pottery fragments, which add to the site’s substantial epigraphic corpus. The inscriptions were mainly seen inside the bowls of the grey bucchero forms or around the rim of the coarse ware jars; the word “_ati_” is clearly legible inside the bowl of a small coarse ware cup.

    Pieces of exceptional quality and rarity were among the imported wares, including two fragments from a large open form (_phiale_?) in Attic Black figure on a white background. The Red figure fragments included a skyphos showing a phallic herm. Fragments of a leucite molae trusatiles are of particular importance as they represent the earliest evidence of quarrying in the territory of Volsini, quarries that were to be of great importance in the Roman period.

    A significant number of handmade impasto sherds were also recovered, dating to the Villanovan and to the early Orientalizing periods. They include a fragment from an open form with a conical boss, which has parallels in examples from contexts at Crocifisso del Tufo, and a handle fragment with applied human protome in full relief. Both were in burnished brown impasto. Some fragments form architectural terracottas were also found. In addition to part of the ‘scaled’ torus from a facing plaque dating to 510-500 B.C. parallel to examples from Veii, fragments of gutter tiles with red and brown painted anthemia. A number of miniature grey bucchero forms, in particular a kyathos and several small bowls, suggest a sacred context. A small polychrome terracotta horse is indicative of a domestic context if interpreted as a toy, or again a sacred context if seen as a votive offering.

  • Claudio Bizzarri – direttore PAAO 

Director

  • Claudio Bizzarri- Parco Archeologico ed Ambientale dell’Orvietano
  • David B. George- S. Anselm College, NH, USA – direttore Dipartimento di Studi Classici

Team

  • Paolo Binaco
  • Alba Frascarelli- University of Arizona Study Abroad program

Research Body

  • Fondazione per il Museo C. Faina di Orvieto
  • Institute for Mediterranean Archaeology
  • Parco Archeologico ed ambientale dell’Orvietano
  • S. Anselm College

Funding Body

  • S. Anselm College
  • University of Arizona Study Abroad Program

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