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Excavation

  • Campo della Fiera
  • Campo della Fiera
  • Velzna
  • 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 2008 and 2009 campaigns confirmed the exceptional continuity of occupation on the site of Campo della Fiera, lasting 1900 years.

    East of the sacred enclosure the basalt paved Etruscan road inside the sanctuary was further uncovered. East of the late Republican reticulatum wall which interrupted the Etruscan road, to be considered a via sacra, the eastern kerb was found, close to which were the foundations of an imposing Etruscan building of which only the lowest course was preserved. A modern road overlying the structures impedes the continuation of the investigation. A make up for a floor surface was found at the level of the foundation offset. Within the make up were fragments of an Attic amphora, Agora 1502 type (second half of the 6th century B.C.); a small deposit with the remains of a bronze lamina from a cart and a bucchero cup were also found.

    The opus reticulatum wall belonged to bath structures (built in two phases, the latest being of Augustan date) whose exedra, with mosaic pavements, rested on the Etruscan road whose surface was raised to the level of the base of the exedra. To raise the surface several ancient stone elements were used, including Etruscan altars, fragments of Greek marble sculptures and a ram’s head in trachyte.

    In the post-classical period numerous burials were laid down over the road and bath buildings. The burials were in earth graves (6th-7th century A.D.) and tufa coffins (8th-9th century) and can be linked to the proximity of the church of San Pietro in vetere, among whose foundations fragments of Carolongian plutei were also found.

    In the area of the ‘sacred enclosure’ in-depth investigations were undertaken between the temple podium (decorated cement floor in the Augustan period) and the basalt paved stretch to the south. The foundations, abutted by layers containing black glaze pottery, were identified. The study of the monument built of trachyte, east of the temple with which it is exactly aligned, revealed its function as a deposit for bronze ex-votos. In front of the monolithic tufa altar, covered by layers of ash, an intact thesaurus was discovered with 215 coins, of Republican and Augustan date, in its container (a further six coins were underneath the lid). Inside a quadrangular structure close to the deposit and the altar, materials of 6th-3rd century B.C. date emerged, including bases for bronze statuettes, an Attic oenochoe in the form of a head of Dionysius, a large rams head and the stone base of a bronze statue with a ten word Etruscan dedicatory inscription of archaic date. The dedication is to the divinity Tluschva, named on the Piacenza liver. The offering was made by a woman of Italic origin belonging to the family of the Larecena, owners of a tomb in the necropolis of Crocifisso del Tufo. The last part of the dedication probably contains the Etruscan name of the sanctuary.

  • Simonetta Stopponi - Università degli Studi di Perugia, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Sezione di Scienze Storiche dell'Antichtà 

Director

Team

  • Paolo Bruschetti - Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Umbria
  • Simone Moretti Giani
  • Anna Riva
  • Nicola Bruni
  • Claudia Giontella - Università di Macerata, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali
  • Claudio Bizzarri
  • Marco Broncoli

Research Body

  • Università degli Studi di Macerata
  • Università degli Studi di Perugia, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Sezione di Scienze Storiche dell'Antichtà

Funding Body

  • Fondazione della Cassa di Risparmio di Orvieto

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