The results of the 16th excavation campaign at Incoronata were marked by the particular importance of the structures and materials brought to light, which clarified the historical-functional configuration of the site, occupied from the second half of the 9th century until the late 7th century B.C. (fig. 1).

At the southern edge of the excavation area, the exploration continued of the structures, surrounded to the north by the large floor US 70 and lying directly on the clay bank of the hill, which had been hollowed out. The structures, dating to the “Enotrian” period of the hill’s occupation (fig. 2), had at least three phases. The earliest was a sub-circular ritual pit, filled by several layers of blackened soil, burnt animal bones and decorated and impasto pottery, datable to the second half of the 9th century B.C. During the 8th century B.C., the pit was obliterated by a “bung” of soil and cobblestones, on which a triangular enclosure of stones (4 m each side) was built, with the apex to the east. Exactly at that point there was a ritual structure surrounding a large white aniconic stone (probably an altar, excavated previously). This triangular profile evokes similar structures attested in the Mediterranean during the Iron Age, with clear funerary function. In a later phase during the same century, everything was obliterated by a substantial dump of stones, mixed with the deposition of a large quantity of deliberately broken ceremonial pottery. These important discoveries made it possible to definitively document how a series of Chthonic ritual practices marked the occupation of the site from its earliest phase, that can now be dated to the second half of the 9th century B.C.
Immediately east of the apsed building, the continuation of excavations in the area where last year the remains of two small ovens were uncovered clarified their function. Once the two ovens had been freed of the materials used to obliterate them, they were seen to be associated with tens of carbonised acorns, found together with their containers (large impasto, plain ware and monochrome ceramic vessels) (fig. 3), a probable cooking surface, and large pieces of carbonised wood (fig. 4). The ritualised obliteration of this space (whose perimeter seemed delimited by a shallow cut in natural), included the intentional breaking of the pottery, the deposition of a skyphos and bronze elements next to the cooking stands, a series of loom weights with incised decoration, and the closing ritual of purifying fire. This suggests that alongside the domestic function, there may have been a cult function, probably relating to the roasting of acorns to be eaten (balanophagy is well-attested in the region at cult sites). This activity seems to be coherent with the ritual nature of the area surrounding the apsed building, within the Greco-indigenous phase in the 7th century B.C.

North of the apsed building, the exploration continued of the ritual space characterised by the presence of an altar and a bothros, surrounded by a cobblestone surface on which lay the remains (_skyphoi_ and animal bones) of ritual practices involving the consumption of meat and wine (second half of the 7th century B.C.).

At the western end of the excavation area, more of the substantial obliteration layers made up of soil, stones, stone fragments and above all brick fragments was removed. Below there was a monumental structure, demolished and at the same time perfectly preserved at foundation level, made up of a wall of large stones (1.5 m wide) associated with a floor of micro-cobblestones, situated within a hollowed area created in the terrain (fig. 5). Situated at the northern edge of the structure there was a pit filled with animal bones and a massive concentration of imported Greek pottery (a few fragments of Enotrian pottery in the upper layers), including a complete Corinthian type A amphora, fragments of an SOS amphora, large pieces of an _oinochoe of the early or middle PC (fig. 6), numerous fragments of PC skyphoi and_ kotylai_, a PC krateriskos, body sherds from a louterion and a chytra. These were probably the remains of ritual practices connected with the obliteration of the building, whose cult nature was confirmed by the presence, on the floor, of a small bronze head in Dedalic style, datable to around the mid 7th century B.C.: one of the earliest examples of Orientalizzing plastic art of eastern Greece.