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Excavation

  • Siris Herakleia
  • Policoro
  • Siris Herakleia
  • Italy
  • Basilicate
  • Province of Matera
  • Policoro

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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)

  • In the previous year a stratified votive deposit comprising three levels came to light in trench 6/04. The single levels of the sacred deposit were separated by a thin layer of clay and cobbles. In 2008, another deposit was found below a further layer of clay and cobbles. The extension of the deposit became smaller towards the bottom. This shows that the votive offerings were deposited in a ditch/pit. The material from the deposit ranged in date from the 6th-3rd century B.C., although there was a predominance of later material. Therefore the material was deposited in the proto-Hellenistic period in an area were earlier offerings had already been deposited.

    A deposit was uncovered and excavated in several levels in trench 1/08. The levels, on the contrary to the stratified deposit in trench 6/04, were not separated by intermediate layers, but formed a single deposit, probably the result of a single ritual event. To the south the extension of the deposit visibly decreased towards the bottom, so that in this case the existence of a ditch/pit may also be presumed. The remains of two terracotta figurines of archaic date were of particular interest. They reflected the vast stylistic horizon covered by the votive offerings from the sanctuary. Beside the choroplastic of severe pose from an area of Sybaritic influence, there was a terracotta female head of Ionic-oriental style. The finds in the votive deposit dated, as did most of the material, to the period between the 6th and the 3rd century B.C. Next to these was a terracotta loom weight, an iron lance head and a bronze coin from Taranto, with an amphora on both obverse and reverse, datable to between 275-200 B.C. An unusual find was a terracotta figurine of a draped young man found inside a deep cut (h. 14 cm), showing a clear Ionic-oriental influence and datable to the first half of the 6th century B.C.,.

    In 2008 the remains of the “via sacra”, which climbed slightly from north to south in its central part, and its substructure were removed. The finds dated from the end of the 5th to the second half of the 4th century B.C.

    In the western zone a row of stones preserved in a single course was uncovered in 2007. The stones were placed so that only the north, finished, side was visible, and the wall was interpreted as a terracing structure. The surface of the supposed terrace was paved with cobbles. Together with the charcoal fragments within this relatively compact layer of cobbles a body sherd from a Red-figure skyphos was found. This dated to the late 5th or the beginning of the 4th century B.C. and showed Hermes sitting with the kerykeion and the remains of a graffito […] ENA.

  • Michael Tschurtschenthaler - Univ. Innsbruck Institut fur Klassische Archeologie Leopold-Franzens 

Director

Team

  • Brinna Otto - Università di Innsbruck
  • Marta Golin - Università di Innsbruck
  • Veronica Gertl - Università di Innsbruck
  • Salvatore Bianco - Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici della Basilicata
  • Gerhard Forstenpointner - Università di Innsbruck
  • Barbara Welte - Università di Innsbruck
  • Otto Defranceschi - Università di Innsbruck

Research Body

  • Universitá di Innsbruck, Austria (Ist. archeologia classica)

Funding Body

  • Università di Innsbruck

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