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Excavation

  • Torre di Satriano
  • Torre di Satriano
  • Satrianum
  • Italy
  • Basilicate
  • Province of Potenza
  • Satriano di Lucania

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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).

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Summary (English)

  • In the territory of the municipalities of Titus and Satriano di Lucania the landscape is marked by the rise of the Satriano Tower which rises between the two modern countries and stands to dominate a vast territory, located in the heart of the Apennines of Lucania. A Norman tower is the most noticeable element of the medieval Satrianum, impiantatosi eleventh century. the long and narrow terraces that displace between top and steep slopes of the relief, to be abandoned in the fifteenth and sixteenth century.

    The medieval fortified settlement of Satrianum is the subject, since 2006, of intense, detailed archaeological investigations conducted by the Post-graduate school of Archaeology Matera as part of a larger project sponsored by the Basilicata Region and the Municipality of Tito (PZ). The territory where it is located is between the current municipalities of Titus and Satriano di Lucania, about ten kilometers from Potenza (Fig. 1); particularly important for its strategic position along the territorial connection axes that bring Ionian communication, Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas and the wealth of resources, it has been busy so widespread since the eighth century BC, as evidenced by the significant results of the archaeological investigations so far conducted, thanks to which it was possible to redesign the appearance of the area population, distributed in an agrarian and forest landscape in antiquity much richer. The traces of the Roman era transformations (III-II sec. A. C.) instead return the appearance of an area much less populated least until the Middle Ages, when on the rise that dominates the surrounding area, south of the modern Tito, It will be built the village of Satrianum.

    The archaeological survey, carried out in the municipality of Tito at Torre Satriano, was held at the ancient fortified settlement of the Middle Ages.
    In particular, this year, which involved students from the University of Basilicata and specialists in medieval archeology of postgraduate school in archaeological heritage of Matera, highlighted some aspects of the settlement processes of the area, clarifying the main stages and transformations performed on some of the key structures: the bell tower, the bishop and the immediate area outside of it.
    The settlement sees his monumental with the arrival of the Normans in the mid-eleventh century. The pivotal role played by the settlement of the entire district, however, is strong enough to track down the walls signs of ongoing renovations.
    The square building, called “bell tower” in fact stands on a tank underground, taken along the natural slope of the cliff, and that was part of the original city walls built to defend the site. The western side shows here a continuous reconstruction of the fortification walls, the raising of the bell tower at the expense of the tank, reused as a foundation of the new structure socket.

    Inside the cathedral it has investigated the area near the west wall of the building, bringing to light a large underground rectangular space under the floors, made with pillars “banded” and sometimes “icing” typical of ‘Norman period. It is, at the present state of research, completely obliterated by rubble about a telluric episode, in which emerged fragments of the ancient figurative decoration of the church. Following the earthquake, which occurred at the end of the thirteenth, the debris are not removed, but compacted to restore the church floor, replacing the clay slabs with stone blocks, dating back to the Angevin period.

    They also deepened the episcopate outer limits, to allow you to trace the existing roads to the complex service and possible correlations with each other on the setting of reference point, the Donjon, the main tower. Throughout the area near the walls of the Bishop’s emerged attendance levels and beaten road that served the structure and, in particular, in the Northeast has been brought to light a stairway leading to a secondary entrance. A first analysis seems to have been functional to high recognition figures, for the possibility of reaching through the gap between the higher of the Bishop’s reception rooms.

    Finally, of great interest it turned out the excavation of a small external environment to the episcopate walls, but pertaining to it, because it made near the perimeter North of the residential building. Through ducts in terracotta, holes in the walls and floors in mortar, the water flowed to clean the interior of this small room by sewage. It assumes a job as garbage dump, the practical life of the main representatives of the Bishop’s, for the discovery inside of valuable objects in glass, ceramic and bronze.

  • Francesca Sogliani - IBAM CNR; Scuola di Specializzazione in Archeologia di Matera, Università degli Studi della Basilicata 
  • Massimo Osanna - Università degli Studi della Basilicata, Scuola di Specializzazione in Archeologia di Matera 

Director

Team

  • Valentino Vitale - Università del Salento
  • B. Gargiulo - Museo Civico Archeologico “B. Greco” Mondragone (CE)
  • D. Roubis - IBAM CNR; Scuola di Specializzazione in Archeologia di Matera, Università degli Studi della Basilicata

Research Body

  • Scuola di Specializzazione in Beni Archeologici di Matera, Università degli Studi della Basilicata

Funding Body

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