Season Team

• AIAC_953 - Pyrgi - 2006
  Investigations in the area of the monumental sanctuary aimed to document the organisation of the cult area in the direction of the residential sector. The excavation of the Caere-Pyrgi road was completed to the point where it joined the transverse trench dug in 2003 and the question of the routes of archaic roads in relation to the sanctuary phase contemporary with temple B was looked at in greater depth. As regards the access zone to the late archaic sanctuary, the excavation revealed structures belonging to a second set of jambs along the course of the road, at the beginning of a double portal. Regarding access to the archaic sanctuary, analysis of the data from the 2005 investigation behind temple B led to the reconstruction, on the hinterland side, of a monumental entrance opening off-centre in the temenos wall, with a sequence of regularly spaced bases belonging to a series of 3 kilns. In order to find supporting evidence for this hypothesis a trial trench was opened behind the temenos wall. This intercepted a structure of tufa lumps which may mark the presence of an organised area along the access route to the sanctuary. As regards the route of the Caere-Pyrgi road, a further tract of the road surface was uncovered. Finds of pottery and architectural terracotta fragments belonging to the temples attest the road’s use until the Roman Imperial period. In the area of the sanctuary of Apollo, attention was turned to the relationship of the occupation levels of Piazzale Ovest to different buildings. Amongst the finds were a kylix fragment with white background, fragments of small bronze plaques, a javelin head, fragments of blades from iron sacrificial knives, bronze handles and a pair of iron implements, perhaps firedogs, placed on an archaic floor surface, evidence of the ritual use of fire. (MiBAC)