Tria Corda

Tria Corda: Autumn Edition

2011-11-16T14:57:00.005-05:00

The every-other-month installment:

A sanctuary on the summit of Monte Cimino east of Viterbo: 1000 masl from 1000 BCE.

A mid-6th c. Etruscan tomb was located at Montalto di Castro, in the archaeological park of Vulci, after the arrest of tombaroli (21 photos and a video of the excavation accompany the article).

At Barrea, a few km from Alfedena along the Sangro river in Abruzzo, the tomb of a 4th c. BCE 'Samnite' 'warrior'.

Three 4th-3rd c. BCE tombs discovered by a farmer while plowing near Cerignola in the province of Foggia, Puglia. He promptly reported the discovery to the Carabinieri.

The tomb of an aristocratic Lombard lady near Lucca, dating to the first half of the 7th c. CE.

A new Late Etruscan dedicatory inscription from Populonia. The marble fragment, perhaps from an altar, was found in the vicinity of one of the three temples on the city's acropolis.

From back in September, Phil Perkins, David Ridgway, and Corinna Riva talk to Melvyn Bragg about the Etruscans on BBC Radio 4's "In Our Time".

A report on the 'inauguration' of the site of the Samnite sanctuary of Hercules at Campochiaro, near Campobasso.

The ongoing struggle against looting and antiquities traffickers continues:
- 77 individuals accused of involvement in a crime ring operating out of S. Sosti near Cosenza in Calabria; more than 1000 objects and 4000 coins seized.
- At the other end of the country, near Bolzano, three dinosaur eggs were among the 6400 paleontological objects seized from smugglers.
- A piece of an architrave stolen from the Terracina Museum in 1959 was discovered in a bar in the north of Rome, as were various other things.

Museums, queens and thieves

2011-09-25T10:11:00.007-04:00

At Tarquinia, a "queenly" chariot/cart of the 7th c. BCE has been discovered in a tomb in the Tumulo della Regina. [Corriere della Sera; UnoNotizie]

The new Museo della Civiltà Sannitica at Pietrabbondante has been partially opened--or maybe not... [Nuovo Molise; ArcheoMolise]

Updates on the ongoing La Regina excavations at Pietrabbondante, including news on the so-called domus publica, over at PietrabbondanteBlog:
Nuove scoperte dagli ultimi scavi
A Pietrabbondante l’area sacra più importante della nazione sannitica

There's a bunch of artifacts from Molise (as well as Athens and Macedonia) on display in Thessaloniki for the exhibition "The Gift of Dionysos," including an ivory plaque with the head of the god, from Saepinum (image above). It runs through September of 2012. [ArcheoMolise]

A tombarolo from Ancona was arrested at Guardialfiera in Molise recently. Along with his metal detector and digging implements were found fragments of a bronze plate. [Primo Numero; ArcheoMolise]

The Paleochristian basilica at Larino got cleaned up thanks to private initiative. [Prima Pagina Molise]

Etruscan 4 and 6

2011-08-24T13:58:00.003-04:00

The authors of a forthcoming article in Archaeometry use a new approach to assign values to the ambiguous Etruscan words sa and huth (4 and 6, respectively). The abstract follows:

The graphical and linguistic interpretation of the first six Etruscan numerals has long been confronted with the ambiguous assignment of the words huth and sa to either 4 or 6. Here, we show how the systematic combinatorial analysis of the numerals appearing on ancient southern Etrurian dice dated from the eighth to the third centuries bc, together with the careful comparison of the results with the only two existing dice carrying the alphabetical translations of the numerals conserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, finally allows unambiguous mathematical resolution of the linguistic riddle, allowing the firm attribution of the numeral 6 to the graphical value huth and 4 to sa. Combinatorial analysis of the numerals distribution on the six faces of the die shows that only two of the 15 possible numerical combinations were actually in use in southern Etruria, and that during the fifth century bc there was a marked shift from the typical (1–2, 3–4, 5–6) combination used in the early seventh- to fifth-century bc dice to the (1–6, 2–5, 3–4) combination used at later times and still largely adopted today. The largest body of archaeometric data on dice specimens from Etruria is presented, based on macroscopic examination, X-ray diffraction, DRIFT spectroscopy and density measurements.

Artioli, G., Nociti, V. and Angelini, I. (2011), Gambling with Etruscan Dice: A Tale of Numbers and Letters. Archaeometry. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4754.2011.00596.x

Workshop: Social change in Early Iron Age Southern Italy

2011-04-21T12:57:00.002-04:00

This conference looks like a lot of fun...

May 5-6, 2011 - workshop internazionale
Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome

Dinamiche sociali nell’Italia meridionale della Prima Età del Ferro /
Social change in Early Iron Age Southern Italy

Journal available: Periodico di Mineralogia

2011-02-16T01:40:00.003-05:00

I note the online presence of the Periodico di Mineralogia, "an international journal of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, ore deposits, petrology, volcanology, and applied topics on environment, archaeometry and cultural heritage," based at La Sapienza. There's no explicit statement of open access, but all the issues from 1999 to 2010 are freely downloadable.

The journal's page is located at http://tetide.geo.uniroma1.it/riviste/permin/permin.html - click on "Issues Year xxxx" in the right hand column to access the issues.

A sampling of articles (all in English, by editorial policy) from 2010 include:

Belfiore et al., "Western production of “Ionian cups of type B2”: a preliminary archaeometric study to identify workshops in eastern Sicily,"
De Bonis et al., "Archaeometric study of roman pottery from Caudium area (Southern Italy),"
De Francesco et al., "Preliminary chemical characterization of Roman glass from Pompeii,"
B. Giammartini, "Mapping of the stones in the main façade of St. Giuliana castle (Umbertide, Italy),"
Kastenmeier et al., "The source of stone building materials from the Pompeii archaeological area and its surroundings"
Miriello et al., "Colour and composition of nodules from the Calabrian clay deposits: a possible raw material for pigments production in Magna Graecia,"
Scarpelli et al., "Archaeometric study of sub-geometric pottery found in Potenza, Italy: relationship and trade between near indigenous centers," and
Tucci et al., "Italica (Seville, Spain): use of local marble in Augustan age."

The Italic March. Two conferences.

2011-01-30T20:50:00.004-05:00

Five days, two conferences, one ocean in between.

There will be a conference at Brown titled "The Archaeology of Italy: The State of the Field 2011," March 18-19, 2011, organized by Jeffrey Becker and Sue Alcock. John Robb will deliver the keynote address.

The Joukowsky Institute will host a weekend symposium in March 2011 whose aim it is to discuss the current state of the archaeology of peninsular Italy in the twenty-first century, with an emphasis on the North American academy. With an interest not only in tracking the trends and methodologies in use in the archaeological investigation of this very important piece of the Mediterranean, the symposium also seeks to examine the place of peninsular Italian archaeology with respect to other geographical subfields of Mediterranean archaeology. Perhaps most importantly, the symposium will discuss not only the current state of the field, but also explore possible future directions, methodologies, and techniques to be employed.

The symposium will feature three sessions, one dealing with the current state of research, another future directions in research, and a third that will serve as forum for graduate students to discuss their own research and network with graduate colleagues and faculty. The organizers are seeking graduate student participants whose main research focus is the archaeology of peninsular Italy, broadly defined.

More information on the Brown conference available here.

The next day sees conference "Gods in Ruins. The archaeology of religious activity in Protohistoric, Archaic, and Republican central Italy" open at Oxford, March 20-22, 2011, organized by Ed Bispham and Charlotte Potts.

This conference will present the results of current or ongoing work on archaeological evidence for religious activities in central Italy prior to c.200 B.C.. By bringing together early-career academics, postdoctoral researchers, and advanced postgraduate students working on different aspects of material culture ranging from art history to archaeozoology, the conference aims to advance scholarly debate on cult activities in periods, places, and phenomena under-represented in the literary sources.

Speakers from Italy, Greece, Belgium, The Netherlands, America, and the United Kingdom offer delegates the opportunity to discuss work in progress in a variety of countries. Papers will address, among other topics, human sacrifice and ritual killing in Etruscan culture; the economic activities of Italic sanctuaries; Etruscan werewolves; maenadism in Etruria and Campania; and bronze Apennine votives. All papers will be delivered in English.

More information on the Oxford conference (including program) here.

ArcheoMolise nos. 5 & 6

2011-01-12T23:14:00.010-05:00

In lo, these many months, not one but two new issues of ArcheoMolise (ISSN: 2036-3028) have hit the stands. They are, as always, freely available as zipped pdfs from the CERP-Isernia website. I'm not sure why they don't offer tables of contents online; I suppose the zipped-only format may point to bandwidth restrictions, even in this day and age? It makes them opaque to search engines, though, so I offer contents here. They maintain a Twitter feed with recent archaeological news both local and global. The ArcheoMolise Facebook page has all of the same, with an added agitationist/activist editorial voice condemning neglect and abuse of cultural heritage of Molise

In any case, the contents of ArcheoMolise no. 5 (July - September 2010):

An editorial by Marco Buonocore, "L'epigrafia nel Molise: quale futuro?" (p. 5).
Federica Fontana and Antonella Minelli, "Accampamenti preistorici in quota. Il sito di San Lorenzo (Civitanova del Sannio, Isernia) nell' Appennino molisano," pp. 6-15.
Enza Zullo (ed.), "L'area archeologica di Piazza Mercato ad Isernia," pp. 16-23.
Walter Santoro, "L'oblio della memoria storica. La Taverna del Cortiglio sul tratturo Lucero-Castel di Sangro," pp. 24-33.
Alessandro Testa, "Il culto dei Sanniti alla luce della comparazione indo-europea," pp. 34-51.
Antonia Valillo (ed.), "La Carrese di San Padro a Larino. Momenti di devozione popolare," pp. 52-59.
G. Lembo, A. di Nucci, M.A. Rufo, & B. Muttillo, "Come divulgare l'archeologia. L'esempio dei laboratori di preistoria dell'Associazione ArcheoIdea," pp. 60-69.

And the contents of ArcheoMolise no. 6 (October - December 2010):

Giovanna Falasca, "Santa Maria di Monteverde. Breve excursus su un'area di interesse storico e archeologico." pp. 6-17.
Bruno Sardella, "Sprondasino e San Bartolomeo di Sprondasino. Due insediamenti antichi dell'alta valle del Trigno nella 'Terra dei Borrello'." pp. 18-27.
Ulderico Iorillo, "Il complesso di Santa Maria delle Monache a Isernia. L'incidenza del sito sul tessuto urbano dal tardo-antico all'altomedioevo." pp. 28-37.
Gabriella Di Rocco, "La media valle del Biferno tra ricerca e oblio." pp. 38-47.
Francesco de Vincenzi, "La cartiera San Bernardo a Castel San Vincenzo. Un episodio di archeologia industriale posto alle sorgenti del Volturno." pp. 48-61.
Andrea Di Rollo, "Sessano del Molise. Evoluzione morfologica e climatica della conca intra-montana." pp. 62-69.

I note from the "Agenda" at the back of no. 6 that you have until January 31 to visit the exhibition "Il Dono di Dioniso. Mitologia del vino nel Sannio pentro e frentano" at the Museo Sannitico in Campobasso.

Novus annus, novus ordo

2011-01-12T22:57:00.006-05:00

Still kicking. I finally updated the back-end of Tria Corda to the 'new' (as of a few years ago) Blogger templates. Some of the colors are darker (foreshadowing, perhaps?), and the rounded edges are gone. None of that nonsense from here on out. The classic marbled background and the delightfully Latinesque — some would say flippant — title image remain, however.

Sporadic Italic blogging is all that can be expected — that and a few words on the AIA/APA, and of course the latest offerings from Archeomolise, thereby confirming our crypto-Molisano agenda.

6th c. BCE bronze statue seized near Nola

2010-09-29T13:29:00.004-04:00

Carabinieri have seized an 80 cm-tall bronze statue from a healthcare provider in Cimitile, near Nola. The statue is described as being of a Greek warrior, similar to the "Etruscan Mars"-type, and dating to the 6th c. BCE. It's a shame there isn't a larger photo -- it looks a bit 'funny' to my eyes, although scholars from the Naples and Pompeii Soprintendenza have apparently confirmed its authenticity.

Sources: Il Nolano, Irpinia News

A bit of this and that

2010-09-12T13:23:00.012-04:00

Here's a hodgepodge of things that happened during the long summer months or a bit more recently, with no claim to completeness....

The conference "Etruscan Literacy in its Social Context" is going on currently, September 22-23, in London; follow link for program and abstracts.

Tudisca et al. 2010, "Firing technique characterization of black-slipped pottery in Praeneste by low field 2D NMR relaxometry" is available as an Article-in-Press from the Journal of Archaeological Science (subscription required).

Via Mark Pearce on the Italian-archaeology list comes the news that Vol. XX of Padusa, a must for the site of Frattesina, is freely available as a series of pdfs. A well-illustrated 80-page pdf that accompanies the exhibit in Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Fratta Polesine, "Il villaggio di Frattesina e le sue necropoli XII - XI secolo a.C.", is also available.

July 1 saw the reopening of the galleries of frescoes from the Villa della Farnesina, at the Palazzo Massimo.

A series of talks entitled "Storie interno a Monte Pallano" took place at Tornareccio in Abruzzo on July 31. The event kicked off an exhibit of the same name at the Centro Museale of Tornareccio, which will run until January 20, 2011. The highlight of the exhibit is the 7th c. BCE "Torso di Pallano." More information freely available in a pdf.

There was a month long exhibit entitled "Sulle tracce di Annibale. Gli scavi di Gereonium a Casacalenda" at the Museo Sannitico in Campobasso; of interest is a fragment of a limestone stele with a so-called symbol of Tanit on it, dating to the 3rd-2nd cs. BCE (see image above).

Brief mention of an Etruscan house discovered during construction in Arezzo.

An exhibit of Middle Bronze Age artifacts from the site of Faraglioni is going on display at the Museo Comunale in Ustica, while the first "Museo del Paesaggio" (Landscape Museum) in Italy has opened at Salemi in SW Sicily. Also near Sicily, some underwater finds off Gela, ranging from fragments of Attic pottery to a WWII American helmet. On the other side of the island, three Greco-Roman shipwrecks in the Aeolians.

And a letter from Sandro Bondi to Jovanotti....

Exhibit: 'Lungo le rotte dei Micenei' (Isernia)

2010-05-13T05:53:00.010-04:00

The Museo Archeologico Santa Maria delle Monache in Isernia, Molise, is hosting an exhibit entitled 'Lungo le Rotte dei Micenei. L’insediamento dell’età del Bronzo di Monteroduni', which runs from April 22, 2010 until January 15, 2011. The exhibit focuses on material from the settlement at Monteroduni (IS), loc. Paradiso, where 12th c. BCE levels produced ceramics of Aegean inspiration. The MiBAC site has good illustrations.

A spiral-decorated sherd [picture above; scale is 2 cm] was published by Marco Bettelli (2006. "Un frammento di ceramica micenea da Monteroduni," in Atti del XXVI Convegno sulla Preistoria e Protostoria della Daunia (San Severo, Dicembre 2005), pp. 189-194); it is more likely to be a product of an Italo-Mycenaean workshop than an import from the Greek mainland. From the same levels come fragments of impasto dolia recalling Aegean prototypes. So, yes, there is some sort of information making its way from the Greek peninsula to the Italian, but maybe at one or two removes; it seems to me a bit of a stretch to speak of "routes of the Mycenaeans"– but I'm all for whatever (within reason) brings people into museums...

An account of the 2002-2007 Monteroduni excavations can be found in the latest issue of Archeomolise (2010. no. 4) pp. 20-31.

See also:
Cazzella A., De Dominicis A., Recchia G. & Ruggini C. 2005. "Il sito dell’età del Bronzo recente di Monteroduni – Paradiso (IS)." Rivista di Scienze Preistoriche, LV. pp. 384-438.

Recchia G., De Dominicis A. & Ruggini C. .2006. "Monteroduni – loc. Paradiso (IS): nuovi dati sull’occupazione del sito." Atti del 26° Convegno Nazionale sulla Preistoria Protostoria e Storia della Daunia, San Severo, 2005. pp. 171-188.

Cazzella A., De Dominicis A., Recchia G. & Ruggini C. 2007. "Elementi di ispirazione egea dai livelli della tarda età del Bronzo del sito di Monteroduni – loc. Paradiso (IS)." Conoscenze. Rivista Semestrale della Direzione Regionale per i Beni Culturali e Paesaggistici del Molise, 2005 (1/2). pp. 35-44.

Cazzella A., De Dominicis A. & Ruggini C. 2008. "Recenti scavi nell’insediamento dell’età del Bronzo di Monteroduni (località Paradiso)." Atti del 28° Convegno Nazionale sulla Preistoria Protostoria e Storia della Daunia, San Severo, 2007. pp. 239-250.

Miscellany for May 13, 2010

2010-05-13T03:50:00.006-04:00

Rogue Italianist, now reporting from Athens...

I note a new journal called Archeomatica, whose purview is 'technologies for cultural heritage' [website]...

...and a new museum at Paludi di Celano, Abruzzo [Archeoblog].

An intact sarcophagus was discovered during digging for a new water line in Via Liside, Taranto. The male burial dates to the late 5th or early 4th c. BCE, and included an aryballos, a strigil, and a bronze finger ring [Telenorba.it].

Ancient buildings, including a bath, in Crotone [ANSA].

A 2nd-1st c. BCE amphora in the sea off Bari (no big surprise there) [Archeoblog].

Meanwhile, in Umbria...
...the Soprintendenza resumed excavations at Monte Moro (Montefranco), site of a sanctuary used from the Pre-Roman period into Late Antiquity [Archeopg].
...a Roman bronze bed from Gubbio's Fontevole necropolis is on display in the Antiquarium there, until December 31, 2010 [Archeopg].
...the National Museum in Perugia is mounting an exhibit entitled 'Il prestigio del oro', featuring a gold crown of the late 4th/early 3rd c. BCE from a tomb at Sperandio, north of Perugia. The crown is on loan from Florence until July 31, 2010 [Archeopg].

Interesting notice of a 'traditional knowledge' center opening near Florence [ANSA].

Fourteen ancient helmets are on display in Ragusa, nine of them on loan from Berlin's Pergamonmuseum, until June 28 [ANSA].

Fieldwork at Marsiliana d'Albegna [About.com].

Torre di Satriano back in the news

2010-04-22T14:23:00.006-04:00

The mid-6th century BCE building at Torre di Satriano in Lucania is back in the news; we last heard about it in January, when the news-worthy angle was calling it a 'palace'. This time around it's the news that the 'temple or palace' has got a pre-fab roof system. The Telegraph and other English-language sources have the idea that the whole building, stones and all, was so built, but I believe that the inscriptions are limited to the terracotta elements of the roof system (for which see the informative Unibas site, images numbers 15-20 and 32-60). The inscriptions on are in Laconian-Tarentine characters of the 6th c., matching the date proposed on the basis of the decoration.

The whole system is similar to one known from Serra di Vaglio, loc. Braida, which may come from the same moulds. The mid-6th century structure at Torre di Satriano was transformed in the late 6th/early 5th century and re-roofed with anthemia and lion-head waterspouts of Tarentine moulds. In plan, the structure seems to a have a megaron-like element, to which is appended a colonnaded porch on the side that shifts the entrance to the short axis (see, e.g. fig. 34).

[ANSA; Telegraph; Times Online; Vancouver Sun]

Previous coverage at Tria Corda:
6th c. BCE Palace at Torre di Satriano

Fieldwork opportunity: Crustumerium 2010

2010-04-16T10:41:00.003-04:00

A.J. Nijboer writes to the Italian-Archaeology mailing list:

Since 2006 the Groningen Institute of Archaeology (GIA) excavates in the summer at Crustumerium, on the outskirts of present Rome, in collaboration with the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma (SSBAR; Dr. F. di Gennaro).

This summer we will be at Crustumerium from June 29 till July 24. We intend to excavate amongst others a cluster of tombs, a chamber tomb and some other burials. So far, we have a small team of Dutch, Italian and English students. Daily supervisors will be Albert Nijboer and Sarah Willemsen.

There are 4 to 5 vacancies for archaeology students with some experience in archaeological fieldwork in Italy. Costs for students are travelling expenses and a contribution towards the living expenses (ca. 50 euro per week). We invite those interested to participate from June 29 till July 24, to send an application to:
A.J.Nijboer [at] rug.nl
or
S.L.Willemsen [at] rug.nl

The application implies a letter stating your interest in the excavations at Crustumerium and a CV. Once accepted you receive further information on arrangements and excavation.

Information on Crustumerium and our research can be found on:
www.irfrome.org/dokumentit/Nijboer.pdf
http://www.rug.nl/let/onderzoek/onderzoekinstituten/gia/phdprojectWillemsen
http://www.irfrome.org/ita/temp_06.asp?IdCat=35

The third link to the Finnish Institute at Rome has quite a number of preliminary reports on the work carried out at Crustumerium so far...

ArcheoMolise nos. 3 and 4 (January-March, April -July 2010)

2010-04-05T18:51:00.007-04:00

The latest number of ArcheoMolise (ISSN: 2036-3028) is available to download here. Contents of the April-June 2010 issue follow:

Ettore Rufo, Antonella Minelli, Giuseppe Lembo, Bruno Paglione, and Carlo Peretto, "La Preistoria dell'Alto Molise. Una panoramica."

Alberto Cazzella, Valentina Copat, Michela Danesi, Alessandro De Dominicis, Giulia Recchia, and Cristiana Ruggini, "Siti dell'Età del Bronzo nel Molise interno. Località Paradiso a Monteroduni (IS) e Rocca di Oratino (CB)."

Adriano La Regina, "Pietrabbondante: La domus publica del santuario."

Maria Teresa Lembo, "I feudi di Clusanum e Viperam. Insediamenti fortificati medievali scomparsi nel territorio di Gambatesa."

Emilia De Simoni, "Il Mája di Acquaviva Collecroce. Personificazioni del Maggio in Molise."

Lidia Di Giandomenico, "Il popolamento antico della costa molisana. Breve contributo sulle testimonianze archeologiche dei centri costieri."

Plus notices of exhibitions and short book reviews.

I haven't yet mentioned the previous issue of ArcheoMolise, no. 3 (January-March 2010), also available at the C.E.R.P. Isernia site; contents below:

Paolo Galli & Luigi Scaroina, "Il fascino discreto dell'archeosismologia. Casi studio dal Molise." pp. 6-19.

Ulderico Iorillo, "L'icona della Madonna della Luce nella cattedrale di Isernia." pp. 20-29.

Francesco de Vincenzi, "Ditta Florindo Martino. Manifattura della lana a Sepino." pp. 30-41.

Rosalia Gallotti, "Archeologia e GIS: lo stato dell'arte." pp. 42-49.

Mauro Gioielli, "Antiche zampogne. Dall'utriculus latino alla sordellina barocca." pp. 50-59.

Michele Pasquale, "Una chiese medievale sulla sommità della 'Morgia'. Il complesso architettonico della chiesa di San Giacomo Apostolo il Maggiore e la cripta di Santa Margherita d'Antiochia a Pietracatella." pp. 60-69.

The contents of the first three issues of ArcheoMolise are available here.

From the Journals, April 2010

2010-04-05T10:16:00.008-04:00

Maria Longhena reviews John Robb, The Early Mediterranean Village. Agency, Material Culture, and Social Change in Neolithic Italy (Cambridge 2007) in the European Journal of Archaeology (April 2010, Volume 13, No. 1, pp. 123-124).

World Archaeology, Volume 42 Issue 1 (2010):

M. MacKinnon, "Cattle 'breed' variation and improvement in Roman Italy: connecting the zooarchaeological and ancient textual evidence," pp. 55 – 73.

J. Krasilnikoff, "Irrigation as innovation in ancient Greek agriculture," pp. 108 - 121 (with reference to Herakleia and Metaponto).

Recent stuff from the Journal of Archaeological Science...

De Donno et al., "Analysis of Neolithic human remains discovered in southern Italy," Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 37, Issue 3, March 2010, pp. 482-487.

R. Arletti et al., "The first archaeometric data on polychrome Iron Age glass from sites located in northern Italy,"Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 37, Issue 4, April 2010, pp.703-712.

G. Barone et al., "A volcanic inclusions based approach for provenance studies of archaeological ceramics: application to pottery from southern Italy," Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 37, Issue 4, April 2010, pp. 713-72.

S. Perusin & P. Mazza, "Semitella, an Italian Bell-Beaker (Final Copper Age) animal burial ground," Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 37, Issue 4, April 2010, pp. 737-757.

Verhoeven & Schmitt, "An attempt to push back frontiers – digital near-ultraviolet aerial archaeology,"Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 37, Issue 4, April 2010, pp. 833-845 (with some reference to Potentia, Le Marche).

A.D. Isaac et al., "Genetic analysis of wheat landraces enables the location of the first agricultural sites in Italy to be identified," Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 37, Issue 5, May 2010, pp. 950-956.

G. Giachi et al., "The prehistoric pile-dwelling settlement of Stagno (Leghorn, Italy): wood and food resource exploitation," Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 37, Issue 6, June 2010, pp. 1260-1268.

Tria Corda: Death & Burial Edition

2010-03-31T08:13:00.005-04:00

A few articles on the 800-pound lead coffin found at Gabii last summer...
[UMich; National Geographic]

New pet cemetery this month:
S. Perusin & P. Mazza, "Semitella, an Italian Bell-Beaker (Final Copper Age) animal burial ground," Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 37, Issue 4, April 2010, pp. 737-757.

Reviews from BMCR:

Greg Warden reviews Marshall Joseph Becker, Jean Macintosh Turfa, Bridget Algee-Hewitt, Human Remains from Etruscan and Italic Tomb Groups in the University of Pennsylvania Museum (2009)

Ingrid Edlund-Berry reviews Marie-Laurence Haack (ed.), Écritures, cultures, sociétés dans les nécropoles d'Italie ancienne: table ronde des 14-15 décembre 2007, mouvements et trajectoires dans les nécropoles d'Italie d'époque pré-républicaine et républicaine (2009).

D.M. Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli

2010-03-22T11:26:00.004-04:00

I neglected to mention previously the passing, at age 98--truly a man of the saeculum-- of Giovanni Pugliese Carratelli, one of the giants of the study of Italian antiquity.

[Il Mattino, Il Corriere del Mezzogiorno, Orvieto Si]

News for February and March

2010-03-16T02:39:00.005-04:00

So much for all that free time... here's a brief rundown of some things that have accumulated lately.

First of all, I've been extremely remiss in neglecting to mention my friend Ross Cowan's blog. Ross is the author of, among others, The Roman Conquests: Italy, and he's been blogging about related topics. Ross has also got an article in the latest issue of the magazine Ancient Warfare, which issue (table of contents) is dedicated to "A multitude of peoples: Before Rome ruled Italy" (you know you've always wanted a two-page spread painting of the Battle of Bovianum!). I also learn that Cambridge will be republishing Salmon's Samnium and the Samnites come April -- mirabile dictu!

Big news this month is the discovery at Gabii of an Archaic tripartite building identified as a regia [La Repubblica - photos; MiBAC].

Twenty Etruscan fossa tombs were discovered at Marina Velka near Tarquinia, two of which were hit by tombaroli, along with Roman habitation [Viterbo Oggi; Viterbo Notizie].

Artifacts from three museums in Castiglion Fiorentino (Arezzo) are on display at Castel Sant' Angelo until April 11.

The Pontecagnano museum has supposedly reopened.

There's a call for papers for an Accordia conference on Etruscan Literacy in its Social Context (22-23 September 2010), deadline April 30.

The X Incontro di Studi su Preistoria e Protostoria in Etruria (10-12 September 2010) has as its theme "L’Etruria dal Paleolitico al Primo Ferro. Lo stato delle ricerche". (more)

The latest Journal of Field Archaeology (Vol. 34, issue 4) includes "Remote Sensing and Archaeological Prospection in Apulia , Italy", by S.A. Ross, A. Sobotkova and G.-J. Burgers (pp. 423-438).

Greece and Rome (Vol. 57, issue 1: April 1, 2010):
E. Bragg, "Roman Seaborne Raids During the Mid - Republic : Sideshow or Headline Feature ?" (pp. 47-64)

The Classical Review (New Series), Volume 60, Issue 01, April 2010:
• Witcher on Isayev, Inside Ancient Lucania (2007)
• Mattingly on Revell, Roman Imperialism and Local Identities (2009)
• Roth on Wallace-Hadrill, Rome's Cultural Revolution (2008)
• Perfigli on Clark, Divine Qualities. Cult and Community in Republican Rome (2007)
• Bücher on Jehne & Pfeilschifter (eds.), Herrschaft ohne Integration? Rom und Italien in Republikanischer Zeit (2006)
• Hogg on Briquel, Mythe et révolution. La Fabrication d'un récit: la naissance de la république à Rome (2007)

Bryn Mawr Classical Review:
• I. Edlund-Berry on Daniele Federico Maras, Il dono votivo: Gli dei e il sacro nelle iscrizioni etrusche di culto.
• eadem on Laura Maniscalco (ed.), Il santuario dei Palici: un centro di culto nella Valle del Margi. Collana d'Area. Quaderno n. 11.
• C. Bailey on Harriet Flower, Roman Republics
• C. Smith on Sinclair Bell & Helen Nagy (eds.), New Perspectives on Etruria and Early Rome: In Honor of Richard Daniel De Puma
• N. Carayon on Castagnino Berlinghieri, Elena Flavia, Carmelo Monaco, Il sistema portuale di Catania antica: studi interdisciplinari di geo-archeologia marittima.
• G. van Heems on Enrico Benelli (ed.), Thesaurus Linguae Etruscae. I. Indice lessicale. Seconda edizione...

6th c. BCE Palace at Torre di Satriano

2010-01-17T17:40:00.008-05:00

Reports in the press on this past season's fieldwork at Torre di Satriano in Basilicata announce the discovery of a "palace" there [ANSA; Il Quotidiano della Basilicata; La Gazzetta del Mezziogiorno]--though it's been known at least since 2008. The megaron structure (picture above) dates to the mid 6th c. BCE; four contemporary tombs were discovered nearby. The environs of Satriano have been investigated off and on over the past 60-odd years, from some 30 tombs in 1943, to Ross Holloway's team in 1966 and 1967, and the 1986-88 excavations by the Soprintendenza. The current work is a joint effort between the University of Basilicata under Massimo Osanna and Queen's University under Fabio Colivicchi. There's a thorough page on Satriano at the Unibas site, with good photos (if sometimes a bit small). The structure sported a continuous terracotta frieze of horsemen, a tiled roof, and a terracotta sphinx on the roof beam. A second phase of the structure dates to the late 6th or early 5th c.

Some of the nicer material from the excavation was on display at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale della Basilicata "Dinu Adamesteanu" in Potenza for the special exhibit Principi ed Eroi della Basilicata Antica: immagini e segni del potere tra VII e V secolo a.C., which I happened to catch back in July of 2009; here's a section of the frieze with the sphinx...

And below, an Ionic cup and two fragments of Athenian Black Figure:

Exhibits ending and beginning

2009-11-24T22:37:00.007-05:00

If you were in Rome on November 20 you might have seen the Ara Pacis brilliantly lit up in its original colors by a fancy projection system. [ANSA]

If you're in Rome between now and December 13, you still have time to catch the exhibit Etruschi e Fenici sul mare: da Pyrgi a Cartagine ("Etruscans and Phoenicians at sea: from Pyrgi to Carthage") at the Vittoriano. [via Archaeogate; Provincia di Roma]

If you time it right, you can then head up to Bologna for the opening on December 12 of the exhibit Cavalieri etruschi dalle Valli al Po: Tra Reno e Panaro, la valle del Samoggia nell’VIII e VII sec.a.C. ("Etruscan horsemen from the Vales to the Po: Between Reno and Panaro, the Valle del Samoggia in the 8th and 7th c. BCE"), which runs until April 5, 2010. [photo above; via Archaeogate; press release; exhibit page]

And another if: the Museo delle navi antiche di Pisa might partially open to the public in April 2010. [via Storia Romana].

Don't Eat That, Elmer, That's Horse [Finch]!

2009-11-18T23:53:00.007-05:00

There's been some controversy about a free distribution of On the Origin of Species with a "special" introduction; in any case, I gladly note the existence of a counterpoint group, "Don't Diss Darwin," with the tongue–in–cheek motto "noli fringillidas edere!" I had to look up the middle word, which as it turns out is the scientific Latin term for the family of finches, of course. The Classical form on which it's based is fringilla, -ae which the OLD tells me means "a song-bird, perhaps the chaffinch," attested in Varro and Festus (usually a bad sign), and Martial in a form fringillus, cf. Greek φρυγίλος. This latter occurs once in Classical Greek—where else?—the Birds of Aristophanes, 763, where it gets trotted out for a pun with Φρὺξ.

For what it's worth, there was a Cistercian monastery of S. Angelo in Fringillis (or Frigido) founded in Calabria in 1220, as well as a Fringilla: some tales in verse of 1895 by Richard Doddridge Blackmore (famous today for his novel Lorna Doone), with the doddgy lines quorsum haec? non potui qualem / Philomela querelam; sed / fringilla velut pipitabunda vagor adorning the frontispiece. The illustrations are passerable, but the verse, oh, the verse! The one snippet ought to be enough; the rest is available freely at Google Books:

God is with us ; He shall speed us ;
Or (if this vile crew impede us)
Let some light into their brain,
By the sword of Tubal Cain.
-Lita of the Nile, Part I, XII

All that said, Wikipedia informs me that Darwin's finches are now placed in the tanager family of Thraupidae rather than the true finch family, Fringillidae. θραυπίς occurs only in Aristotle History of Animals 592b30 and refers to a small bird. Such is the nature of scientific Latin. So noli fringillas edere, noli thraupidas edere, noli θραυπίδας edere, as you like.

Heroes and villains, dogs and goats

2009-11-18T00:25:00.007-05:00

The Museo Civico Archeologico di Fara in Sabina [excellent website] has mounted an exhibit entitled "Un Re, un Guerriero, un Eroe | La tomba 36 della necropoli sabina di Eretum." The three-chambered Tomb 36 of the Colle del Forno necropolis, discovered in 2005, contained the burial of a Sabine potentate of the late 6th c. BCE, his ashes deposited in a wooden box draped with a gold-embroidered cloth, along with his arms, bronze cauldrons, a terracotta throne, a chariot and sacrificed horses. It's certainly worth noting here that the contents of another rich tomb of the same necropolis, Tomb XI [another excellent website], dating to the early 7th c. BCE, are currently on display in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, having been looted in the 1970s and passed through the hands of the infamous Robert Hecht [NYTimes (16/3/2009); Looting Matters (17/3/09); Iconoclasm (18/5/09); Iconoclasm (18/10/09)].

Apropos of the previous post, a 4th-3rd c. BCE Greek necropolis was discovered in the territory of Castellaneta (Ta), unfortunately already looted [Corriere del Mezzogiorno; AGI]

Speaking of looting, SafeCorner reports on the "L'Arma per L'Arte 1969-2009" exhibit at Castel Sant'Angelo, celebrating 40 years of the Comando Carabinieri per la Tutela Patrimonio Culturale.

Cultural patrimony laws got you down? Now you can get your very own legal memento of a trip to Italy-- adopt a stray dog from Pompeii, via the "(C)Ave Canem" project [News in English; official Italian site].

....and, the mostly* gratuitous link of the day:
Extinct Goat Tried out Reptilian, Cold-Blooded Living

*(it has to do with adapting to a small Mediterranean island -- Majorca, in this case)

'Beyond Magna Graecia' conference follow-up

2009-11-17T22:29:00.010-05:00

This past weekend I was in Cincinnati for the Semple Symposium "Beyond Magna Graecia: New Developments in South Italian Archaeology. The Contexts of Apulian and Lucanian Pottery." Turnout was quite frankly higher than I'd been expecting, possibly somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 -- the photo below, taken Friday around midday, doesn't really do it justice. As usual, it was good to catch up with a couple of friends and meet others for the first time.

So, have new developments taken us 'beyond Magna Graecia'? There was plenty of evidence on hand for a widespread corrective necessary in this A.T. period (After Trendall), to put South Italian Red Figure back into its contexts (Trendall frequently omitted such information in his publications, even when it was certainly known). Some of Trendall's attributions were questioned, painters divided and joined, but one of the take-aways was to what an extent the field still relies on his monumental works. In any case, those contexts turn out more often than not to be non-Greek. Moving from Messapia, up to Daunia, and then back through Peucetia, the papers provided a sensitive analysis of the way Red Figure ceramics were used and produced by both non-Greek and Greek inhabitants of Apulia, responding to local needs and customs.

Ted Robinson speaks on archaeometric analysis.

The art historical element, strong in traditional Anglophone scholarship on South Italy, was present at the conference, but it was clear that no one would today dispense with the archaeological context of the artifact class in question. Ted Robinson's work on archaeometric analysis is certainly a step in the right direction, and the wider exposure of information from ongoing excavations in Italy is welcome. That the work of Italian researchers is not more widely known is a problem, and one that is only part due to the difficulty of obtaining foreign publications. I hope that the published proceedings will do their part to lead a new generation of American students to learn Italian -- honestly, if one has already learned Latin and French, it shouldn't be that difficult!

Several speakers emphasized the continued importance of Taranto, so as not to throw the baby out with the Greek bathwater. But, despite some tantalizing new data, there is still no certainly clinching evidence of Red Figure production at Taranto, at least not of the sort found at Metaponto, likely though it may be.

The conference was organized with the express intent of publishing proceedings as an up-to-date state-of-the-field in English; the last few Semple Symposia have had an average of three years from lectern to library, so look for a volume in 2012, maybe -- perfect vacation reading for the apocalypse?

Thanks to all at Cincinnati.

Magazine online: ArcheoMolise

2009-11-11T21:58:00.012-05:00

The Centro Europeo di Ricerche Preistoriche in Isernia (Molise) is hosting the new magazine ArcheoMolise, whose issues now number three. Available here in .rar and .zip formats, which unpack into pdfs. The journal focuses on the archaeology of Molise, with forays into Colombia, and its chronological scope ranges from the Paleolithic through the present day, as can be seen from the contents:

(Aprile/Giugno 2009, No. 0 - Anno I):
- Antonella Minelli et al., 'Isernia La Pineta. Il sito preistorico alla luce delle recenti acquisizioni'
- Ettore Rufo, '40.000 anni fa a Rocchetta a Volturno. Gli artigiani neandertaliani di Grotta Reali'
- Chiara Santone, 'Il ripostiglio di Vinchiaturo. Alcune osservazioni.'
- Sandra Guglielmi & Petronilla Crocco, 'La necropoli di Ripatagliata. Studio antropologico dei resti scheletrici umani rinvenuti a Guglionesi'
- Karicla Scarcella, 'Il carnevale di Cercepiccola. Mesi, stagioni e drammi carnascialeschi'
- Michele Fratino, 'La catapulta sannitica di Casalbordino'

(Giulio/Settembre 2009, No. 1 - Anno I):
- Marta Arzarello et al., 'I bifacciali di Monteroduni. Un sito acheuleano di occupazione?'
- Michele Raddi, 'L'alta valle del Volturno. Insediamenti tardo antichi e medioevali'
- Walter Santoro, 'S. Croce di Sepino. Un Eigenkloster della valle del Moschiaturo'
- Luca D'Alessandro, 'Le maitunat' di Gambatesa. Una tradizione secolare'
- Brunella Muttillo, 'Alla riscoperta di El Dorado. La missione archeologica molisana in Colombia'
- Andrea Lonardelli, 'Il costume funerario femminile nel Molise preromano. I casi di Termoli, Guglionesi, Larino, San Giuliano di Puglia, Pozzilli e Gildone'

(Ottobre/Dicembre 2009, No. 2 - Anno I):
- Lorenzo Quilici, 'Il castello di Gerione presso Casacalenda, da Annibale agli Angioini'
- Adriano LaRegina, 'Ritratto di Caligola, poi di Augusto, dal Molise'
- Giovanna Falasca, 'San Giuliano del Sannio, alla ricerca delle origini storiche'
- Gabriella Di Rocco, 'Insediamenti fortificati del Molise occidentale, tra alto e basso Medioevo'
- Alessandro Testa, 'La Maschera del Cervo a Castelnuovo al Volturno, breve introduzione alla storia ed alle interpretazioni di una pantomima tradizionale'
- Roberta Venditto, 'Un alabastro inglese nel Regno di Napoli. Il caso del polittico del museo archeologico di Venafro'

(I'll be in Cincinnati for the "Beyond Magna Graecia" conference from tomorrow, Thursday, through Saturday, November 12 - 14. The organizers have helpfully put up a selection of background readings for the conference topic here.)

Varia for October 4, 2009

2009-10-04T19:47:00.006-04:00

In the Journals:
The latest issue (113.4) of the American Journal of Archaeology is available online, including:
-Elizabeth A. Meyer on "Writing Paraphernalia, Tablets, and Muses in Campanian Wall Painting" (abstract);
-Jeffrey Becker, Marcello Mogetto, and Nicola Terrenato uncover "A New Plan for an Ancient Italian City: Gabii Revealed" (abstract);
-John Oakley reviews the past decade in "Greek Vase Painting" (abstract);
-Bruce Hitchner's review article "Roman Republican Imperialism in Italy and the West" (link);
-and reviews of Archaeology and History in Sardinia from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages and Il Santuario dei Palici: Un centro di culto nella Valle del Margi.

Eric Poehler reviews Vedia Izzet, The Archaeology of Etruscan Society, in Rasenna 2.1 (2009).

This is a few years old, but I've just now run across it: M. Rubini, "A case of cranial trepanation in a Roman necropolis (Cassino, Italy, 3^rd century BC)," International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 18.1 (2007): 95-99 (Abstract).

Banditry:
Returns to Italy of an Italian-American's collection of Medieval and later material from the Mezzogiorno (link).

The Carabinieri busted a wineshop in Ardea and turned up 500 pieces, including a 3rd c. BCE urn, a marble statue of a "Persian" Artemis, and Archaic Latial votive material (link).

Conferences:
Via David Meadows at RogueClassicism, I note that the conference entitled "Moisa Epichorios: Regional Music and Musical Regions" (Ravenna 1-3 October 2009) had a session on "Ancient Italy: Magna Grecia and Etruria":

Antonella Provenza (Palermo) – The paean and Apollo’s cult in Magna Graecia: music therapy among the Early Pythagoreans
Marina F.A. Martelli (Milan) – L’italica armonia di Senocrate di Locri
Carolyn Bowyer (London) – Etruscan trumpets

Posters:
Emiliano Li Castro (Viterbo) – Il cuore nascosto di Diòniso
Angela Bellia (Palermo) – Mito, musica e rito nelle raffigurazioni dei pinakes del Persephoneion di Locri Epizefirii (VI – V sec. a.C.)
Anna Di Giglio (Foggia) – Strumenti a percussione nel mondo greco e magno greco: testimonianze letterarie e iconografiche
Giancarlo Germanà (Syracuse) – Gli dèi, gli uomini e la musica: analisi di un tema iconografico nelle importazioni attiche a Gela tra il VI ed il V secolo a.C.

Also from RogueClassicism, I note that the conference "OIKOS FAMILIA The Family in Antiquity: Framing the discipline in the 21st Century" (Gothenburg, 5-7 November 2009) will have a session on "Etruscan and Pre-Roman Family":

Key note addres: Marjatta Neilsen: Etruscan familes – the dead and the living
Jenny Högström Berntson: Women, Children and Votives in Magna Graecia
Elisa Perego: Iron Age and early Roman Veneto
Rafael Scopacasa: Familial Segregation and Communal Drinking in Ancient Appenine Italy

Umbrian Roundup

2009-10-04T18:35:00.004-04:00

The XXVII Convegno di Studi Etruschi ed Italici will run from October 27 to 31 in Perugia, Gubbio, and Urbino, on the topic 'Gli Umbri in età preromana'. More information, and the program (pdf).

Back in the beginning of September, in Perugia, a Roman kiln for roof-tiles was discovered. (link)

News from the Soprintendenza for Umbria:
- 2nd century CE Roman tombs discovered at Gubbio (link).
- The Museo Archeologico in Orvieto is revamping its exhibits to display little-known and unpublished material from the Crocifisso del Tufo necropolis, and by the end of autumn will have an area devoted to research on the Campo della Fiera (link).
- In Perugia, the exhibit "Mira et Magica," which focuses on ancient inscribed gems, runs from September 25 to December 31, 2009 (link).
- In Spoleto, the Archaeological Museum has opened a second new gallery, "Dal Municipio all'età Imperiale" (link).
- The Museo Civico in Todi has opened a new display of local stone artifacts dating from antiquity to the present day, including a sundial and an Augustan altar (link).

September 13, 2009

2009-09-13T22:01:00.006-04:00

(I'm more or less settled in here at Michigan; now that I've got enough work to need distracting from, blogging will continue...)

From a journal you might not follow (I don't): Mangone et al., "Technological features of 'gnathia' pottery." X-Ray Spectrometry 38.5 (2009), 386-393 [abstract].

The Università degli Studi di Lecce has digitized Studi di Antichità and four monographs published by the Dipartimento di Beni Culturali dell'Università di Lecce - Settore Storico-Archeologico, available here (once you've clicked on the number you want, you have to click on "Contents..." in the left-hand column). Also possibly of interest: Gli Album del Centro di Studi Papirologici, Papyrologica Lupiensia and Kronos; you can see the full list of scanned journals and monographs here (don't miss the E-Prints down at the bottom of the page).

We are looking forward to Michael Weiss' forthcoming (2009) books Language and Ritual in Sabellic Italy (Leiden: Brill) and Outline of the Historical and Comparative Grammar of Latin (Ann Arbor: Beech Stave). His 2009 article "Umbrian erus" is available as a pdf on his website (above).

As for books that have already come out: Josh Katz (favorably) reviews Rex Wallace, The Sabellic languages of ancient Italy (2007) in Language 85.2 (June 2009), 490-492. Katz writes, "W rightly reminds us that the corpora of ‘dead languages’ are not always closed. It is exciting when a new inscription turns up..."

...and there are, apparently, a few new inscriptions, published by Adolfo Zavaroni and Giancarlo Sani, "Iscrizioni nord-umbre del bellum sociale nella Valle di Ospitale: prime indicazioni." Klio 91.1 (June 2009), 69-103. I think I will have more to say about this article and these inscriptions, but for now I'll simply copy the summary since it doesn't appear to be publicly available:

In two sites of the Valle di Ospitale (Modena province, near the border between Aemilia and Etruria) many inscriptions written on rocks during the bellum sociale (90–89 B. C.) by rebels against Rome have recently come to light. The rebels define themselves as Umbrians, but their dialect has several particularities which drive us to distinguish it from the Umbrian of the Iguvinian Tables. The alphabet contains some special letters, but it is above all the frequent use of ligatures that characterizes these inscriptions and makes their reading often difficult. Most of them contain exhortations to revolt against Rome and form an Umbrian League. A few writings have an erotic content; others are illuminating on the main gods worshipped by the rebels. Here we present a selection of the inscriptions whose reading is more easy.

[!!!]

(The leppard in the picture above is found on Gnathia-style cup from Rudiae, now in the Museo Archeologico Provinciale 'S. Castromediano' in Lecce. )

Conference: Beyond Magna Graecia

2009-09-13T21:32:00.003-04:00

Beyond Magna Graecia:
New Developments in South Italian Archaeology
The Contexts of Apulian and Lucanian Pottery

November 12-14, 2009,
University of Cincinnati
A Semple Symposium

(Or, "Apulian Red Figure: more than just a pretty vase"...?)

Free and open to the public. More info at the UC site

From the MiBAC Newsletter of 31 July 2009

2009-08-01T15:01:00.005-04:00

Interesting things as always in the weekly update from the (still monstrously-named) Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita' Culturale (you can sign-up here; back-issues here, though not up-to-date):

The waves of the Mediterranean exposed the grave of a 'warrior' of the 3rd millennium BCE, ten meters from the shore, within the military zone at Torre Astura in Lazio. The contents of the grave, which find their comparanda in the Gaudo facies of the Italian Copper Age, include six ceramic vessels, a flint arrowhead, two flint dagger blades, and one human skeleton. The photo caption claims that he was killed by an arrow in the side, but I find no mention of this elsewhere. The press release, with excellent photos, is here; see the "Scheda tecnica, dettaglio" (.doc) for more technical details.

The first phase of restoration of the Herculaneum boat is complete, allowing for public viewing (Saturday and Sunday, 10:00-12:30 and 14:00-17:00, at no additional cost). The press release, again with photos, is here.

There's a new exhibition called Santuario di Ercole Vincitore. Il cantiere, lo scavo, le meraviglie ("Sanctuary of Hercules Victor. The site, the excavation, the wonders") at the sanctuary of that name in Tivoli. It will run from October of 2009 until February 2010, open every Saturday except December 26 from 10:30 - 13:00, free of charge. Info here.

La Religiosità nella locride tra passato e presente ("Religiosity in the Locride between past and present") is the title of a new exhibition in the Palazzo Nieddu in Locri. The exhibit, which covers the 4th century BCE to the 20th century CE, runs from July 31 to August 30, 2009.

Ferragosto

2009-08-01T11:29:00.005-04:00

Spending a few days taking it slow in sweltering Rome... the Museo Nazionale Romano in the Palazzo Massimo just gets better every time I go back. The substantial remains of the "Scopri il Massimo" exhibit (18 December 2008 - 7 June 2009) are worth a look -- the paintings from the Columbarium in the Villa Pamphilj are wonderful (including the fisherman above).

First time I've seen the Warrior of Lanuvium's belt on display in the Baths of Diocletian (though it could have been out for years for all I know):

The Etruscan museum at the Villa Giulia is due to (re)open about a dozen galleries this fall [I happened to read this in a newspaper and failed to note the details].

In other news: Confiscation of smuggled antiquities in Calabria. [ANSA]

Update from Lecce (with pictures of Arpino)

2009-07-24T16:41:00.006-04:00

"Cyclopean" Gate, Civitavecchia, Arpino

The hotel here in Lecce has free internet in the room, so here's a bit of an update. Having wrapped up work at Mt. Lykaion (site & blog) and spent a delightful but all-too-brief time in Athens, I made my way to Rome on the 17th of July. Since then a whirlwind of visits to Gabii, Arpino (see above and below), Paestum, Potenza, Matera, and now Lecce. Many more pictures will follow, as will discussion. For now, just these.

The medieval tower in Civitavecchia, Arpino.

The big news of the day has to do with Silvio Berlusconi and his recent scandals. Beyond the sex tapes, one recording has a man alleged to be Mr. Berlusconi talking about 30 Phoenician tombs found on the grounds of his private villa in Sardinia. The tombs have not been reported to the Ministry of Culture, as required by Italian law; this could bring a penalty of a year in jail...
(BBC; Guardian; L'Espresso: audio, transcription, and discussion). ...and I see David Meadows has fuller discussion at Rogueclassicism (of course).

Greetings from Athens

2009-05-20T20:23:00.003-04:00

Apologies, dear readers (all four of you), for the lack of recent updates; preparations for summer field work and moving out of Philly have consumed my time. Posting will continue to be sporadic, but I'll try to provide at least minor updates on the work at Mt. Lykaion, starting June 1. I'm also planning an Italian excursion a bit later in the summer -- watch this space.

April 22, 2009

2009-04-22T12:46:00.002-04:00

The British School at Rome has elected a new director to succeed Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, in the person of Christopher J. Smith. Professor Smith, currently Vice-Principal of the University of St Andrews, is the author of Early Rome and Latium: Economy and Society c. 1000 to 500 BC (1996) and The Roman Clan: The Gens from Ancient Ideology to Modern Anthropology (2006) as well as numerous articles on the development of early Rome. One of his current projects is A Very Short Introduction to the Etruscans [More info at BSR (.doc), St. Andrews].

Italy has drawn up a list of cultural monuments damaged by the Abruzzo earthquake whose restoration is up for 'adoption' by foreign governments. Among those monuments is the 16th century Forte Spagnolo, home to the National Museum of Abruzzo, where rescue workers recently discovered the skeleton of a prehistoric elephant still intact after the quake. [ANSA; bis]

PastHorizons gives notice of the Vultur Project, which "will focus upon the Lucanian Frontier as a sphere of pre-Roman cultural interaction and Late Roman stability."

T. Eckhart reviews B. Cunliffe, Europe Between the Oceans. Themes and Variations: 9000 BC to AD 1000 at BMCR.

Coverage of the city of Rome's purported 2762nd birthday at EternallyCool.

David Gill reports on the return of 14 objects to Italy by the Cleveland Museum of Art today as well as ancient bronzes passing through North America.

The BBC reports on a University of Sheffield DNA study to determine if Bronze Age copper mining in Wales involved a migration from the Mediterranean. [More info at Dienekes' Anthropology Blog]

Bill Caraher reflects on two years of archaeological blogging.

19 April 2009

2009-04-19T15:54:00.003-04:00

A series of caves beneath L'Aquila were revealed by the deadly Abruzzo earthquake, some of which may have been used by prehistoric humans [Via Explorator; Adnkronos; Libero-news.it (bis)]

EternallyCool reports on chariot races in honor of Rome's upcoming birthday.

The collection of Pompeian frescoes will reopen in the Naples Museum on April 29, after a decade of being closed. (No word on when they'll be open next once the 29th has passed...)

A Franco Valente philippic on the destruction of (possibly Roman) stone terraces near Venafro in Molise.

An Italian study of 3000 middle- and high-school students in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain finds that Italian students show the least interest in museums and monuments while Spanish students show the most.

Another brick in the lodge - 18 April 2009

2009-04-18T15:43:00.002-04:00

The Museo Archeologico Provinciale 'F. Ribezzo' (MAPRI) in Brindisi will reopen April 19 after two years of reorganization. Among the museum's collections are the bronzes recovered from a shipwreck off the Punta del Serrone, including a portrait of L. Aemilius Paulus [Archeologia Subacquea; Salentonline.it].

The archaeological site of Faragola in the Foggia province of Puglia will be inaugurated and opened to the public on April 24. The site, discovered in 2003, is best known for its sumptuous Late Antique villa, but shows evidence of occupation from the 6th c. BCE to the 8th c. CE [Via Viveur; more info in English and Italian, with much of the relevant bibliography available as pdfs].

The rock engravings from Valcamonica, in the Brescia province of Lombardy, are the subject of a new exhibition, 'La Valle Delle Incisioni,' which celebrates the centenary of their discovery in 1909 and the 30-year anniversary of their inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The exhibit, at the Palazzo Martinengo in Brescia, runs until May 10.

Brief piece on archaeological solidarity in the Abruzzo [ANSA].
Foreign funding for the restoration of cultural monuments in the Abruzzo [ANSA -- scroll down to the bottom].

The Weekly Bricolage: April 15, 2009

2009-04-15T18:09:00.007-04:00

David Meadows skims the cream From the Italian Press at rogueclassicism.

The remains of the 7th c. BCE necropolis at Chiavari in Liguria, currently housed in Cicagna, could be moved to an exhibition space close to the location of the original excavation by this summer [Teleradiopace.tv; Google Maps]. It's not only the artifacts that are on display, but also, it seems the necropolis itself.

The Museo Bardini in Florence has reopened after a decade of restorations. Its collections run from antiquity up to the 18th century, with an emphasis on the Medieval and Renaissance.

The Palazzo Altemps in Rome is opening four new rooms for its Egyptian collection.

Clifford Ando reviews Edward Bispham, From Asculum to Actium. The Municipalization of Italy from the Social War to Augustus (2007) at BMCR; I note that "Bispham traces in relief the existence and history of the wide swaths of Italy that long remained unmunicipalized," though necessarily cursorily.

If your Italian interests run to the post-Antique, I note the recent publication (March 2009) of Paul Oldfield's City and Community in Norman Italy by Cambridge University Press. If you need to brush up on the intervening centuries, you might try C. Salvatore's Storia dell'Italia bizantina (VI-XI secolo). Da Giustiniano ai Normanni (2008).

When on Google Earth 18 is up at Scott McDonough's An Intermittent Waste of Time.

I can't let the recent earthquake in the Abruzzo pass without some words: a notice at Archeorivista. At The Guardian. The Italian Red Cross with the option of making a donation toward earthquake relief. MiBAC with information for donating to cultural heritage relief.

RAC and roll all night

2009-04-02T10:38:00.001-04:00

Off to RAC and TRAC in lovely Ann Arbor for the weekend...

Picking pebbles out of a drain

2009-03-31T18:26:00.004-04:00

(n.b. one word NSFW)

I've posted a video of Will Sheff of the band Okkervil River performing "A Stone" live in Milwaukee. This is a bit beyond our usual purview here at Tria Corda, but there's archaeological imagery throughout the lyrics—unintentional I'm sure—plus I happen to like the song.

"You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone..."

I originally heard "hard grey" as "hard grain," which would have made the description of the stone a bit more scientific; for some reason I imagined the stele of Hammurabi, though its hard-grained, heavy, clumsily-shaped diorite doesn't have white veins in evidence. Nor have I detected any particularly earthy smell about it; if anyone's ever given it a ding, could you let me know how it sounds?

"You love a stone, because it's smooth and it's cold. And you'd love most to be told that it's all your own."

As long as there is a demand for antiquities, looting will continue.

"You're out singing songs, and I'm down shouting names at the flickerless screen..."

Sounds like somebody got stuck doing the GIS work while everybody else nipped off for a drink...

"And I think I believe that, if stones could dream, they'd dream of being laid side-by-side, piece-by-piece, and turned into a castle for some towering queen they're unable to know."

I particularly dig this part: the agency, intentionality of objects; taking their meaning from being grouped into "castle," anyone?

I've posted the lyrics below, because the band's site is in Flash and doesn't allow for direct linking to particular bits...

Hot breath, rough skin, warm laughs and smiling, the loveliest words whispered and meant - you like all these things. But, though you like all these things, you love a stone. You love a stone, because it's smooth and it's cold. And you'd love most to be told that it's all your own. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. And I'm found too fast, called too fond of flames, and then I'm phoning my friends, and then I'm shouldering the blame, while you're picking pebbles out of the drain, miles ago. You're out singing songs, and I'm down shouting names at the flickerless screen, going fucking insane. Am I losing my cool, overstating my case? Well, baby, what can I say? You know I never claimed that I was a stone. And you love a stone. You love white veins, you love hard grey, the heaviest weight, the clumsiest shape, the earthiest smell, the hollowest tone - you love a stone. You love a stone, because it's dark, and it's old, and if it could start being alive you'd stop living alone. And I think I believe that, if stones could dream, they'd dream of being laid side-by-side, piece-by-piece, and turned into a castle for some towering queen they're unable to know. And when that queen's daughter came of age, I think she'd be lovely and stubborn and brave, and suitors would journey from kingdoms away to make themselves known. And I think that I know the bitter dismay of a lover who brought fresh bouquets every day when she turned him away to remember some knave who once gave just one rose, one day, years ago.

We now return to our irregularly-scheduled programming...

Snippets for March 30

2009-03-30T17:12:00.003-04:00

MiBAC announces the launch of "Cultura Italia," a web portal for Italy's cultural heritage, which looks like it would bear some exploring (available in Italian or English).

Construction on the Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Adria has been completed after seven years; the new Roman section opened on March 28 (IGN/Adnkronos; museum pages).

Stephen Chrisomalis blogs about deciding whether or not to go to grad school in anthropology over at Glossographia... which leads me to a personal aside: I'll be starting work on a PhD in the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology (IPCAA) at the University of Michigan this fall.

In the journals...

2009-03-25T12:54:00.006-04:00

This is in no way an exhaustive list, but I note some articles relevant to pre-, very pre-, or not-so- pre-Roman Italy in recent periodicals...

C. Bottari et al., "Archaeological evidence for destructive earthquakes in Sicily between 400 B.C. and A.D. 600," Geoarchaeology 24.2 (2009): 147-175.

V. Compare et al., "Three-dimensional Resistivity Probability Tomography at the Prehistoric Site of Grotta Reali (Molise, Italy)," Archaeological Prospection 16 (2009): 53–63.

M. Mariotti Lippi et al., "Comparing seeds/fruits and pollen from a Middle Bronze Age pit in Florence (Italy)," Journal of Archaeological Science 36.5 (May 2009): 1135-1141.

M. Pluciennik, review of M. Fitzjohn (ed.). Uplands of ancient Sicily and Calabria: the archaeology of landscape revisited (Accordia Specialist Studies on Italy Volume 13). (2007), Antiquity 83 (2009): 233–234.

L.V. Rutgers et al., "Stable isotope data from the early Christian catacombs of ancient Rome: new insights into the dietary habits of Rome's early Christians," Journal of Archaeological Science 36.5 (May 2009): 1127-1134.

J.M. Thorn, "The invention of ‘Tarentine’ red-figure," Antiquity 83 (2009): 174–183 (cf. T.H. Carpenter, "Prolegomenon to the Study of Apulian Red-Figure Pottery," AJA 113.1 (2009): 39-56, already commented on here at Tria Corda).

M. Tröster, "Roman Hegemony and Non-State Violence: A Fresh Look at Pompey's Campaign against the Pirates," Greece and Rome 56 (2009): 14-33.

Reviews in The Classical Review 59.1, (April 2009):

- Shane Hawkins reviews Adams, The Regional Diversification of Latin 200 BC–AD 600 (106-109)
- amicus noster Angelo O. Mercado reviews De Melo, The Early Latin Verb System. Archaic Forms in Plautus, Terence, and Beyond (109-111)
-P. J. Davis reviews Rea, Legendary Rome. Myth, Monuments, and Memory on the Palatine and Capitoline (143-144)
-Karl-J. Hölkeskamp reviews Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome (211-214)
-Roman Roth reviews Liébert, Regards sur la truphè étrusque (214-215)
-William E. Klingshirn reviews Engels, Das römische Vorzeichenwesen (753–27 v. Chr.). Quellen, Terminologie, Kommentar, historische Entwicklung (215-218)
-Christoph Reusser reviews Mannino, Vasi attici nei contesti della Messapia (480–350 a.C.) (237-239)
-Cesare Letta reviews Criniti (ed.), ‘Veleiates’. Uomini, luoghi e memoriae dell' Appennino piacentino-parmense (253-255)
-Heather Vincent reviews Clarke, Looking at Laughter. Humor, Power, and Transgression in Roman Visual Culture, 100 B.C.–A.D. 250. (257-260)
-Michael H. Crawford, notice on Marrazzo, Romagnoli, Stazio, & Taliercio (edd.), Presenza e funzioni della moneta nelle chorai delle colonie greche dall' Iberia al Mar Nero. Atti del XII Convegno organizzato dall' Università ‘Federico II’ e dal Centro Internazionale di Studi Numismatici, Napoli, 16–17 giugno 2000 (307)

News for March 24, 2009: the weekly bric-a-brac

2009-03-22T16:46:00.010-04:00

The splendid-looking (anybody been?) exhibit 'Potere e Splendore. Gli antichi Piceni a Matelica,' which opened at Matelica, will be on display at Bologna's Museo Civico from 30 April to 13 September 2009. The exhibit's website is http://www.poteresplendore.it, and details on its manifestazione bolognese are here.

The Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Florence has a new partnership with the Getty, which will bring the Chimera of Arezzo (along with loans from Rome, Naples, Basel, New York, and Boston) to LA for an exhibition opening July 16. Also in the pipeline are exhibits of ancient bronzes and of Etruscan materials from the Florence collection (Artdaily; via the Cranky Professor).

The British Museum has been doing some housekeeping inside a 12th century portable altar, and found relics belonging to 39 different saints, including St. Benedict (Guardian; via Adrian Murdoch).

Greece returned to Italy two 11th c. CE tomb frescoes stolen from the Grotta delle Fornelle at Calvi (ancient Cales) in 1982 (ANSA; comments by David Gill)

Not strictly Italian, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were on its way there when it sank, and it's pretty cool besides: A Greek fisherman pulled up part of a late 2nd c. BCE bronze equestrian statue between Kos and Kalymnos off the coast of Asia Minor and turned it in (AP/New Observer):

The British Museum has been doing some housekeeping inside a 12th century portable altar, and found relics belonging to 39 different saints, including St. Benedict (Guardian; via Adrian Murdoch).

Gratuitous link of the month: "Bizarre Lobster-Sized Creature Was the Monster Predator of the Cambrian"

1a Rassegna del Cinema Archeologico a Trinitapoli

2009-03-18T13:31:00.003-04:00

If you happen to be in northern Puglia over the next few months, you might stop by Trinitapoli to take in a showing of their archaeological film series... but mostly I'm posting this because I happen to like the poster!
The original poster pdf is here, and the full program with info on the films is here (also a pdf).

Sexing Up the Antiquities Market?

2009-03-16T20:43:00.004-04:00

Over the past week or two, a certain antiquities gallery has begun sending out email updates titled "Can YOU find the antiquity?" with a link to an object for sale. The first object to be so treated was this pre-Dynastic Egyptian vessel; the photo showing it next to a pair of shapely female legs has since been removed, presumably to make way for number 2. The conceit, based on the responses provided-- e.g. "I couldn't see the antiquity and I stared at the picture for a good 10 minutes"; "This must be a joke; there is no antiquity in this picture"-- is that we are to be distracted by the other objet d'art present in the photo.

My objection is not to do with any notions of prudishness; the pictures involved are not terribly risqué. Rather, I object to promoting the sale of unprovenanced antiquities (I admit I don't know when the late William Bowmore, O.B.E., collected the piece) through association with attractive women. That's a clumsy way to put it, I know, but it'll have to do for now.

Perhaps it's something to do with the economy, I don't know. Are antiquities no longer sexy enough to sell on their own appeal? Are they slipping relative to fur coats (Carlos Picón wants one) and in need of a makeover?

Sabines and Peuceti(?)

2009-03-16T19:51:00.005-04:00

I've been on the road visiting grad schools lately, so I'm a bit behind, but here's some non-Google Earth-related news for a change...

An exhibition titled "I Sabini popolo d'Italia, dalla storia al mito" ('The Sabines, people of Italy, from history to myth') is opening at the Vittoriano on March 20, and will run until April 26. [IGN, Exibart]

A newly-discovered 5th-1st(?) century BCE site at Castellaneta (photo above) near Taranto, Puglia, has been put under the watch of the Guardia di Finanza. The 1600 sq. m site includes both habitation and burial, and has yielded sarcophagi, tombstones, and column fragments. The Soprintendenza area manager Teresa Schojer says there's no money to conduct further excavation. [ANSA, La Repubblica]

When on Google Earth, No. 10

2009-03-10T18:37:00.013-04:00

Q: What is When on Google Earth? A: It’s a game for archaeologists, or anybody else willing to have a go!

Q: How do you play it? A: Simple, you try to identify the site in the picture.

Q: Who wins? A: The first person to correctly identify the site, including its major period of occupation, wins the game.

Q: What does the winner get? A: The winner gets bragging rights and the chance to host the next When on Google Earth on his/her own blog!

ΠΟΤΕΝΓΟΥΓΕΛΟΓAΙΟΝΙΚΗΣ
#	Host:	Victor:	Site:	Period:
1.	Shawn Graham	Chuck Jones	Takht-i Jamshid / Persepolis terrace	Achaemenid period
2.	Chuck Jones	PDD	Church of Saint Simeon at Qalat Siman, Syria	5th-6th c. AD
2.1.	Chuck Jones	Paul Zimmerman	Qal’at al-Bahrain	16th c. AD
3.	Paul Zimmerman	Heather Baker	Baraqish (Yathill), Yemen	Minaean
4.	Heather Baker	Jason Ur	Mohenjo Daro	ca. 2600-1900 BC
5.	Jason Ur	Dan Diffendale	Monte Albán, Oaxaca, Mexico	1st-5th centuries CE
6.	Dan Diffendale	Claire of Geevor Mine	Segontium, Caernarfon, Wales	77ish to about 390 AD
7.	Claire of Geevor Mine	Ivan Cangemi	Carn Euny	ca. 500 BCE-100 CE
8.	Ivan Cangemi	Southie Sham	Monks Mound (Cahokia), Illinois USA	fl. 1050-1200
9.	Southie Sham	Dan Diffendale	Gergovia	fl. 1st c. BCE
10.	Dan Diffendale

When on Google Earth, no. 8

2009-03-06T09:46:00.003-05:00

Q: What is When on Google Earth?
A: It’s a game for archaeologists, or anybody else willing to have a go!

Q: How do you play it?
A: Simple, you try to identify the site in the picture.

Q: Who wins?
A: The first person to correctly identify the site, including its major period of occupation, wins the game.

Q: What does the winner get?
A: The winner gets bragging rights and the chance to host the next When on Google Earth on his/her own blog!

Like so much in archaeology, this game comes to us from our methodological cousins in geology. Shawn Graham adopted their game, and modified it for our use at whenonge #1. Chuck Jones had the first correct answer, and then hosted whenonge #2. The mysterious and elusive PDD got #2 right but never claimed his prize, so Chuck struck back with whenonge #2.1. Paul Zimmerman got the correct answer to #2.1 and hosted whenonge # 3. Heather Baker got the correct answer to #3 and hosted whenonge # 4, and Jason Ur won and hosted whenonge # 5. Dan Diffendale won that, and hosted whenonge #6 . Claire at the Geevor Mine won #6 and hosted #7, which was won by Ivan Cangemi. Since Ivan is without a blog of his own, I offered to host it here at Tria Corda. Be the first to correctly identify the site above and its major period of occupation in the comments below and you can host your own!

When on Google Earth, No. 6

2009-02-26T11:36:00.003-05:00

Q: What is When on Google Earth?
A: It’s a game for archaeologists.

Q: How do you play it?
A: Simple, you try to identify the site in the picture.

Q: Who wins?
A: The first person to correctly identify the site, including its major period of occupation, wins the game.

Q: What does the winner get?
A: The winner gets bragging rights and the chance to host the next When on Google Earth on his/her own blog!

Like so much in archaeology, this game comes to us from our methodological cousins in geology. Shawn Graham adopted their game, and modified it for our use at whenonge #1. Chuck Jones had the first correct answer, and then hosted whenonge #2. The mysterious and elusive PDD got #2 right but dropped the ball and never claimed his prize, so Chuck struck back with whenonge #2.1. Paul Zimmerman got the correct answer to #2.1 and hosted whenonge # 3. Heather Baker got the correct answer to #3 and hosted whenonge # 4, and Jason Ur won that round. His challenge of whenonge # 5 was over at AWBG, and I won that, so here we are... be the first to correctly identify the site above and its major period of occupation in the comments below and you can host your own!

In bocca al lupo!

From the Italian Press

2009-01-18T15:56:00.004-05:00

A bunch of Italian news over the past few days; since we're still catching up, I'll just direct you to David Meadows' list at Rogue Classicism, "From the Italian Press."

One Steak with Catchup

2009-01-15T21:27:00.008-05:00

Finally made it home from that little AIA/APA shindig in Philadelphia... here's a wrap-up of what happened while we were conferring.

The Soprintendenza di Bari is digging at S. Severo near Foggia in the Apulian Tavoliere, in an area previously targeted by tombaroli. Among the finds was a 4th century BCE tomb containing a lower jawbone, a bit of an upper jawbone, and two bronze spearpoints -- the 'Daunian warrior' of the headlines. (ANSA, TeleRadioErre)

Three "Crime Beat" Stories thanks to SAFE:

The Palermo Carabinieri have arrested a man for attempting to sell on Ebay more than 500 artifacts looted from sites of numerous periods in Sicily. (Business Week)
The Italian crackdown on looting is having an effect: the value of stolen or looted objects recovered in 2008 was more than double the value of such objects recovered in 2007. But the number of illegal digs in Italy increased by 15 percent, to a total of 238. (ArtInfo) ...of course, it's hard to say whether in fact the actual number of clandestine excavations increased, or whether the Carabinieri are just getting better at finding them.
And, finally, the repatriations go both ways: Italy will return 3800 artifacts, mostly coins, stolen from Bulgaria and recovered in Verona (Sofia Echo). Nathan T. Elkins adds much more to the story at Numismatics and Archaeology...

I see that Past Horizons is now selling trowels from Battiferro, so you don't have to order direct from Italy anymore...

Finally, Jovanotti was King of Italy in 2008 -- at least as regards record sales. You know you love Jovanotti.

AJA 113.1

2009-01-07T13:07:00.002-05:00

The latest issue of the American Journal of Archaeology (113.1, 2009) is out, and it's chock full of good stuff. Three articles pertain to Italian pottery of the 5th through 1st centuries BCE. First and foremost for the purview of Tria Corda is T.H. Carpenter's "Prolegomenon to the Study of Apulian Red-Figure Pottery" (39-56; Abstract), in my opinion a must-read.

Carpenter's analysis offers a fresh alternative to the (art historical) orthodoxy represented by the work of the late A.D. Trendall, and places the vases back into their "native" context—at least as far as possible for an object class that has suffered so much from looting: "To use the term 'Hellenized' for [the Italic] people, who had been trading with the Greeks for several hundred years, is meaningless unless the specific meaning is that they were Hellenized in the same sense that mainland Greeks were orientalized in the seventh century" (p.36). Recent scholarly activity has gone far in overturning colonial ideologies both ancient and modern, e.g. in the work of Edward Herring (for a good introduction to current trends, see his "Daunians, Peucetians and Messapians? Societies and Settlements in South-East Italy," in Bradley, Isayev & Riva, (eds.), Ancient Italy: Regions without Boundaries, Exeter 2007, 268-294); that such a well-known class of artifact had escaped such treatment up to now may be a function of the eminence of Trendall in the field. Carpenter also dissociates Taranto from its traditional role as producer of or major influence on Apulian vases, especially with regard to theatrical scenes, and refutes the notion that some scenes on Apulian vases represent images from "Orphic" religion.

Elsewhere, J. Theodore Peña and Myles McCallum discuss evidence for both the pre-Roman and Roman phases of the city in "The Production and Distribution of Pottery at Pompeii: A Review of the Evidence; Part 1, Production" (57-79; Abstract). Notable is the evidence for a Black Gloss Ware pottery production facility dating before the 2nd half of the 2nd century BCE, in the Vicolo Storto Nuovo.

Roman Roth—whose dissertation, published as Styling Romanisation: Pottery and Society in Central Italy (Cambridge 2007), treated Black Gloss Ware in Volterra and Capena—discusses the social implications of the replication of specific ceramic urn shapes in stone during the 2nd century BCE in "From Clay to Stone: Monumentality and Traditionalism in Volterran Urns" (39-56; Abstract).

Hélène Verreyke and Frank Vermeulen report on some results of the Potenza Valley Survey Project in "Tracing Late Roman Rural Occupation in Adriatic Central Italy" (103-120; Abstract), in a region (Picenum) better known for its Iron Age inhabitants.

Nothing explicitly to do with either pottery or Italy, but Stephen V. Tracy and Constantin Papaodysseus' note on "The Study of Hands on Greek Inscriptions: The Need for a Digital Approach" (99-102; Abstract) is very exciting--it means that we can soon replace epigraphists with computers... but seriously, this technique has a lot of potential. I wonder if it could be used to compare the work of known forgers with doubtful inscriptions?

Etruria in Philadelphia, Post AIA/APA

2009-01-07T13:03:00.002-05:00

If you're still in town the day after the Annual Meeting wraps up, or if you're just lucky enough to live in Philadelphia, be sure to check out the following lectures on Monday the 12th of January:

Alba Frascarelli: Lost History Rediscovered? The Campo della Fiera Excavations and Livy's Fanum Voltumnae

The twelve peoples of ancient Etruria were said to meet at the shrine of their most important god, the Fanum Voltumnae outside the city of Volsinii, now recognized as modern Orvieto. Only recently have excavations by the University of Macerata begun to identify this all-important site of so much history. Dr. Frascarelli, one of the excavators, will present the latest findings.

Claudio Bizzarri: American Archaeological Projects in Etruria: The Excavations at Poggio Civitelle and Monterubiaglio.

The co-director of joint US-Italian excavations in Tuscany presents the results of this year's campaigns conducted by Florida State University, the University of Oklahoma and St. Anselm College.

Monday, January 12th

Classroom 2

University of Pennsylvania Museum

6pm

Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Canosa

2009-01-06T13:05:00.003-05:00

Happy new year. Bidding has opened (and closed?—I don't pretend to know anything about how this works) for the construction of a new National Archaeological Museum (not to be confused with the existing Museo Civico) in Canosa di Puglia. The planned complex will incorporate the remains of the Baptistery of S. Giovanni with its attached basilicas of Sta. Maria and S. Salvatore (as seen in the plan). The entire project runs to the tune of 16 million euro.

[From CanosaWeb, and again]

Update on Daunian stele in Emilia-Romagna

2008-12-31T12:30:00.003-05:00

Last year, it was reported that excavation for a shopping center on the outskirts of Cattolica in Emilia-Romagna had turned up a 6th century BCE Daunian stele [Soprintendenza BA dell'E-R, Archeoblog]. Lithographic and pollen analyses now prove its origin in the area of Manfredonia in the Tavoliere of Puglia, as expected for such monuments. The Soprintendenza reports that it was not found in situ, but is probably to be connected with illegal landfills in the area, dumped in the 1960s or 70s; the stone appears to bear the mark of an excavator arm [Manfredonia.net].

7th Century BCE Necropolis at Spoleto, Umbria

2008-12-29T13:07:00.005-05:00

Rescue excavations in Spoleto (PG), Umbria, have turned up tombs dating from the 7th and early 6th centuries BCE. The ten inhumation pit graves were discovered in advance of the construction of 18 housing units in the Piazza d'Armi [Google Maps].

[Terni in Rete, RAI]

Some notes on the votive deposit at Campoverde

2008-12-24T00:27:00.008-05:00

There seems to be some confusion. There's been a lot of coverage (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, IGN/Adnkronos, GMA News/AP, Winston-Salem Journal/AP, Discovery Channel, etc.; blogs: ArchaeoBlog, ArchaeoBlog (again), Archaeology in Europe, Looting Matters, Rogue Classicism, Tria Corda, Tria Corda (again), etc.) of the votive deposit apparently dug up by a farmer in Campoverde near Aprilia in Lazio. The site, at a certain 'Laghetto del Monsignore', dates to the 7th-6th centuries BCE, and was unknown to the scientific world ("sconosciuto al mondo scientifico": thus MiBAC; some sources add a gratuitous "assolutamente"). And yet...

A votive deposit was discovered at the spring of Laghetto del Monsignore, on the Via Mediana in Campoverde, in 1968 (Fulminante 2003: 226, note 409, with references). And, in 1977-1978...

"...the Archaeological Soprintendenza per il Lazio rescued a fair quantity of miniature and normal sized ancient artefacts from a small lake with a spring at its heart, today called the 'Laghetto del Monsignore'. These artefacts, mostly ceramic vessels but also a few bronze sheet figurines, fibulae, glass and amber pearls, constitutes probably only a very small portion of a much larger quantity of ancient votive objects dedicated at the spring. The spring at Campoverde must be considered an open votive deposit, the gifts were directly thrown into the water and they remained there for a long time as can be concluded from the streaks of scale (limonite) on the little pots. The spring may be called a 'deposito volontari' or favissa. At the moment of the rescue-excavation the area already had been illegally plundered, but still a few hundred small votive vessels could be stored. Today, only the here published miniatures are available for further study because robbers struck again in the storerooms of the Soprintendenza per il Lazio at Tivoli." (Kleibrink 1997: 441)

This must be the same spring-fed lake with the same name and the same types and dates of finds -- and apparently the same problems with looting. None of the sources I've seen on the latest, 2008, operation mention the earlier discovery or its circumstances, at least directly. The Discovery article's lede hints at it—"Italian police have found the long-sought 'treasure of Satricum' in a farmer's bookshelf"—but goes no further. I don't know what, if anything, came of the earlier robbery, or whether the objects retrieved in the farmer's cabinet are to be understood as the material robbed in 1978 and thus "long-sought".

References:

Crescenzi, L. 1978. "Campoverde." Archeologia Laziale 1:51-55 [non vidi]

Fulminante, F. 2003. Le sepolture principesche nel Latium Vetus.

Guidi, A., 1980 "Luoghi di Culto dell'Età del Bronzo Finale e della Prima Età del Ferro nel Lazio Meridionale." Archeologia Laziale 3:148-155. [non vidi]

Kleibrink, M. 1997. "The miniature votive pottery dedicated at the 'Laghetto del Monsignore', Campoverde." Palaeohistoria 1997-1998, vol. 39-40, pp. 441-512 (abstract).

Italian Updates, December 19, 2008

2008-12-19T17:27:00.006-05:00

From MiBAC, more on the illegal excavations in the sanctuary at Campoverde near Aprilia in Lazio, with photos and a video slide-show (~2 min., no sound) of the looted landscape, plus a video segment from a local news station. At the same press conference, the Carabinieri displayed the recovered marble heads that had been stolen from an apartment in Rome while its residents were drugged, as well as a mosaic from the catacombs of St. Domitilla that somebody had tried to sell on an online auction site. Of note: between January 1 and September 30, there were 53 illegal excavations discovered in Italy, or almost six a month -- and that's not counting the ones that haven't yet been, or won't be, discovered.

At Cattolica in Emilia-Romagna, there's an exhibit of artifacts (right) from a 3rd century BCE deposit discovered in 2004 at the mouth of the Tavollo during the construction of a new dock. The exhibit, "VETUS LITUS. Archeologia della foce. Una discarica di materiali ceramici del III secolo a.C. alla darsena di Cattolica lungo il Tavollo," will run from 19 December 2008 to 3 May 2009 at three locations in Cattolica: the Museo della Regina, the Galleria Comunale S. Croce, and the Sala Lavatoio.

John Muccigrosso blogs a newly cleaned and identified silver quinarius of Marc Antony from the Drew excavations in Umbria this past summer.

In Ruvo di Puglia yesterday, there was a conference on the topic of the famous Tomb of the Dancers discovered in that city in 1833 (and accordingly now to be found in the National Museum in Naples), with a presentation by Dr. Giuseppina Gadaleta, who wrote a book on the subject in 2002.

Finally, it seems there's some connection between live presepi (Nativity scenes) and ancient tombs this year. In Canosa, the D'Ambra Hypogeum will be open to the public during the presepe vivente; in Sutri, the actors will actually be inside the Etruscan tombs (seen below) near the amphitheater...

CC: Originally uploaded to flickr
by sunshinecity

Italian Updates

2008-12-18T13:46:00.006-05:00

Some 4th century BCE coins from Hyria and Nola have found a home in the Nola Museum, seven years after being donated by an American. Among the 15 silver coins are five didrachms, two each from Hyria and Nola, and one from Neapolis.
[from IlNolano.it]

(More of) a Late Antique mosaic has been discovered in the crypt of the cathedral of Reggio Emilia. The polychrome mosaic extends over 13 square meter and dates between the 4th and 5th centuries CE.
[from Archaeogate]

A farmer in Lazio has been arrested for trying to sell off antiquities [see photo above] he dug up from a 7th-6th century BCE sanctuary near Aprilia, south of Rome.

[JournalNow, AdnKronos]

The discovery of the Greek necropolis at Himera has hit the Anglophone news.
[National Geographic]

Italian Antiquities Bust in Geneva

2008-12-17T19:14:00.003-05:00

The Cultural Heritage Protection unit of the Carabinieri has confiscated 974 objects in two warehouses in Geneva. The pieces date between the 7th century BCE and the 4th century CE and come from Apulia, Lazio, Sardinia, and Magna Graecia. They include five loutrophoroi, a squatting Venus in Parian marble, 30 volute kraters and two bronze hydriae. The total value of the objects was estimated at € 25 million. The smuggling ring, based in Liechtenstein, had been operating since the mid 1990s, and was managed by a Swiss citizen and a Japanese national resident in England, both of whom have been arrested for receiving and exporting antiquities.

[From MelitoOnLine.it]

Apulia-Spain Antiquities Smuggling Route Exposed

2008-12-12T17:17:00.003-05:00

The Cultural Heritage Protection branch of the Carabinieri, in conjunction with its Spanish counterpart, has exposed an antiquities trafficking route leading from clandestine excavations in Puglia, in the provinces of Bari and Foggia, via Valencia, Spain, to enter the market in a collaborating gallery in Barcelona.

Among the pieces seized in Barcelona and Valencia are a 1.00 m high marble torso and 131 ceramics, including red-figure bell kraters, hydriae, lekythoi, volute kraters, askoi, skyphoi, kylikes, and terracotta statuettes, the lot valued at €1,000,000. (The list also includes something called an 'asphageon,' which neither I nor anyone else currently in the vicinity can make sense of -- ideas?)

[Info and image from MIBAC]

Another Etruscan DNA Study...

2008-12-04T09:20:00.002-05:00

David Meadows at rogueclassicism points us to yet another article studying the DNA of those ever-enigmatic (sigh) "Etruscans" and attempting to show links to Anatolia:

F. Brisighelli et al., The Etruscan timeline: a recent Anatolian connection
European Journal of Human Genetics advance online publication 3 December 2008; doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2008.224

I will make just a couple of comments on the short report. They sampled the mitochondrial DNA of 258 modern Tuscans (from Arezzo, Chiusi, Collevecchio, Elba, Magliano Sabina, Monte Fiascone, Pitigliano, Tarquinia, Tuscania, and Vulci), of which 63 were "compatible with typical Near Eastern haplogroups," "show[ed] ambiguous haplogroup affiliation," or could provide "some phylogeographic information at the control region level." Only in the title and the historical introduction, referencing Herodotus, do the authors draw any specifically Anatolian connection; the science simply indicates the presence of haplogroups with generally Near Eastern counterparts. I guess Anatolia is an inference from the Father of Lies?

Brisighelli et al. point out a relatively high frequency of "the typical Near Eastern U7 haplogroup" in the samples from Elba. Within these samples they identify a new sub-branch of the U7a2 haplogroup, which haplogroup is known from only two other individuals, a Pakistani and an Andalusian. The amount of variation in this new sub-branch, U7a2a, is then used to calculate the arrival of a single founder on the island in the range 1.10.1 to 2.30.4 kya B.P., that is, 450 BCE 400 years to 850 CE 100 years. This elicited David's comment, "... not sure about the dating there; even on the 'outside' end, it seems a bit short, no?" The authors suggest that this is "compatible with the Etrurian culture (9th-1st century BC)." Intensive working of the Elban mines began in the 6th century BCE; I don't know much about the earlier history of the island. But with a time span as wide as that, it seems just as probable that the haplogroup founder on Elba was a Byzantine or a Saracen... and that's all I'm going to say about that.

The Italic APA, 2009

2008-12-04T09:01:00.002-05:00

The 2009 Philadelphia APA Program (pdf) is now available. As expected, it looks like slim pickins for the Italicist...

Friday

11:15 A.M. – 1:15 P.M. SECTION 10 Grand Ballroom K
Greek Religion
Rick Hamilton, Presider

3. Mary R. Bachvarova, Willamette University
The Transmission of Liver Divination from the Near East to Greece and Italy (15 mins.)

Saturday

11:15 A.M. – 1:15 P.M. SECTION 14 Independence II
Greek and Latin Linguistics
Sponsored by the Society for the Study of Greek and Latin Languages
Jeremy Rau and Benjamin Fortson IV, Organizers
1. Rebecca Sears, University of Michigan
Old Latin Stress in the Scipio Epitaphs: An Alternate Accentual Scansion (30 mins.)

1:30 P.M. – 4:00 P.M. SECTION 38 Independence I
The Etruscan Objects Speak: New Linguistic and Socio-Historical Approaches to
Etruscan Epigraphy
Joint APA/AIA Session
Hilary Becker and Rex Wallace, Organizers

1. Rex Wallace, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Alphabet, Orthography, and Paleography at Poggio Civitate (Murlo) (15 mins.)
2. Enrico Benelli, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Inscriptions on Tiles from Chiusi: Archaeological and Epigraphical Notes (15 mins.)
3. Margaret Watmough & Judith Swaddling, The British Museum
Surveying the Etruscan Inscriptions on Objects in the British Museum’s Collections (15 mins.)
4. Hilary Becker, The College of William and Mary
Public, Private, and Clan Property in Etruria (15 mins.)
5. Gary Farney, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
Lucumo to Lucius: Etruscans with Both Etruscan and Latin Names on Bilingual Inscriptions from
Etruria (15 mins.)
Larissa Bonfante, New York University
Respondent

7:00 P.M. – 9:00 P.M. Reception Sponsored by the Etruscan Foundation

Sunday

1:45 P.M. – 4:15 P.M. SECTION 59 Independence II
Coins and Identity
Sponsored by the Friends of Numismatics
Jane DeRose Evans, Organizer

1. Rabun Taylor, The University of Texas at Austin
Their Neighbor’s Keeper: A Neapolitan Coin for Capua (15 mins.)

Venetic, Roman and Medieval Finds in Vicenza

2008-11-30T02:41:00.003-05:00

Restoration work in the Corte dei Bissari by the Basilica Palladiana in Vicenza (Roman Vicentia) has led to the discovery of two Roman structures and a section of road, belonging to a previously unknown cardo. The Roman remains were found beneath "some residual Medieval layers" -- about which, unfortunately, no more is written.

The interior wall of a 3rd-4th century CE Roman house, preserved for a length of 9.70 m, divides two rooms, one paved in cocciopesto, the other originally mosaicked, of which only a few tesserae remain. To the south of this building is a second, whose details remain sketchy. Both buildings front a section of a north-south road (cardo), of which are preserved three curb blocks for a sidewalk ca. 1.00 m wide.

In addition to the remains of the Roman city, archaeologists found beaten clay floors belonging to the pre-Roman Venetic settlement.

[La Repubblica, Comune di Vicenza, Storia Romana]

Discoveries at Modena both Licit and Il-

2008-11-29T16:44:00.002-05:00

Excavations at Modena in Emilia-Romagna have brought to light a Roman ceramic kiln area and waster heaps dating to the first centuries CE. The discovery occurred in the course of construction of a basement for a new building on the Viale Reiter (see on Google Maps), outside the ancient city walls.

A Roman level was found at a depth of 5.50 m below a thick alluvial deposit. Large pits were found filled with kiln wasters, tile kiln elements, and general Roman trash including marble, plaster, stucco, mosaic tesserae, ceramics, coins and metal objects. A large pit, probably a clay quarry, produced misfired cooking ware, bricks, and amphorae, as well as kiln spacers and architectural elements. The pit containted ceramics of different productions, including Dressel type 2-4 amphorae, floor tiles, varnished jugs and bottles, thin-walled ware, North Italian terra sigillata cups, as well as over 100 Firmalampen (Factory Lamps) with the producers' stamps Fortis, Stabili, Communis, Phoetaspi, and Eucarpi.

Also found were a terracotta statuette of Hercules and the Erymanthian Boar, and 14 lead sling bullets, attributable to the Bellum Mutinensis of 43 BCE (I can't make out any inscriptions from the photograph).

[Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Emilia-Romagna, with many good photos; ItalyMag]

On the other side of the law, two collectors from Castelfranco Emilia (Modena) have been arrested and accused of illegal possession of antiquities, including a very fine javelin point and spear head, a 6th century BCE votive terracotta from Magna Graecia, Gothic and Lombard buckles, and Republican Roman coins.

[Il Nuovo Giornale di Modena, via David Gill at Looting Matters]

7th century Etruscan village discovered near Parma

2008-11-20T22:11:00.003-05:00

An Etruscan settlement dating to the 7th century BCE has been discovered near an industrial park on the outskirts of Parma. The finds include houses built on a network of channels for collecting rainwater, a kiln for bucchero production, and numerous home furnishings. Among the most recent finds is a fine red-varnished jug dating to the 5th century BCE. The settlement was inhabited for 150 years before the Etruscan foundation of Parma. The settlers came from Chiusi or Perugia, according to the archaeologists in charge.

(You can see the area, between Via Forlanini and Strada Uguzzolo, on Google Maps. I'm not sure if those are bulldozer marks, cropmarks, or what...)

[From Parmaok.it]

18 Byzantine Tombs near Campomarino, Molise

2008-11-12T16:01:00.003-05:00

Excavations by the Archaeological Soprintendenza for Molise and the Università degli Studi del Molise have brought to light 18 Byzantine tombs in the neighborhood of Marinelle Vecchie, just outside Campomarino on the coast of Molise. Such a discovery is so far unique in the area. Lombard presence is known in the region, but there is little other evidence for Byzantine activity in the 6th century.

Among the finds were amphorae and marbles with connections to Palestine, North Africa, Egypt and the opposite shore of the Adriatic, along with a Christian inscription dated to the 6th century CE. It is only the third such inscription known from Molise, according to Gianfranco De Benedittis of the Università degli Studi del Molise in Campobasso. The two previous date to the 4th and 5th centuries.

Work will continue with the hopes of locating a settlement connected with the necropolis. The excavation began a year ago, after a six-year study of the area with ground-penetrating radar, and was sponsored by the Regional Assessor for Culture Sandro Arco and the town of Campomarino.

(Via Il Tempo, Primapaginamolise.it, Termoli Online, Yahoo! News and Il Sannio Quotidiano)

Gabii Project pages

2008-11-10T16:05:00.003-05:00

The much-anticipated Gabii Project has had a blog since July, Lapis Gabinus, which I think I've so far failed to mention. The project webpage was announced in October. They're looking for staff for the field season June 15 through July 31, 2009.

The Annotated Italic AIA, no. 2

2008-11-10T15:17:00.002-05:00

(Part 2 of 2)

Saturday, January 10 at the 2009 AIA Annual Meeting presents a quandary of unfortunate cross-schedulings, viz. 4A: Current work in Pre-Roman and Roman Italy and 4D: Roman Cult and Ritual (with at least two Italicky papers), both from 8:30 to 11 AM, and 6A: The Ideology and Innovation of Monumental Architecture in Etruria and Early Rome, 6C: The Etruscan Objects Speak: New Linguistic and Socio-Historical Approaches to Etruscan Epigraphy, and 6G: Ancient Volsinii (Orvieto): Discoveries and Rediscoveries (workshop), all three from 1:30 to 4:30 PM. Architecture or epigraphy or Vieto? It seems one must choose.

Session: 4A: Current work in Pre-Roman and Roman Italy
Saturday, January 10, 8:30 AM - 11:00 AM

1. The Settlement of Ripacandida (Potenza, Italy) between Early Iron Age and Seventh Century B.C.
Gianfranco Carollo, Università degli Studi della Basilicata
2. A New Plan of an Ancient Italian City: Gabii Revealed
Jeffrey A. Becker, Boston University, Marcello Mogetta, The University of Michigan, and Nicola Terrenato, The University of Michigan
3. Excavations at Castel Viscardo, Italy: Field Reports 2006-2008
Silvia Simonetti (Field Director), Claudio Bizzarri (co-Director), David B. George (co-Director, Saint Anselm College)
4. Recent Excavations at Poggio Civitate (Murlo) – 2004-2008
Jason Bauer, Poggio Civitate Archaeological Project and Anthony Tuck, The University of Massachusetts at Amherst
5. First Season of Excavation at the Vicus ad Martis Tudertium
John Muccigrosso, Drew University
6. Decor, Destruction, and Renewal at Ostia in the Third–Fourth Centuries C.E.: Excavation of the Palazzo Imperiale, 2008
Joanne Spurza, Hunter College of The City University of New York
7. The Evidence for Linen as an Important Samnite Craft and Trade Good
China P. Shelton, Boston University

Session: 4D: Roman Cult and Ritual
Saturday, January 10, 8:30 AM - 11:00 AM

1. Italo-Hellenistic Sanctuaries of Pentrian Samnium: Questions of Accessibility
Rachel E. Van Dusen, University at Buffalo
...
3. (De-)Constructing Etruscan Cult Practice: New Perspectives on Etruscan Sacrificial Representations
Mareile Haase, University of Toronto

Session: 6A: The Ideology and Innovation of Monumental Architecture in Etruria and Early Rome
Saturday, January 10, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Organizer: Dr. Michael L. Thomas, The University of Texas at Austin

1. Defining Monumentality in Archaic Etruria: The Case of the Etruscan palazzi
Gretchen E. Meyers, Franklin and Marshall College
2. Straw to Stone, Huts to Houses: Transitions in Building Practices and Society in Protohistoric Latium
Elizabeth Colantoni, University of Rochester
3. The Performance of Death: Rituals of Display and the Emergence of Community Identity in Early Etruria
Anthony Tuck, University of Massachusetts Amherst
4. Monumentalization of the Etruscan Round Moulding
Nancy A. Winter, Wolfson College, Oxford (UK)
5. The Colossal Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus and Roman Architectural History
John N. N. Hopkins, The University of Texas at Austin / American Academy in Rome
6. On the Introduction of Stone Entablatures in Republican Temples in Rome
Penelope J. E. Davies, The University of Texas at Austin

Session: 6C: The Etruscan Objects Speak: New Linguistic and Socio-Historical Approaches to Etruscan Epigraphy (Joint AIA/APA Colloquium)
Saturday, January 10, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM

Organizer: Dr. Hilary Becker, The College of William & Mary

1. Lucumo to Lucius: Etruscans with Both Etruscan and Latin Names on Bilingual Inscriptions from Etruria
Gary Farney, Rutgers University
2. Surveying the Etruscan Inscriptions on Objects in the British Museum’s Collections
Margaret Watmough and Judith Swaddling, British Museum
3. Alphabet, Orthography, and Paleography at Poggio Civitate (Murlo)
Rex Wallace, University of Massachusetts Amherst
4. Public, Private, and Clan Property in Etruria
Hilary Becker, The College of William & Mary
5. Inscriptions on Tiles from Chiusi: Archaeological and Epigraphical Notes
Enrico Benelli, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

Session: 6G: Ancient Volsinii (Orvieto): Discoveries and Rediscoveries (workshop)
Saturday, January 10, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM
Organizer: Prof. Ann Blair Brownlee, University of Pennsylvania Museum

The Annotated Italic AIA, no. 1

2008-11-10T14:34:00.003-05:00

The preliminary schedule of the AIA 2009 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia has been posted. There's a heap of interesting titles on Italy roughly B.C.E., many of which I've picked out here for convenience. This is part 1 of 2.

Session 1D: South Italy and Sicily
Friday, January 9, 8:30 AM - 11:00 AM

1. The Marsala Hinterland Survey: Results of the 2008 Season
Emma Blake, Tufts University and Robert Schon, University of Arizona
2. Athenian Pottery, Metal Vessels, and Local Taste at Morgantina
Justin St. P. Walsh, Louisiana State University and Carla Antonaccio, Duke University
3. Harbor Facility Submerged Off Ancient Locri-Epizefiri, Southern Italy, Discovered by Geophysical Survey
Jean-Daniel Stanley, Smithsonian Institution, Jenny M. Tennent, University of Saskatchewan, Patrick E. Hart, US Geological Survey, and Maria Pia Bernasconi, Universitá della Calabria
4. Agency and the Articulation of Cult Activity in the Early Greek Colonization of Sicily and Southern Italy
Jennifer L. Boger, Tufts University
5. Stelae from the Sanctuary of Demeter Malophoros in Selinus
Allaire B. Stallsmith, Towson University
6. Navigating Multi-cultural Relationships in Western Sicily during the Greek Archaic Period
Jeanette Cooper, Independent Scholar
7. Votive Offerings from Lucanian Sanctuaries between the Fourth Century B.C. and the Age of Romanization: Changes and Continuity
Ilaria Battiloro, University of Alberta

Session: 2C: Prehistoric Stone Tools
Friday, January 9, 11:15 AM - 1:15 PM

...
3. Bronze Age Obsidian Trade in Sardinia (Italy): The Use of Monte Arci Subsources at Duos Nuraghes and Other Sites
Robert Tykot, University of South Florida

Session: 2I: Poster Session
Friday, January 9, 11:15 AM - 3:00 PM

8. Light Frame Architecture at Poggio Civitate: A Comparison of Elite and Non-Elite Domiciles
Andrea Rodriguez, University of Florida, Andrew Carroll, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Anthony Tuck, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
12. Synchopation and Synaesthic Response to the Temple of Apollo at Syracuse
Brian E. McConnell, Florida Atlantic University
14. An Early Roman Kiln Site in the Metapontine Chora: The New Excavations at Pizzica Pantanello
Adam Hyatt and Keith Swift, Institute of Classical Archaeology, University of Texas at Austin
23. Italian Prehistory and the Emergence of the Civic Museum
Elisabetta Cova, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
26. First Season of Excavation at the Vicus ad Martis Tudertium
John Muccigrosso, Drew University

Session: 3B: In the Shadow of Vesuvius
Friday, January 9, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM

Session: 3H: Gold Medal Symposium: Archaeological Approaches to the Study of Early States
Friday, January 9, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM
1. Weak States and Weakening Paradigms. Against Teleology in Roman State and Empire Formation
Nicola Terrenato, University of Michigan

Of Plastics and Potsherds

2008-11-09T18:17:00.004-05:00

I note a recent article in Science, "Bioactive Contaminants Leach from Disposable Laboratory Plasticware" (discussion at Wired). I wonder, not being so chemically attuned, whether this is so different from the fact that ceramics shouldn't be kept in plastic bags if they're to be submitted to organic residue analysis.

For discussion, see two pages every practicing field archaeologist should read, "Protocols: Ceramic Artefacts and Skeletal Material," in Archaeology Meets Science: Biomolecular Investigations in Bronze Age Greece, eds. Y. Tzedakis, H. Martlew, M.K. Jones, Oxbow 2008 [ISBN 1-84217-238-7, WorldCat] 236-7, the upshot of which is: when handling ceramics, don't use plastic bags, don't use plastic gloves (if gloveless, use "hands that are free of potions and lotions"), and don't wash with acid.

"Archaeologists can render science useless unless as excavators, they handle their material in the right way...
No one, not any archaeologist or excavator, can be criticised for the way ceramic or skeletal material was excavated, cleaned, or stored, until contaminants started appearing in the organic residue results and were traced back to their sources. Excavators did what they thought was the best thing, and it was, until science came along and changed the rules.
From now on, however, there is no way an archaeologist can escape condemnation if he/she wilfully allows information that has been stored inside a pot or a bone, to be destroyed.
It is now an absolute obligation for excavators to think about the future application of science to archaeological subjects, and to prepare and archive artifacts accordingly, i.e. in such a way that the chemical signals that have survived hundreds or thousands of years, are not contaminated or destroyed through thoughtless handling and storage."

(And to make this post strictly relevant to the blog as a whole... pages 273-280 of the above-quoted book describe organic residue analyses of a Canaanite jar; a Myceneaean Vapheio cup, crocus-painted askos, and pithos; and local carinated cup and barbotine jug from the settlement of Punta d'Alaca on the island of Vivara near the Bay of Naples. Among the residues identified were vegetable oil flavored with a woody herb/bark, herb-flavored unresinated wine, olive oil flavored with an herbal extract, and an herbal mixture possibly flavoring milk or cream.)

Italic Webcast!

2008-10-23T20:07:00.002-04:00

This isn't a proper summer wrap-up post (since, among other things, it's no longer summer), but I wanted to draw your immediate attention to:

Communicating Identity in Italic Iron Age Communities
International Symposium
23-24 October 2008
Copenhagen

which will be (and I suppose already half has been) webcast with a live feed, and is supposed to be available as a podcast after the fact.

For more info
Abstracts

For the live feed (QuickTime required)

Summer diggings

2008-06-23T13:09:00.002-04:00

The summer fieldwork season at Mt. Lykaion begins tomorrow, so that's where I'll be for the next six weeks. I'll be the (pre-)Romanist sub rosa.

The official project website:
http://lykaionexcavation.org/

The official project blog, which will be updated more regularly, by yours truly among others:
http://mountlykaion.wordpress.com/

Italian Round-up

2008-06-07T16:29:00.003-04:00

Some gobbets for the skewer:

Italian police recover 3500 artifacts looted from "an Etruscan site near Rome." (IHT)

The 8th Roman Archaeology Conference, 3-5 April 2009 at the University of Michigan, will include several sessions of immediate interest to the discerning Italicist:
-The Late Republican period in "native" Southern Italy
Organizer: Fabio Colivicchi (Queen's University)
-Kings, Clans and Conflict: Italic Warfare in the first millennium BC
Organizers: Hilary Becker (Washington & Lee University) and Jeremy Armstrong (University of Auckland)
-Current Approaches to the Archaeology of first millennium BC Italian Urbanism
Organizers: Jeffrey Becker (Boston University) and Elizabeth Robinson (University of North Carolina)
-Comparative issues in the archaeology of the Roman rural landscape, site classification between survey, excavation and historical categories
Organizers: Peter A.J. Attema (University of Groningen) and Günther Schoerner (Friedrich-Schiller Universität, Jena)

(Session abstracts available here)

There's some novita' at the Center for Etruscan Studies' website. They're beginning to post back-issues of the journal Etruscan Studies, starting with Volume 8, 2001 (confusingly labeled 2008). Some of the links are misdirected at the moment, to the host bepress.com rather than http://scholarworks.umass.edu...

Excavations on the site of a Late Antique villa in Spello, Umbria have uncovered a mosaic (Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria, with photo)

Michele Stefanile reports at Archeologia Subacquea on the supposed discovery of Roman Misenum in a Google Earth satellite image, but remains skeptical. You can see the area in question also via Google Maps here. Stefanile's skepticism is well-founded; compare the rectilinear features that appear in the satellite image further east in the Bay of Naples. I bet you could find a similar pattern many other places around the world due to imaging artifacts. I suppose it's a bit like seeing Jesus in your toast.

There are some nice photos of the Terme Ruler at EternallyCool.net.

Isernia's Fontana Fraterna

2008-05-23T11:14:00.007-04:00

The Poste Italiane have issued a new stamp to represent Molise, to accompany Valle d'Aosta, Veneto, and Sicilia in their "Regioni d'Italia" series. Its design features the so-called "Fontana Fraterna," a well-known monument in the city of Isernia with an interesting history. It was supposedly built in the 14th century by the Rampiniani family in honor of Pope Celestine V, a native of Isernia, incorporating Roman stonework from the family tomb of the Pontii family (of Judean procuratorship fame). Of these suppositions, only the fact that it incorporates Roman spolia can be verified.

The idea that the fragmentary inscription ---]AE PONT[--- could be read famili]ae Pont[iae was disposed of by Mommsen, who read it Nerv]ae pont[ifici (CIL IX, 2636). M. Buonocore suggests that it need not pertain to Nerva, but could refer to a prominent local family.

Franco Valente, in his intriguing article "La Fraterna di Isernia, la fontana dei misteri," traces the long and winding history of the fountain. The most certain fact is that current fountain was rebuilt "exactly," albeit in a new location, after its destruction during the Second World War.

Earlier than that, the going gets dicey. The fountain, or a fountain, has been destroyed by earthquakes, rebuilt, moved, expanded, incorporated bits from other fountains, moved again -- maybe. It bears a curious Latin inscription on one end, which Valente dates to the 13th century and reads:
fons iste / cuius posit(ores) / Rampiniani / me parabis

I'm not convinced that the inscription must have originally referred to this particular fountain. Given the circumstances, I'm not sure where I would draw the line between this fountain and a different fountain. Is it really one fountain suffering numerous vicissitudes, undergoing numerous reconstructions, or a family of fountains, genetically linked as it were by incorporating material from predecessors?

(Stamp news source: primapaginamolise.it; Fountain history, F. Valente, 'La Fraterna di Isernia, la fontana dei misteri'; Fountain photos: my Flickr photos)

A new gate at Amelia, Umbria

2008-05-20T15:37:00.003-04:00

They knew a thing or two
about masonry, those etruscans
Originally uploaded by Daveybot

According to the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell'Umbria, a new gate has been discovered in the ancient city walls at Amelia, the ancient Ameria. The arch-topped gate was discovered during the dismantling of a modern embankment, and is now exposed to a height of 4.5 m. The wall circuit is built in polygonal masonry and dates generally to the 4th-3rd centuries BCE.

For more general information, see Bill Thayer's page on Amelia, and that of the Soprintendenza.

(Thanks to Dave Morris for the use of his photo of a (different) section of the walls)

More bits

2008-05-20T09:26:00.005-04:00

The Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz hosts a database called TOMBA, which is "a multilingual internet image database for the tombs of the élites in Bronze and Early Iron Age Europe (2400/2300 - 480/450 BC). The database is localized into Danish, English, French, German, Greek, and Italian."
This is a fantastic resource, if you can get past the frames and javascript design.

Elizabeth Colantoni reviews Roman Roth, Styling Romanisation. Pottery and Society in Central Italy (2007), at BMCR.

The town of Frosolone in Molise is throwing a Transhumance Festival this coming weekend to celebrate the annual return of the Colantuono family and their 300 cows from Puglia. According to the article, the Colantuono are the only family still practicing long distance transhumance between Molise and Puglia (as opposed to the more common short-distance traffic between lowlands and uplands). I notice too that the Wikipedia article 'Transhumance' makes no mention of the Italian variety (somewhat remedied by the discussion in the Italian version, 'Transumanza'.

Research is to resume at the important Nuragic site of Sant'Imbenia, Sardinia. Sant'Imbenia shows evidence of contact with Pithekoussai by the mid 8th century BCE. The new work aims at continuing excavation, setting the site within its broader landscape context, developing it as a didactic tool, and safeguarding it for future generations (no surprises there). If you need to brush up on your Sardinian archaeology, you can check out the recent monograph by Stephen Dyson and Robert Rowland, Jr., Archaeology and History in Sardinia from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages: Shepherds, Sailors, and Conquerors (2007).

Miscellanea Italica

2008-05-17T00:06:00.008-04:00

Three things to report today. To get to the hearts of the matter:

The (always momentous) news from Molise brought to my attention a band calling themselves "Tabula Osca," hailing from Agnone, the findspot of the famous Tavola di Agnone (seen here on the left is the copy held in the town hall at Agnone; the original is in the British Museum). The band's website is http://www.tabulaosca.it/. I haven't yet been able to give it a listen, but it's bound to be easier on the ears than "Sakahiter," self-proclaimed purveyors of "SAMNITE BLACK METAL," whose first album Lex Sacrata features an image of the Roman army passing under the Samnite yoke after the Battle of the Caudine Forks:

A new note by William Gilstrap, "Chronology and Variability of Etruscan Architectural Terracotta," is available over at Rasenna (Journal of the Center for Etruscan Studies). It seems to be a poster (with Carl Lipo and Hector Neff, all of California State University Long Beach) from the poster session at the SAA (Society for American Archaeology)'s 2008 Annual Meeting in Vancouver.

Epigraphers take note: the early third century CE statue of Neptune that came out of the Rhone along with the bust of the Elderly Republican Gentleman carries a Latin inscription on its base:

I haven't been able to rustle up a better photo yet, and I can't make a dang thing out from this one.

27 New Tombs at Tarquinia

2008-05-07T08:52:00.006-04:00

Twenty seven Etruscan tombs were discovered on April 3 in Tarquinia at a construction site in loc. Madonna del Pianto. Of the 27, only one appears to have been violated, probably about 50 years ago, according to Maria Tecla Castanaldi, Soprintendente for Southern Etruria and director of the Museo Nazionale Etrusco in Tarquinia, who visited the open tomb yesterday morning. The new tombs are located about 500m from the painted tombs on Monterozzi hill, near the Scataglini necropolis.

(Via Eternally Cool, Tuscia Web, il Giornale)

Prohibited items

2008-05-06T10:10:00.003-04:00

The United States Postal Service lists the following items as being prohibited from sending to Italy:

Albums of any kind (of photographs, postcards, postage stamps, etc.).
Arms and weapons.
Articles of platinum or gold; jewelry; and other valuable articles unless sent as insured Priority Mail International parcels.
Artificial flowers and fruits and accessories for them.
Bells and other musical instruments and parts thereof.
Cartridge caps; cartridges.
Clocks and supplies for clocks.
Compound medicaments and medicines.
Coral mounted in any way.
Ether and chloroform.
Exposed photographic and cinematographic films.
Footwear of any kind.
Haberdashery and sewn articles of any kind, including trimmings and lace; handkerchiefs; scarves; shawls, needlework including stockings and gloves; bonnets, caps, and hats of any kind.
Hair and articles made of hair.
Human remains.
Leather goods.
Lighters and their parts, including lighter flints.
Live bees, leeches, and silkworms.
Live plants and animals.
Nutmeg, vanilla; sea salt, rock salt; saffron.
Parasites and predators of harmful insects.
Perfumery goods of all kinds (except soap).
Playing cards of any kind.
Postage stamps in sealed or unsealed First-Class Mail International shipments.
Radioactive materials.
Ribbons for typewriters.
Roasted or ground coffee and its substitutes; roasted chicory.
Saccharine and all products containing saccharine.
Salted, smoked or otherwise prepared meats; fats; and lard.
Tobacco.
Toys not made wholly of wood.
Treated skins and furs.
Weapons of any kind and spare parts for them.

At first glance, it's an odd and amusing list (and has been seen as such already). It certainly wasn't composed all at one time; note the separately listed, redundant items "Arms and weapons" and "Weapons of any kind." In 2008, we're used to all sorts of restrictions on dangerous materials such as weapons, lighters, radioactive materials, and the like. Postal reluctance to handle live bees is understandable. But "Bells and other musical instruments and parts thereof"? "Footwear of any kind"? "Roasted or ground coffee and its substitutes; roasted chicory"? These may be holdovers from the import restrictions imposed by the Fascist government in the late 1920s and early 30s to protect prices of Italian-made goods. But really -- "Artificial flowers and fruits and accessories for them"?

The News from Italy

2008-05-05T09:25:00.004-04:00

Archeoblog signals the opening of a new exhibition in Matelica, "Potere e Splendore: gli antichi Piceni a Matelica" ("Power and Magnificence: the ancient Picenes in Matelica"). The exhibition has a flashy website at http://www.poteresplendore.it, available in both Italian and English. The artifacts on display come from tombs excavated in the necropoleis of Brecce, Villa Clara, Cavalieri, Passo Gabella, and Crocifisso, dating between the 9th and 7th centuries BCE. It runs through October 31st.

Elsewhere in the museum is the "Globo di Matelica," which is "a kind of ancient solar clock found in the historic centre. It is an exceptional instrument belonging to the Hellenistic-Roman period, unique all over the world, which, through the boundary line between lights and shadows traced out on its marble surface, showed the hours of the day, the seasons and the constellations." It looks a bit like the Death Star to me...

In other news, with the dust freshly resettled after the recent elections, I'd like to point out those on their way out (outgoing Minister of Culture Francesco Rutelli, instrumental in the return of, among other things, the Sarpedon krater; via Looting Matters), and those on their way in (incoming Mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno, who wants to get rid of Meier's Ara Pacis museum; via Eternally Cool).

On the "Greek Temple" in Alexandria

2008-04-29T09:20:00.003-04:00

The report from April 21 on Rogue Classicism of the report from several days prior [the link is not working as I type] says this:
A team of archaeologists have unearthed a Greek temple in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria, showing that the Greeks worshipped Pharaonic deities more than 2,500 years ago.

An official of the expedition said that the temple was found during the renovation of an area of Alexandria with the relics of the temple unearthed evidence that Greeks were influenced by the ancient Egyptian civilization.

He added that the Greeks believed in the holy trinity of Isis, Osiris and the child Horus, developing these gods after Alexander the great conquered the city in 332 BC.

I cannot offer a substantial source, but a friend in Alexandria tells me that this temple was found during conservation work at the Serapeum, in the western half of the site. "More than 2,500 years ago" would mean pre-Greek, pre-foundation, and definitely pre-date the "Alexandrian trinity." The idea that an Egyptian settlement (Rhakotis) existed on the site before Alexander arrived has been gaining acceptance in Alexandrian studies lately, but this would be a nice proof -- of course, we'll have to wait for some published confirmation or clarification.

Arcadian ramblings

2008-04-24T19:26:00.004-04:00

A while back, David Meadows confessed to never having heard of the Temple of Apollo at Bassae. Those finding themselves in a similar state of ignorance should run out (or log on) and purchase Beard and Henderson, Classics: A Very Short Introduction (ISBN 0192853856; LibraryThing), which might also be titled, The Temple of Apollo at Bassae: A Shortish Introduction.

The temple, as noted by Beard and Henderson, and in Meadows' quotation, "is now entirely shored up and covered by a tent (the restoration and consolidation works continue), because [of] its critical state":

Unfortunately, this unsightly tent, designed to preserve the temple from the ravages of pollution (and, wicked witch-like, rain), does a better job trapping pollution inside so it can really have a go at the limestone. It does, however, make for easier sighting from the ash altar atop Mt. Lykaion...

...which gets a mention in Classics: "High on a mountainside in a rugged and lonely part of Arcadia stands a remote shrine to Zeus Lykaios, Wolf Zeus" (C. Segal, Tragedy and Civilisation 1981, 1, quoted in Beard and Henderson, 89-90)... "grim precinct... the mountain where a grisly and primitive cult violated one of the first laws of human civilization as the Greeks defined it, the taboo against cannibalism" (B&H, 96).

The early excavations at Mt. Lykaion found no evidence of human sacrifice, and the past season of work at the altar, despite the careful attention of a renowned physical anthropologist, also produced no human remains. Madeleine Jost ("À propos des sacrifices humains dans le sanctuaire de Zeus du mont Lycée." In Robin Hägg (ed.), Peloponnesian Sanctuaries and Cults: Proceedings of the Ninth International Symposium at the Swedish Institute at Athens, 11-13 June 1994, pp. 183-6) has suggested that if there were human sacrifices, the victims may not have been mixed with the animal remains on the altar. That said, I believe Plato's Republic (565 d-e) is the earliest written reference to human sacrifice at Mt. Lykaion, and that account does not inspire particular confidence:

"'What, then, is the starting-point of the transformation of a protector into a tyrant? Is it not obviously when the protector's acts begin to reproduce the legend that is told of the shrine of Lykaion Zeus in Arcadia?' 'What is that?' he said. 'The story goes that he who tastes of the one bit of human entrails minced up with those of other victims is inevitably transformed into a wolf. Have you not heard the tale?'"

The connection of Mt. Lykaion with lycanthropy is a common one (see, e.g., Segal above, or the latest issue of Archaeology), and dates back at least as far as Plato. It is, however, etymologically false. The Greek epithet lukai~os derives not from lu/kos "wolf" but from *lu/kh "light, dawn", and ultimately the PIE root *leuk- of roughly the same meaning. This was pointed out already by A.B. Cook in his monumental Zeus of 1914, pp. 63-64.

Of course, the Greeks were never ones to let false etymology get in the way of a good story. You can see a selection of testimonia to strange and fantastic occurrences here on the Mt. Lykaion Excavation and Survey Project website. (In the interest of full disclosure, I suppose I ought to mention that I work for said project.)

To Alexandria

2008-03-06T19:08:00.003-05:00

On Saturday I leave for Egypt for a week, and specifically Alexandria. I follow in the Italic footsteps of MARAIOC BAKEIOY MAMEPTINOC, that is, Maraios Vacceius the Mamertine, though hopefully I won't die and be buried there, as he did. His loculus with painted cover slab was found in the Hadra necropolis in the first half of the last century. He was probably a mercenary serving in the army of the Ptolemies, along with the (relatively-speaking) more famous Galatians once buried in the "Tomb of the Mercenaries" and elsewhere. For a mention of Maraios, see Gianluca Tagliamonte's fundamental study of the Italic mercenariate, I Figli di Marte, p. 211.

Varia Februaria

2008-02-18T13:52:00.005-05:00

David Meadows alerts us that MEFRA (Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Antiquité) is available online via http://www.persee.fr -- just select it from the drop-down menu. Unfortunately, many or most images are locked out in the free version.

Over at Current Epigraphy, Gabriel Bodard gives us the run-down on a lecture by Michael Crawford on "Language, geography, and economy in early Italy."

For those lucky enough to reside in the greater Philadelphia metro area, there are a couple of events this week pertaining to early Italy:

"Etruscan Treasures of the Vatican Museum"
Dr. Maurizio Sannibale & Dr. Carlo Aurisicchio,
Thursday, 21 February 2008 - 6:30 PM
Penn Museum Classroom 2, University of Pennsylvania
(for more info, see here)
(Updated 2/19: If you're in the DC area, see it here)

"Italic Identity in the Roman Republic and Italian Social War Propaganda"
Gary D. Farney, Rutgers University
Friday, 22 February 2008 - 4:30 PM
Rhys Carpenter Library B21, Bryn Mawr College

Spolia update

2008-02-06T15:02:00.001-05:00

inscription
Originally uploaded by Phil-AEK

I'm happy to report that the "Spolia" group on Flickr has grown to 39 members and 206 pictures since its inception on December 27 of last year. I don't anticipate maintaining such a rate of growth, though. I've searched most of the obvious tags (e.g. spolia, re-used, recycled) in as many of the languages as I felt I could do so profitably (English, Italian, French, Spanish, German). Future additions will be more dependent on self-submission by members than on invitations by me. Of course, there are many pictures out there showing spolia without saying so in their description, which makes it harder to find them.

The locations represented are concentrated in Mediterranean Europe, with a good showing from the British Isles, along with, thus far, one from China and one from Chicago. I've decided to keep Spolia broadly defined, including, for instance, the Lothar Cross with its Roman cameo of Augustus embedded in a 10th-century cross.

The Duomo in Pisa is particularly well-represented in the pool with 8 pictures, no doubt due to the frequency with which it is touristed. The Yerebatan Sarayı or Basilica Cistern in Istanbul is very well represented on flickr as a whole, but thus far only one picture has been added to the Spolia pool. Likewise, many pictures of a wall on Paros have been invited, but few have thus far accepted.

For purely epigraphic considerations, the best groups on Flickr that I've seen are "Visible Words - Visibile Parlare" for Latin and the Latin alphabet (1500 photos) and Greek (203 photos). There's also Inscriptiones, but it seems to have died with 19 photos.

Tria Corda goes (officially) Open Access

2008-01-12T17:10:00.000-05:00

Sebastian Heath gave a quick run-down on Open Access licenses among the ancient blogging community over at the AWBG. His guess that "some bloggers haven't given this issue much thought" was spot on for me. Tria Corda has followed a wandering developmental road since its inception back on August 12, 2005. "Sporadic Italic blogging is all that can be expected," I said then, and it has indeed been sporadic -- nothing between January and December of 2006! I think I've also been charged with being "chatty" in the past, to which I can only plead guilty. With the spur from the AWBG, I've determined to focus more on Tria Corda, which includes giving issues more thought. As a result, I'm now publishing it with a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution Unported license, which you'll see over in the right hand column o' stuff. This means (as per the license) you are free to 1. Share — to copy, distribute and transmit (the contents of the blog); 2. Remix — to adapt (the contents of the blog); but on the condition that you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

I note also that Chuck Jones has since CC'd the PFAP blog and is presumably responsible for AWBG itself.

AIA/APA Chicago Report no. 3

2008-01-12T15:13:00.000-05:00

On Saturday I attended the excellent session on Magna Graecia (AIA 4D, January 5, 1:30-4:30 PM).

Opening up, Johanna Hobratschk put "Apulian Vase-painting in Context: A Reconsideration of Dramatic Scenes." Past scholarship (e.g. Trendall and Webster) has seen a direct representation of South Italian theater on Apulian volute-kraters. Hobratschk argues for the development of architecture in dramatic scenes on vases from naiskoi in funerary contexts. The Iliupersis Painter was the first to paint naiskoi in funerary scenes, and the first to make major use of the volute krater, with some fourteen attributed vases. The buildings in his later dramatic scenes show clear similarities with his earlier funerary naiskoi. By contrast, in Campanian fabric where funerary scenes are very uncommon, the conventions for representing dramatic architecture are different.

Camilla R. Norman presented "The Myth of the Ransom of Hector on the Daunian Stelai." These enigmatic objects (late 7th-mid 5th centuries BCE) were almost single-handedly saved -- and interpreted -- by Silvio Ferri during the 1950's and 60's, coinicident with the introduction of the deep plow in Apulian agriculture. Ferri's Classical training led him to describe many of the figural scenes as illustrations of Greek myths or Homeric episodes rather than on their own terms. His interpretation of a recurring scene as the "Ransom of Hector," based on the identification of the central object as the Lyre of Achilles, required him to assert that the actual body of Hector was implied but not depicted, and that Achilles was painted in, rather than engraved like the rest of the figures! Achilles' lyre is not even described in connection with Priam's recovery of his son's body. Norman posits instead that the scene shows some aspect of women's life, perhaps connected with the production of textiles. The "lyre of Achilles" may in fact be a hand loom, a wool basket, or a hanging cloth, among other possibilities.

Unfortunately, Gianfranco Carollo was not present to give an update on "Burials and Reconstruction of Social and Cultural Contexts. The Unpublished Necropolis of Ripacandida (Potenza, Italy)," a particular shame since, as noted, the material is still unpublished.

After a break, Dante Bartoli read "Archaeology and Environment in the Sila Mountains (Calabria, Italy). Analysis of the Prehistoric Settlements" for Domenico Marino and Annalisa Zarattini. A lush prehistoric forest stretched across Calabria and there is evidence for occupation by both Homo erectus and Neandertal man. During the Neolithic, new areas were settled in the Sila mountains, based on short-distance transhumance and fishing, and the local obsidian quarries were first used at this time. Excavations between 2005 and 2007 have revealed Neolithic settlements submerged in the Lago di Cecita, dated 3800-3350 BCE, with subsistence based on agriculture, gathering, cattle and fish. Between the Neolithic and Bronze age there was a progressive exapansion of settlements in the hills as termini of transhumance. At Timpone del Gigante there are an Iron Age settlement, Hellenistic defensive walls, and a Roman quarry.

Finally, Sandra Lucore, director of the excavation of the North Baths at Morgantina, shared her thoughts on "Tradition and Innovation in Western Greek Baths." Despite the lack of full publication of any baths in the Western Greek world, Lucore identifies a clear typology of baths based on heated communal immersion bathing. The earliest evidence of such bathing in Sicily is at late 4th century Gela, including the individual bathing tubs and slightly later tholos-room which both remain standard features of western baths. The typical thermal complex including a double room and tholos adjoined by a hypocaust, as found at Syracuse, Morgantina, and Megara Hyblaea. The dome over the tholos and barrel-vaulted rooms at Morgantina were constructed with interlocking hollow terracotta tubes, which were then covered with a rough mortar compound. These tubular vaults are the earliest known, and the technique betrays a practical knowledge of statics, which may be connected with the work of Archimedes at Syracuse.

AIA/APA Chicago Report no. 2

2008-01-09T15:06:00.000-05:00

Continuing with AIA Session 2E: Etruria and Samnium...

Elizabeth C. Robinson re-examined "Rural Settlement Patterns and Sanctuaries in the Middle Volturno Valley (Campania)" between the Archaic period and the 1st cent. BCE. The area has been discussed twice in recent memory, by P. Carafa in his 1997 dissertation "I Culti in Campania" (published in 2006) and by S.P. Oakley in his 1996 The Hill-Forts of the Samnites, but neither treatment is completely satisfactory. Robinson finds no evidence for city-state organization or border sanctuaries in the region, and Oakley's work (not surprisingly) focuses mostly on clearly identifiable fortified sites. Robinson reclassified the 16 identified sites into new categories: large oppida with a fortified acropolis and 1 or more wall circuits; small oppida with no separate acropolis, no more than one circuit, enclosing an area of less than 0.16m²; rural cult sites and necropoleis.

For instance, the site of La Rocca, with its three terraces and two circuits of polygonal masonry, becomes a large oppidum, which Carafa had identified as a boundary sanctuary purely on the basis of four terracotta heads, which may be antefixes. One of the difficulties that emerged from discussion was the lack of a real survey of the area, as well as the small quantities of material used to define a site -- do two bronze statuettes make Zappini a rural cult site? As some conclusions, the sanctuaries show little evidence of monumental architecture, the settlement pattern is very unlike that of poleis, and we should abandon the idea of boundary sanctuaries for Samnium.

Next, Rachel Van Dusen gave us "Saving Face: Samnite Elites in the Aftermath of the Samnite Wars." The families of Samnite generals identified in Livy's account of the Samnite Wars (Papius Brutulus, Statius Gellius, Gellius Egnatius, Min. Staius Minatius) continue to be attested as meddices tutici for several hundred years. For instance, the Staii produced at least 12 meddices for the period 296 - 90 BCE. The monumentalization of sanctuaries in Samnium, which coincides with a reduction in wealth of grave goods, provides further evidence for the continuing control of these families through inscriptional evidence. Four of the six Papii known as meddices tutici are attested in inscriptions from sanctuaries, e.g. G. Papius with the smaller temple at Schiavi D'Abruzzo, ca. 100-90 BCE. Likewise, two of three Statii, including G. Statius Clarus with Temple B at Pietrabbondante; one of three Egnatii, and a wopping 10 of 12 Staii, including six at Pietrabbondante, one at Campochiaro, plus an otherwise unattested Staius known from a bronze tablet at Vastogirardi. These families were clearly able to maintain their status despite a shift from positions of military power to civil posts.

Finally, Tesse Stek read a paper on "Sanctuaries and Society in Central-Southern Italy in the Republican Period." Stek investigated the sanctuaries' function in society; the oft-cited commercial profits made by Italic merchants of the period are not a sufficient reason in and of themselves, only a condition. None of the three commonly proposed explanations (transhumance road shrines, territorial markers, constituents of the Italic pattern of settlement) for sanctuary development are satisfactory. If they were road-shrines connected with transhumance, then why are so many perched on mountain tops unsuited for flocks or large markets? The idea of the of the border sanctuary originated with Polignac's work in Greece, but the Greek system does not map neatly onto the Italic world. This is not a polis-system, and the ethnic groups represented may not have been so rigidly territorially defined. Finally, the oft-discussed pagus-vicus system is based on problematic and disparate literary references, rather than on archaeology, although it wins points for its attempt at a purely Italic model.

Stek finds a problem in that the spatial context of most Samnite sanctuaries is largely unknown. He took as a test case the sanctuary at S. Giovanni in Galdo, loc. Colle Rimontato, based on 2004-2005 Leiden surveys and unpublished finds from the 1970's. They surveyed the 7km² directly around the sanctuary with theoretical 20% coverage; concentrations of >5 artifacts/m² were labeled as sites and resurveyed. For the Archaic Period Stek found a nucleated settlement around a spring, with cemetery some 500m north of the sanctuary. The Hellenistic Period saw a dispersion of smaller sites, nine contemporary with the sanctuary, while the prior nucleated settlement was extended into a hamlet of 8 ha. For the Roman Period, the total number of sites remained the same, but their locations changed, though the hamlet continued to be occupied as did a number of farmsteads. The sanctuary shows evidence of use into the late Imperial period.

Stek hypothesizes the sanctuary as perhaps a pole of attraction for the surrounding communities, or possibly vice versa, being constructed in a (relatively) densely-populated area. He finds no evidence for territorial marking or for a connection with transhumance, although neither possibility can be ruled out at this stage.

Thus concludes the session on Etruria and Samnium. Tune in next time for coverage of Magna Graecia; I have some reviews of a couple of new books on ancient Italy in the works as well.

AIA/APA Chicago Report no. 1

2008-01-08T16:34:00.000-05:00

This will be the first in a planned series of posts summarizing some of the papers I heard at the Joint Annual Meeting in Chicago, though I certainly didn't make it to all that I would have liked to!

On Friday, I attended AIA Session 2E: Etruria and Samnium.

To kick it off, David Soren of the University of Arizona read "Horace's Healing Spring at Chianciano, Tuscany: The Final Report" on the U. of A.'s excavations at the Etrusco-Roman thermal complex at Chianciano in Tuscany. The site is identified as the ancient Fontes Clusinii, renowned especially in the early Principate for its healing waters, a reputation that endures to this day. The Emperor Augustus, by command of his physician, sought (and found) relief from his stomach ailments there. The site seems to have been maintained deliberately rustic and unembellished, despited repeated additions and repairs from the 2nd century BCE to the 5th century CE. This suggests to Professor Soren that the complex was run by a community of ascetics. Analysis of water from the still-bubbling spring revealed concentrations of calcium carbonate which, ingested in small quantities, would have flushed the digestive system.

Next, Walter McCall of UNC-Chapel Hill presented "The Falerii Novi Project 2004-2006: Our Preliminary Conclusions." Ground survey revealed several previously-unknown gates in the Roman wall circuit, immediately south of the theater as well as near the northeast corner of the city. McCall suggests that the Roman grid of 80-90 m x 60 m insulae was designed to take into account a previously existing Faliscan settlement or path system, as evidenced by the non-rectilinear path of the pomerium road. Additionally, the southern entrance of the Via Amerina was shifted eastward to enter directly into the theater complex after the construction of that edifice -- maybe, I wonder, to move dispersing crowds quickly out of the city?

I missed the beginning of Hilary Becker's paper on "Family identity and heraldic signs in Etruria;" I came in as Ms. Becker was discussing the Tagliatella oinochoe, which depicts a line of warriors with shields all bearing identical wild-boar devices, headed by a man identified by inscription as "Mamerce." Becker contrasted the unity of devices on this Etruscan vase with contemporary images such as the Chigi Vase, which show lines of hoplites each having unique shield-devices.
On the walls of the 4th cent. BCE "Giglioli Tomb" at Tarquinia are three painted shields, bearing the devices of a wild boar, an amphora and an 'A'. These emblems are also found on contemporary coins from Tarquinia and nearby areas, probably issued by local noble families. The images may therefore be emblems of particular families, employed heraldically on both coins and on shields. Such devices could also be punning; there is a shield painted with a half-moon on the wall of the Tius ("Moon") family of Chiusi.
Family-specific devices may have been warranted by a clan's independent military actions. Of such bella privata, the best known is the attack on Veii in 477 BCE by the 306 members of the Roman gens Fabia (Livy 2.48-50). Though none of these private wars is recorded as contemporary for the tombs discussed, they may have gone unrecorded. The votive deposit at Vetulonia of 125 bronze helmets, of which nineteen were inscribed with the name of a prominent family, "Haspnas," may be indicative of clan-based warfare.

Lastly before the break, in "Imported Bucchero from Poggio Civitate: Socio-Political Exchange," Jason P. Bauer found that of the thousands of bucchero fragments from the area of the Orientalizing builidng at Poggio Civitate (constructed ca. 650 BCE, with a burn layer ca. 620-600), only some 53 were imported. In contrast to the coarse local production, the imported bucchero is probably to be connected with a system of trade and contact between elites.

That's it for today; I'll cover the last three papers from this panel on Samnium in a future post, along with some from other sessions.

New Journal: Rasenna

2008-01-08T16:07:00.000-05:00

The good folks over at the Center for Etruscan Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently launched a new project, namely, Rasenna: Journal of the Center for Etruscan Studies. According to the website,

"The primary function of Rasenna is to publish peer reviewed articles and book reviews, but we expect to take advantage of the speed and flexibility of digital publication to provide timely information on excavation opportunities in the region, announcements and reviews of museum shows, and other similar kinds of information. On‑line publication is the norm in the physical sciences and we hope that this journal will help speed its acceptance in the humanities as well. To our knowledge, there is no other on‑line academic resource in Etruscan Studies for the publication of scholarly research. We are delighted to be the first, but we certainly hope to be one of many in the coming years."

Editors Rex Wallace and Anthony Tuck are to be congratulated for continuing to advance the study of Ancient Italy through the timely and appropriate use of digital technology. Rasenna follows in the footsteps of their earlier (and vibrantly continuing) projects, the Etruscan Texts Project (with Michael Shamgochian and James Patterson) and the Poggio Civitate Archive.

Volume I, Issue 1 is now available with an article from Carlo de Simone, on "Alcuni termini chiave della Tabula Cortonensis." The digital format of the journal means that articles will be accepted on a rolling basis and published as soon as they clear the review and editorial process; each issue will consist of all the articles published in a given year.

Spolia on Flickr

2007-12-28T16:22:00.001-05:00

Spolia in Larino
Originally uploaded by diffendale

Just a quick note here to say that I've joined flickr. I was inspired to create a group called "Spolia," which does just what it says on the tin. Thus far it's mostly my own photos from Central and South Italy, but I'd welcome contributions from far and wide.

Spoliation is much easier these days. Texts, images and other such fragments can be embedded in new creations with a few clicks of the mouse; you don't even have to wait for the original to crumble into pieces.

Italic Matters in Chicago

2007-12-20T14:36:00.001-05:00

Has it been a year already? The recent construction of the Ancient World Bloggers Group in a day has spurred (or rather goaded, in this pre-spur age) me into thinking about a return to blogging. With the annual joint meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and the American Philological Association coming up January 3-6, 2008, and in the interests of taking it slow and minimizing the risk of injury, I'm starting out with some simple synthesis, a list of papers that may be of interest to the student of pre-Roman and Roman Italy, arranged chronologically by session, the AIA and the APA commingled in a model of harmonious coexistence. Before jumping into the list, I'll note in passing that the AIA/APA Annual Meeting Scheduling Tool is now online.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 4:

* AIA Session: 1J: Poster Session (Friday, January 4, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM)
3. William Colsher, "The Topography of Prostitution in Pompeii"
12. Martin J. Goalen, From Raw Data to Graphic Analysis: Computer Modelling as a Tool in Site Conservation and Presentation at Insula VI.1, Pompeii.
14. Jeffrey A. Becker and Nicola Terrenato, The Gabii Excavation Project: A Report on the First Season

*APA Session : Polis Religion in Greece and Rome (Friday, January 4, 11:15 AM – 1:15 PM)
Section 10 Crystal Ballroom C
-Amanda Coles, Worshipping Diana: Religion and Colonization in Northern Italy
-Susan Satterfield, Alien Insiders: Etruscan Haruspices in Rome

* APA Session 11: Aeneid (Friday, January 4, 11:15 AM – 1:15 PM)
Columbus Hall KL
-Jennifer Ferriss, Virgil Polyglottos: Sabellic Etymologizing in Aeneid 7

*APA Session 12: Latin Historiography (Friday, January 4, 11:15 AM – 1:15 PM)
Columbus Hall AB
-Jackie Elliott, Ennius’ Fabius Maximus Cunctator and the history of an ablative gerund in the Roman historiographical tradition

* APA Session 13: Linguistics (Friday, January 4, 11:15 AM – 1:15 PM)
Grand Suite 5
-Jay Fisher, Bridgemaker or Pathfinder?: the Origin of Latin Pontifex Revisited

* AIA Session: 2E: Etruria and Samnium (Friday, January 4, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM)
1. David Soren, Horace's Healing Spring at Chianciano, Tuscany: The Final Report
2. Walter McCall, The Falerii Novi Project 2004-2006: Our Preliminary Conclusions
3. Hilary Becker, Family identity and heraldic signs in Etruria
4. Jason P. Bauer, Imported Bucchero from Poggio Civitate: Socio-Political Exchange
5. Elizabeth C. Robinson, Rural Settlement Patterns and Sanctuaries in the Middle Volturno Valley (Campania)
6. Rachel Van Dusen, Saving Face: Samnite Elites in the Aftermath of the Roman Samnite Wars
7. Tesse D. Stek, Sanctuaries and Society in Central-Southern Italy in the Republican Period

* AIA Session: 2G: Embodiment and Remembrance in a Mortuary Context (Friday, January 4, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM)
5. David Soren, Malaria, Magic, and Infant Burials at Lugnano in Teverina, Umbria
6.Mauro Rubini, Disfiguring Diseases and Society in the Fourth - Fifth Century A.D.:The Case of Palombara Sabina (Rome, Central Italy)

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5:

Though most unrelated to the Italic world, you'll surely find me at:
* AIA Session: 3F: Greek Sanctuaries (Saturday, January 5, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM)
3. Excavations and Research at the Sanctuary of Zeus on Mt. Lykaion in the Peloponnesos, 2004-2007,
an interim report on the site I worked at last summer in the field, and continue to help out with here in the lab.

* APA Session 35: Italian Epigraphy (Saturday, January 5, 11:15 AM - 1:15 PM)
Columbus Hall IJ
1. Christer Bruun, Property Ownership by Women in Rome and Roman Italy (15 mins.)
2. Cynthia J. Bannon, Fish Farming and Fraud: Rational Economic Strategies for Roman Landowners? (15 mins.)
3. Rebecca Benefiel, Advertising for Sex in Ancient Pompeii (15 mins.)
4. Megan Nutzman, Faith or Family? Jewish Epitaphs from Rome (15 mins.)

* AIA Session: 4C: Pompeii and Ostia (Saturday, January 5, 3:15 PM - 4:30 PM)
1. Gary Devore and Steven J.R. Ellis, Plebs versus the City: The Competition for Space between Public and Private Interests at Pompeii
2. J. Clayton Fant, Bars with Marble Surfaces; Evidence for the Mediterranean Marble Trade and for Pompeii’s Innkeepers
3. Genevieve Gessert, Excavation of the Domus del Tempio Rotondo, Ostia Antica 2003-2007
4. Douglas Boin, The Temple of Vulcan at Ostia and the Late Antique "Pagan Revival"

* AIA Session: 4D: Magna Graecia (Saturday, January 5, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM)
1. Johanna Hobratschk, Apulian Vase-painting in Context: A Reconsideration of Dramatic Scenes
2. Camilla R. Norman, The Myth of the Ransom of Hector on the Daunian Stelai
3. Gianfranco Carollo, Burials and Reconstruction of Social and Cultural Contexts. The Unpublished Necropolis of Ripacandida (Potenza, Italy)
4. Domenico Marino and Annalisa Zarattini, Archaeology and Environment in the Sila Mountains (Calabria, Italy). Analysis of the Prehistoric Settlements.
5. Sandra K. Lucore, Tradition and Innovation in Western Greek Baths

* Session: 4H: Cultural Identity and the Peoples of the Ancient Mediterranean, Joint AIA/APA Colloquium (Saturday, January 5, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM)
3. Maria Swetnam-Burland, Aegyptus Capta: The Appropriation and Assimilation of Egypt in Roman Italy

SUNDAY, JANUARY 6:

*APA Session 53: Greek and Latin Linguistics (Sunday, January 6, 8:30 AM - 11:00 AM)
Grand Suite 5
3. Angelo O. Mercado, Poetry and Phonology of the Paelignians (25 mins.)
5. Michael Weiss, New Paradigms for Old in the Interpretation of the Iguvine Tables (25 mins.)

* AIA Session: 5B: The Archaeology of Sanctuaries and Ritual in Etruria (Sunday, January 6, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM)
1. Katherine Rask, The Elusive Cult Statue of Etruria
2. Simonetta Stopponi, The Excavation of Campo della Fiera in Orvieto
3. Giovanna Bagnasco Gianni, Tarquinia: Excavations by the University of Milano at the Ara della Regina Sanctuary
4. Helen Nagy, Etruscan Votive Deposits and Their Archaeological Context
5. Nancy T. de Grummond, The Sacred Area at Cetamura del Chianti
6. Lisa Pieraccini, The Wonders of Wine and Ritual in Etruria
7. P. Gregory Warden, New Evidence for Ritual Activity at Poggio Colla

* APA Session 55: The Nature of the Roman Republic (Sunday, January 6. 11:30 AM - 1:30 PM)
Grand Suite 5
1. Catherine Tracy, Who Were the Quirites? The Composition of Contio Audiences (15 mins.)
2. Ayelet Haimson Lushkov, Constitutional Debate in Republican Rome and the
Elections of 184 B.C. (15 mins.)
3. Robert Morstein-Marx, The Struggle Over Italian Voting-Rights in 88-87 B.C. and Its Implications for the Debate about Political Participation in the Late Roman Republic (15 mins.)

* AIA Session: 6B: Villas and Villa Life (Sunday, January 6, 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM)
1. Elizabeth Fentress, Excavations at Villa Magna
2. Diane Atnally Conlin, Anne Haeckl, and Gianni Ponti, Excavations at the Villa of Maxentius: Report on the 2006 and 2007 Seasons
3. John W. Stephenson, Textile Hangings and Elite Self-Presentation in Late Roman Villas
4. Nicholas Hudson, Dining in Late Antiquity: An Analysis of Roman Dining Assemblages

*APA Session 61: Roman History (Sunday, January 6, 1:45 PM - 4:15 PM)
Columbus Hall KL
-Jessica Homan Clark, The Paradox of Ransom in the Roman Middle Republic

*APA Session 63: Plautus (Sunday, January 6, 1:45 PM - 4:15 PM)
Columbus Hall CD
1. Dorota Dutsch, A "Pythagorizing Girl" in the Plautine Poenulus? (15 mins.)

Shepherds, Shake Off Your Drowsy Sleep...

2006-12-09T20:25:00.000-05:00

After an unplanned, rather lengthy, and otherwise unremarkable hiatus (*yawn*...), postings will continue until morale improves. In the interim I've begun working at the University Museum in Philadelphia once more.

I recently discovered LibraryThing, an easy and addictive online book-cataloguing site, whose developer's interests, incidentally, "run to ancient history, Greek and Latin." It's easy to lose oneself in, and I spent quite a bit of time cataloguing while home for Thanksgiving, though the task is still far from complete. I also set up a widget in the sidebar below the links that shows random books from my library for amusement.

I'd also like to offer belated congratulations to Dr. Mercado! As I consider setting foot on that path in the not-too-distant future, it's encouraging to see such successes emerging from the end of the trail.

For whatever reason I just now recalled a sign I saw from the window of a bus from Assisi to Perugia, early in September 2005, for a bar called "Pantarei," which I thought was amusing at the time (Heraclitus' famous dictum, panta rei, means "everything flows"), but I see now is not so uncommon.

Catapult from Casalbordino

2006-01-24T02:13:00.000-05:00

I was inspired by Angelo's post on Oscan abecedaria to dust off the old keyboard; for the future remain many exciting episodes from Italy and some brief things about the APA/AIA convention. The inscription that concerns me here is the following (format snagged from Sauvage Noble):

"Rix Fr 13

Bronze cylinder, Casalbordino:

a b g d v z ḥ [i] k

Aside from 〈a〉, all the letters are/can be consonantal, without regard for voicing."

It's a bronze cylinder, found at Casalbordino in Abruzzo, now in the Museo Nazionale in Chieti.

This is basically what it looks like, although the cylinder is not as long relative to its diameter as I've sketched it. There's much more pronounced lip where at the end with the face. I'm sorry I don't have a photograph to share at the moment, and we're still waiting on the Imagines Italicae project. They do have a somewhat useful entry on the object. It is described as part of a ritual mechanism for distributing sortes, that is, lots for fortune-telling. However, it may instead have been a part of a ballista, a kind of torsion-powered catapult (a diagram). The cylinder would fit on the end of the axle of the winding mechanism, the holes allowing the insertion of levers for winding back the string.
The letters that accompany what were originally ten holes evenly-spaced around the cylinder therefore indicate intervals of 36 degrees up to 324 (360 and 0 being of course the same). This division would give the artillerist a chance to adjust the tension with some degree of regularity, based on prior experience (probably the previous shot!). The cylinder probably dates to the period of the Social Wars, ca. 90 BCE, when many of the Italic tribes took arms against Roman hegemony.

Trebula Mutuesca

2006-01-04T16:17:00.000-05:00

Faithful readers may remember that I was on a dig in Italy way back in August. Now that I'm home and starting to get my act together, I can offer some photographs from my travels. The site is Trebula Mutuesca, site of a Sabine sanctuary to the goddess Feronia, near the modern village of Monteleone Sabino, some ways north of Rome in the Sabine Hills. The excavation is in the area directly below the assumed site of the temple. A terrace wall (seen clearly in the first picture below) separates the temple area from a colonnaded approach (seen in the second picture).

Giulio and Stefania inspect the site:

The terrace wall in the near foreground, the colonnade stretching away in the center, bordered on the left by a drain and the right by a wall.

Interior designer by profession, archaeologist by passion, Leo uncovers a cache of five Roman Republican-era bronze coins:Lindsay, our site director Giulio, and Pierangelo take a break in the shade:

The apparatus of digging:

A single worked tufa block from a workshop at Falerii Veteres (modern Civita Castellana). Apparently used as fill during construction of the terrace and colonnade.

Home again home again

2005-12-16T17:41:00.000-05:00

Well. I am sitting at home in Massachusetts. Expect pictures.

Materan Museuming

2005-11-29T14:58:00.000-05:00

Last night (was it only last night?) I visited the archaeology museum in Matera, in Basilicata. You know it as the setting of countless movies with "historical" Near Eastern settings, e.g. the Passion of Mel Gibson, because of its sassi, millenia-old stone dwellings carved directly into the hillside. It was dark when we got there, it having been one of those last-minute trips, but the museum was open for another hour. They didn't have change for a €50 bill, and after I changed it they couldn't work with a ten either, so I ended up with admission gratis. I was the only one there, and a couple of times the lights in the galleries got turned off, only to be turned on again moments later after I shuffled distinctively. A wonderful little museum; they have an Apulo-Corinthian helmet from a site in the region (always nice to see provenience!), as well as numerous Italiote vases (that is, figured vases, like the ubiquitous Attic black- and red-figure, but produced in Italy and, in this reporter's opinion, more fun).

Olive harvest continues. We're down to the three Americans and the local foreman Pasquale, the others having departed for Slovakia this afternoon. They (and their taste for whiskey) will be missed.

Moving south

2005-11-23T11:54:00.000-05:00

A few days ago I arrived in Puglia, near the town of Toritto, about 20 km from Bari. I'm helping with the olive harvest. There's a machine that shakes the branches to knock the olives down onto big mats spread underneath. When the machine breaks, though, we have to go at the trees with long poles, much like those shown on some Attic figured vases. There are two other Americans, who arrived the day before I did, and three Slovaks who've been here for three months and are quite ready to go home. It rained all night and most of the day, so the soil was far too soggy to work.

I got here two days later than I'd planned because... the morning I was supposed to leave, before I went to the train station, I decided to check to see if the museum in Boiano was open. It just happened to be so, because the Soprintendenza was making an inspection. Quite small, but some nice Oscan brickstamps and some tombgroups from the area. On the way out, I saw a poster for the 'Premio Salmon', an annual award for local high-schoolers who excel in Greek, Latin and Ancient History. It's named for the man who wrote the book on the Samnites (Samnium and the Samnites), E. Togo Salmon, a Canadian historian. The ceremony is preceded by a lecture, which I decided to stay for. A nice presentation on settlements in south-central Italy in the 4th and 3rd cent. BCE. There were also a few remarks by professor Gianfranco De Benedittis, a very eminent Italic archaeologist. My 30 minutes are nearly up, so that's it for now.

Pilgrimage to Pietrabbondante

2005-11-17T18:06:00.000-05:00

After spending the whole morning in Agnone, I caught a bus to Pietrabbondante around 2 pm. There are two big rocks that loom over the town (hence the name -- "abundant rocks"), and many smaller ones that do more lurking than looming. I descended from the bus in the main square, where a brazen Samnite warrior glared down upon me from his commemorative pedestal. The ancient site is a bit of a walk from the town, but it gives a good panoramic view:

By happy coincidence, the Samnites built their theater-temple complex on Mommsen Street:

It's generally agreed that Pietrabbondante, whatever its ancient name, was the foremost sanctuary and meeting place of the Samnites, regardless of tribe. It's likely that the legio linteata ("Linen Legion"), the crème de la crème of the Samnite fighting forces, was mustered here before its defeat at Aquilonia in 293 BCE.

This, the signs all say, is the greatest monument left by the Samnites:

It's called "Temple B," and it dates to the end of the 2nd century BCE. The section of standing wall was reconstructed by archaeologists from fallen blocks. Below Temple B and on the same axis is a theater...

...where I sit and listen to the chirping of the remaining autumn birds, the almost imperceptible rush of the wind, and the song of a distant jackhammer. Some future post may hold more photographs and a fuller description of the site and its history, but for the moment I find that I have little to say. veni, vidi, arrivederci.

Idle thoughts

2005-11-17T18:00:00.000-05:00

I'd like to visit Egypt -- the past few months I've been thinking a lot about Alexandria. But this is not the time.