Necropolis

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ENGLISH VERSION | Roman Necropolis unearthed in San Severino Marche

Preventive Excavations for the construction of a supermarket in San Severino Marche (MC), made between October 2021 and January 2022, have unearthed 14 roman graves that can be dated to the first two centuries of the empire.

sepolture san severino
) Burial with tiled covering (source ©ABAP Superintendency for the provinces of Ancona, Pesaro and Urbino)

 

The Discovery

The digging was led by the ArcheoLAB of Macerata under the scientific direction of Dr. Tommaso Casci Ceccacci of the Superintendency for the provinces of Ancona, Pesaro and Urbino.

The sepulchral area discovered in San Severino Marche (Macerata), is part of the wide necropolis of the roman town of Septempeda. It was identified close to the S.P. 361 and it has an east-west development, parallel to the roadway. The presence of a rectangular basement made of a casting against concrete and river rocks enhances the peri-urban nature of the necropolis. Unfortunately, the poor condition doesn’t allow to accurately understand the type of structure but it had to be a monumental funerary complex.

Direct and Indirect Cremation Burials

The tombs that were brought to light are 14, 3 of them characterized by the ground inhumation ritual, the others by the incineration ritual. The latter can be officiated both directly and indirectly. In the first case, the corpse was placed inside the designed grave for the combustion, which was also used for the burial of the ashes. In the case of the indirect cremation, the deceased’s remains were taken from the pyre and subsequently placed inside the final grave.

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Inhumation (source: ©ABAP Superintendency for the provinces of Ancona, Pesaro and Urbino)

 

What was revealed from the San Severino tombs

The busta sepulcra, also known as direct cremation tombs, have returned large wooden pyres. Here, the deceased were placed and cremated, accompanied by grave goods, some of them burned alongside the body, others placed afterwards. Part of these graves have a sepulcrum, a funerary structure made of tiles, which is still intact. The indirect cremation burials have a simpler structure, made of a small box shaped like a triangle or a rectangle and formed by split tiles, within which the ashes and the funerary equipment were conserved. Also noteworthy is the condition of the burnt remains of the pyre, as well as the gurney and the wooden coffins, of which the original position of the nails has been preserved, allowing the reconstruction of the context.

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Remians of a pyre
The funerary equipment

The artifacts that have been recovered from the graves have allowed a first (and partial) documentation of the wide procedure followed during the funeral rites. Most of the interments feature items that were placed and burned during the incineration, while others were added later after the rearrangement of the remains. Among the recovered objects, we can find a considerable quantity of glass ointment vases that have been deformed from the heat, coins, oil lamps and bronze artifacts, which include a splendid round mirror with a shaped grip. Moreover, there were items that were closely related to everyday life, such as sewing needles and spindles for the female burials or common work tools such as knives, razors and scrapers for the male ones.

 

Translation from NEWS | Scoperta una necropoli romana a San Severino Marche

News

ENGLISH VERSION | Etruscan graves found in Tarquinia

In the heart of the Etruscan necropolis of Monterozzi, ten graves have emerged. They can be dated between the Villanovan and the archaic age, that is the period that saw the full affirmation of Tarquinia, to which the myths about the foundation of the Etruscan civilization are related. The discovery of this new burial group goes back to last fall. However, researchers have shown the artifacts to the public on the 14th of January.

Necropoli di Monterozzi, Tarquinia
Monterozzi Necropolis, Tarquinia
The excavations of Tarquinia

The necropolis of Monterozzi, the most important of Tarquinia and the most ancient one of Etruria, is located on the eponymous hill, about one kilometer from the city. The decision to start a digging campaign was made by the Archeological Superintendence, Fine Arts and Landscape for the province of Viterbo and southern Etruria and goes back to last fall, after ploughing works on a private land led to the opening of a series of cavities of archeological interest. During the excavations, a group of ten Etruscan tombs was brought to light. They can be dated between the Villanovian age and the archaic one and they’re located a few meters away from the Tomba Dei Tori and from the Auguri one. Unfortunately, in ancient times, the tombs were sacked by thieves who stole the precious metals, leaving ceramics and other grave goods in situ because they were considered of low value.

 

The Gemina grave

Early restoration works on the artifacts allow to fully comprehend the richness of the funerary equipment of the Gemina grave. This tomb aroused great interest from an architectural point of view. The monument consists of two flanked chambers facing south-west towards two open-air vestibules accessed through a staircase. The covering of both chambers is of the slit type. Nenfro plates were used to seal the doors. Alongside the left wall of both chambers, there is the carved bed on which the deceased was placed. The closing slabs, which were previously perforated by the first visitors, were accurately sealed again after the looting, as a sign of respect towards the deceased. However, over time, the maneuver led to the collapse of the northern chamber.

Carved bed from the Gemina grave

 

 

The equipment

The funerary equipment consists of vascular shapes made of splint-polished mixture with carved and configured decorations; several bucchero vases; pots painted in Etruscan-geometric style, including some attributed to the Palm Painter; euboian cups a chevrons: various wood fragments made of iron and gold, which suggest the presence of precious objects, and a female statuette.

Female statuette

 

The Dating

Daniele Federico Maras, an official working for the Superintendence of Tarquinia, suggested the first half of the 7th century B.C. as chronological frame, placing the tomb context in the decades preceding Tarquinius Priscus, who is traditionally known as the fifth king of Rome (between 616 and 579 B.C.).

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ARCHAEOLOGY | The Archaeological Site of Contrada Diana

The Archaeological Site of Contrada Diana is located in Lipari, in a plain south of the Vallone Ponte and north of the Vallone S. Lucia. The large fenced area near the Palazzo Vescovile, bounded to the south by the former via Diana (now via G. Marconi), and other small adjacent archaeological sites belong to the main unearthed park. The entire archaeological area was established in 1971 by the then Superintendence of Antiquities of Eastern Sicily. In 1987, however, following the birth of the Superintendency of Cultural Heritage in Messina, it became the archaeological heritage of the province of Messina.

Systematic archaeological excavations have been carried out since 1948. For about twenty years, starting in 1954, the investigations were led by Luigi Bernabò Brea and Madeleine Cavalier, who helped found the site and, above all, the Archaeological Museum. The entire area of the site preserves memory of the entire history of the island and has returned evidence of the prehistoric, Greek and Roman age. Among these, of particular interest are the Greco-Roman necropolis and the remains of the city walls, to which are added two thermal complexes.

The necropolis of Contrada Diana

The heart of the Archaeological Site of Contrada Diana is the large necropolis. The first site to be excavated, for over sixty years of excavation it has yielded nearly 3,000 burials. The tombs were neatly arranged, in rows, and superimposed on several orders: the most recent, in fact, are located above the older ones. All the burials have a kind of N-S orientation and each of them was accompanied by an internal and an external furnishing. Eight types of burials have been identified: they are mainly burials in sarcophagi, more rarely in defunctionalized amphorae. The external furnishing, first placed inside a large vase, starting from the middle of the 4th century BC, is placed inside a shell of raw clay. In the imperial age, from the 1st to the 5th century AD, in addition to the reuse of old Greek burials, the tombs also took on a monumental form with enclosures and familiar hypogea.

The funeral rite was mixed and included both burial and cremation, with a clear prevalence of the first over the second. The rich grave goods, preserved inside the Aeolian Regional Archaeological Museum, were composed of figured and non-figured ceramics, metal jewels and objects, terracotta statuettes and masks, which reproduce characters from Greek and Roman comedy and tragedy.

The Walls

Archaeological excavations have brought to light the remains of two city walls, one dating back to the period of the first foundation and the other to the reconstruction of the mid-4th century BC. The oldest walls were found in 1954, under what is now Piazza Luigi Savior of Austria. These are polygonal walls, with large blocks of perfectly hewn lava stone, built with the aim at protecting the Greek settlement, which extended between the Civita hill and the Castle.

What is visible in Contrada Diana is the reconstruction of the first half of the fourth century BC: it is a 50 m long stretch, which highlights the presence of square protective towers. The new and wider curtain was adapted to the expansion of the Greek town. This second construction technique involved a filling of compact stones, lined, on both sides, with isodomic blocks of stone coming from Monte Rosa di Lipari.

With the arrival of the Romans, the Greek city was destroyed and obliterated by the remains of the Roman reoccupation. In the second half of the 1st century BC, the citizens built a new parallel line of fortification, which is 6.50 m from the previous one: it is the agger of Sesto Pompeo, an irregularly shaped work, composed only of dry stone and blocks of bare. The new walls were part of the fortifications commissioned by Sextus Pompeius during the civil war of 36 BC against Octavian. The walls, as well as the necropolis, are implanted in an area that had been the seat of the prehistoric village, pertaining to the culture of Capo Graziano: in fact, they cut the remains of ancient oval huts, built with the technique of the wall dry.

 

 

The Roman Baths

Besides, the Roman Baths are added of via Mons. Bernardino Re and via Franza. The first is located almost in front of Palazzo Vescovile and shows the remains of public spaces, with floor mosaics and drainage channels, dating back to the imperial age. Furthermore, the remains of a horseshoe-shaped tank, the frigidarium, and some adjacent spaces referred as tepidarium and calidarium are clearly visible. In via Franza, nestled in what scholars interpret as a working district, there is a more modest spa building. This is made up of three rooms, equipped with a cocciopesto floor, one of which, due to the presence of the characteristic tile columns under the floor, has been recognized as a calidarium. This second spa building dates back to the late imperial age.

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Area of the Archaeological Site of Contrada Diana and Lipari Castle