Poggio Civitate is a hill in the commune of

Murlo Murlo is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Province of Siena in the Italian region Tuscany, located about south of Florence and about south of Siena. Murlo borders the following municipalities: Buonconvento, Civitella Paganico, Montalcino, Mont ...

Siena Siena ( , ; lat, Sena Iulia) is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena. The city is historically linked to commercial and banking activities, having been a major banking center until the 13th and 14th centuri ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

and the location of an ancient settlement of the

Etruscan civilization The Etruscan civilization () was developed by a people of Etruria in ancient Italy with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roughl ...

. It was discovered in 1920, and excavations began in 1966 and have uncovered substantial traces of activity in the Orientalizing and Archaic periods as well as some material from both earlier and later periods.

The large Archaic building

Sometime in the early 6th century BCE a "monumental complex" was constructed on Poggio Civitate, a term for large buildings or sets of buildings with uncertain function found in

Etruscan architecture Etruscan architecture was created between about 900 BC and 27 BC, when the expanding civilization of ancient Rome finally absorbed Etruscan civilization. The Etruscans were considerable builders in stone, wood and other materials of temples, hou ...

. It consisted of a

courtyard A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary ...

surrounded by a

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...

on three sides and probably a

shrine A shrine ( la, scrinium "case or chest for books or papers"; Old French: ''escrin'' "box or case") is a sacred or holy sacred space, space dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor worship, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, Daemon (mythology), daem ...

and a possible

throne A throne is the seat of state of a potentate or dignitary, especially the seat occupied by a sovereign on state occasions; or the seat occupied by a pope or bishop on ceremonial occasions. "Throne" in an abstract sense can also refer to the monar ...

on the fourth. Surrounding the colonnade and courtyard were four blocks of rooms. The rooms were covered by of

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

roof tiles Roof tiles are designed mainly to keep out rain, and are traditionally made from locally available materials such as terracotta or slate. Modern materials such as concrete, metal and plastic are also used and some clay tiles have a waterproof g ...

. The building was elaborately decorated. The walls and rooflines contained terracotta statues (including the Murlo cowboy) and

frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...

s. One of these friezes depicts a banquet scene common to art of archaic Italy. The scene depicts four servants serving guests reclining on couches as well as hunting dogs. One guest is playing the

lyre The lyre () is a stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the lute-family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it is a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke ...

while a mixing bowl is situated in the center of two couches. Others depict mythical, divine, or real humans and animals. Also depicted are processions, horse races, and warriors marching behind leaders in

chariots A chariot is a type of cart driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid motive power. The oldest known chariots have been found in burials of the Sintashta culture in modern-day Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, dated to c. 2000 ...

. Some scenes depict ceremonies and business being conducted, in one of these a human figurine carries a ''

lituus The word ''lituus'' originally meant a curved augural staff, or a curved war-trumpet in the ancient Latin language. This Latin word continued in use through the 18th century as an alternative to the vernacular names of various musical instruments ...

'', a curved staff serving as a symbol of office in

Etruria Etruria () was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what are now most of Tuscany, northern Lazio, and northern and western Umbria. Etruscan Etruria The ancient people of Etruria are identified as Etruscan civiliza ...

and

Latium Latium ( , ; ) is the region of central western Italy in which the city of Rome was founded and grew to be the capital city of the Roman Empire. Definition Latium was originally a small triangle of fertile, volcanic soil (Old Latium) on whi ...

. The use of the building is unclear. One possible use was as the residence of the ruler or leading family of the town. Fine pottery fragments were discovered, so ''

symposia ''Symposia'' is a genus of South American araneomorph spiders in the family Cybaeidae, and was first described by Eugène Simon in 1898. Species it contains six species in Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic o ...

'' and banquets likely occurred at the site.

Directors of excavation

* Kyle M. Phillips – Bryn Mawr College (1966-1973) *

Erik Nielsen Erik Hersholt Nielsen (February 24, 1924 – September 4, 2008) was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served as the longtime Progressive Conservative Member of Parliament for Yukon, and was Leader of the Opposition and the third deputy pr ...

& Kyle M. Phillips (1973-1981 co-directors) * Erik Nielsen – President of

Franklin University Switzerland Franklin University Switzerland is a private university in Lugano, Switzerland. Founded in 1969, Franklin is one of the oldest American institutions of higher education in Europe and the first to be established in Switzerland. Franklin offers Bac ...

(1973-1996) * Erik Nielsen & Anthony Tuck (1997-2011 co-directors) *

Anthony Tuck Anthony or Antony is a masculine given name, derived from the ''Antonii'', a '' gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descendants of Anton ...

– Associate Professor at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

(2011–Present)

References

External links

Poggio Civitate excavation project
* {{Authority control Etruscan sites Archaeological sites in Tuscany Etruscan architecture Murlo