2005 DIRECTORS' DIARIES P. Gregory Warden, Southern Methodist University Michael Thomas, Tufts University   Directors Greg Warden (left) and Michael Thomas (right).   Greg Warden: Opening Report: The Travails Of Country Life Or How The Best Of Planning Can Come Undone In The Harsh Tuscan Sun It seems a little odd to be writing an introductory statement at the end of the third week of excavation, but if the truth be told, it makes perfect sense. Introductions are best written after the fact, just as conclusions often make great beginnings, and in a way an introduction to the 2005 season must relate to the year-long study of last summer's results as well as to the 2005 research design that we have implemented during the past few weeks. And then there are the surprises that even the best planning cannot take into account. The plans for this year were simple: to try to complete our work in the Podere Funghi while studying and preparing that material for publication, and to continue our trenches on the acropolis. We spent the first week digging out the trenches, and by the second week the dust was flying, with some interesting results. We have an experienced staff in place, and the students are an exceptional bunch this year, bright, energetic, and well disposed. Field students removing backfill from Poggio Colla trenches the first week of the 2005 season. Good planning and a great group of staff and students have made things easier, but there were circumstances outside our control. Just before I left the United States in the middle of June came the disturbing news that a landslide had closed the main route to the site, a road that is rather intractable on the best of days, leaving us with some difficult choices. The only other way up to the site is on a road that is much too steep for our vans, especially when loaded with people and gear, or a long roundabout route that takes us miles out of our way on dirt tracks so narrow that only one vehicle can go through at a time. We ended up choosing the latter option and became adept at the rather time-consuming drive until a tree came crashing down on a rather inopportune place, blocking our alternate route. Well, big deal, you say. We've got forty five people here with strong backs; why not just move the damned thing. Well, that would be the American way, but we are in Italy, and in Italy trees are protected. You can't cut down a tree, even on your own land, and if a tree falls you have to demonstrate that it fell without any special help from you. If you move the tree, you will not be able to prove that it died of natural causes. Kind of like moving the body before the police arrive. The police in this case are the forest service, and they are understaffed and overworked, especially this year as the result of heavy snows in the late winter. It can take days, or even weeks, to get the tree autopsied and moved. The upshot was that things got chaotic for a while, that students had to do some serious trekking during some unusually hot and humid weather. We survived and things are back to normal. I can't tell you how the problem was resolved, for fear of self-incrimination. No, it's not what you think. We did not sneak up there at night and remove the tree. Like George Washington, I will not tell a lie, but let's just say that the logistical "issues" have been surmounted in a less than obvious way. I will reveal more only when better informed about statutes of limitation. Gretchen Meyers, Anne Hooten, Ann Steiner, Greg Warden, Vanessa Saiz, Greg Warden, and Chris White in the new lab at Guardia. An even more important logistical problem this year was the news, upon arrival, that the Comune of Vicchio would not be able to provide us with the usual laboratory space. The Comune has been extraordinarily generous in the past by providing us with spacious work quarters right in the center of town. Those spaces, alas, have now been restored and are being used for other purposes, so we have had to scramble. Fortunately, our great friends, Luca and Monika Cateni, who rent us many of our houses in Vespignano, have provided us with good study spaces near our houses, and even managed to install electricity and lighting in a few days. We converted our dining area in Guardia, our year-round rental, into a cataloguing area and conservation lab, and went out and bought (ouch!) many new tables and other equipment, and I am happy to report that now, as of week three, we are set up and ready to go. Chris White and Vanessa Saiz, our two conservators are hard at work. Anne Hooton, our illustrator, is working on things that we will need for publication, and Profs. Gretchen Meyers and Ann Steiner (Rollins and Franklin and Marshall College, respectively) are supervising and working on the catalogue and various research projects. All is well, and we are humming along like a well-oiled machine. I have probably jinxed us by saying something of this sort, and I will have to check on whether there is some Etruscan deity that we will need to propitiate, just in case. SMU students Hilary Cornell, Nate O'Connor, Candace Vaden, and Summer Roberts working on their bucchero research project under Greg Warden's direction in the study room. The reason that the lab and study areas are so important is that we are now at a point where we are engaging in research projects that will lead to publication. In fact, we have revised our field-school curriculum to incorporate more research along with usual heavy dose of field work, theory and practice. Our students have been divided into five groups, and each group will work in the lab one day a week on specific projects that include studying the tile from the site, bucchero pottery from Trench PC 20, the bronze group from PC 23, numismatics, and ceramics. Profs. Meyers, Steiner, Michael Thomas (Tufts University), and I will supervise the groups, and two students will also work on palaeobotany with Lynn Makowski, University of Pennsylvania Museum, who will join us next week. Each group of undergraduates will thus be able to participate in a real research project that connects the field work with the broader explication of material culture and cultural context. Michael Thomas, Jess Galloway, and Robert Vander Poppen discuss finds from PC 23. I am supervising the group that is studying the metal finds (and related material) found in PC 23, in the courtyard of the Phase II structure on the acropolis, just west of the altar. We have suspected that these objects might be votive in nature, possibly a stips, and already we have made some important discoveries. In looking over the masses of bronze objects from this area we discovered that one piece is a fragment of a votive figurine, supporting our interpretation. Then, just two days later, up on the hill in trench PC 23, Robert Vander Poppen (University of North Carolina) and his crew unearthed a fully preserved votive figurine, again from this same context. We do love a good bronze figurine, but again, it's not what you find, it's what you find out, and in this case the context is really important. We are well on our way to documenting the ritual nature of this part of the site during the fourth and third centuries BCE. There are undoubtedly more discoveries in the offing. Please stay tuned. View of some of Trenches PC 20, 23, and 27 on the arx of Poggio Colla during 2005 Week 1.   Overview from the northeast of Poggio Colla trenches during Week 3 of the 2005 field season.   Greg Warden with Italian television crew on Poggio Colla.   TV crew interviewing and filming on Poggio Colla. Greg Warden: What in the World? Sunday, July 24, 2005 I sit at my desk in Vicchio reflecting on the first five weeks of excavation as the church bells toll on a lazy Sunday morning. Only two more weeks to go. Already the students and staff are waxing nostalgic, getting ready to say goodbye to old and new friends. The weather has been wet and unusually cool, a strange season, and not only meteorologically. We seem to have odd circumstances in the uneven years here at Poggio Colla. In 2001 we found the hoard of silver victoriati, and then in 2003 we unearthed the hoard of gold jewelry. We are students of the Etruscans, who believed in fate and propitiated the gods accordingly, and the numerology of what we do here has not escaped us. It is hard not to be superstitious in a profession that involves digging holes in the ground in the hope of finding things, and the Etruscan spirits, fates, or whatever, are surely looking out for us. Perhaps we're just damned lucky, or perhaps Poggio Colla is such a spectacular place that even a fool could find things, but this year has seen spectacular results as well. But I should begin at the beginning. Back in the 1950s, when television was young and the viewing public expected a modicum of intelligence from television programming, in the day when television was still an elite medium and had not become the mind-numbing, brain-draining idiocy that it is today, there was a wonderful program called "What in the world?" The premise was simple. You get a small group of archaeological experts together at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, one of the great archaeological institutions, and present them with a curious artifact, from one of the sub-basements or from the back of a drawer, that belongs to a culture with which none of them is familiar. Then you watch them try to explain it. Is it a hat, or a musical instrument, or a fetish? It was a lot of fun watching experts have to improvise, but the underlying premise of the show was not unlike the basic methodology of an excavation where you are presented with new information in the form of unfamiliar artifacts (occasionally at least) that need to be interpreted and contextualized into a an overarching narrative (an explanation, if you will). This has been our situation for the past several weeks. View of Trench PC 27 from the north in 2005 Week 3. The first hint that something new was afoot came from Trench 27, the northwest corner of the Phase II and III monumental courtyard. Caitlin Vacanti has been excavating the western edge of the courtyard for the past several years. Caitly is a Georgetown grad who is about to begin graduate work at Tufts University this fall, and she has a knack for spectacular discoveries; she unearthed the hoard of gold jewelry in 2003, and her area has proven to be rich in deposits that we have interpreted as votive or ritual in nature. The northwest corner is an architectural nightmare. There are masses of stones, several intersecting walls, all kinds of things that will take us years of study to sort through, but in the middle of this muddle was a small area that was relatively free of stones and walls, an area covered by tile and pottery. Here Caitly's crew came upon an unusual stone, a large disc or cylinder, placed flat on the ground, from which protruded a boss. It was quickly dubbed the "sombrero" by the excavators, for it resembled just that, and as it emerged from the ground, the whole excavation staff quickly proceeded to play a game of "what in the world?" Was it a cippus, a column base, a column capital, an altar, or just a big stone disc, say a large cheese tray or a palaeolithic flying saucer? Is it votive, connected to ritual in some way? It seemed upside down (the boss of the "sombrero" is unfinished and looks like a tenon), and many of our early architectural members were turned upside down in the final phase, seemingly on purpose, possibly as part of the "de-sanctification" rituals of the site. All bets were on. Votive column capital (?) and pyramidal stone base in PC 27, viewed from east. Then things got more complicated. To the north of the "sombrero" emerged a stone base of pyramidal form, beautifully carved and with a setting hole on its upper part that still has the cast lead that had held in place a bronze statuette. Immediately to the west was another faceted stone block that turns out to be a pentagonal base for another statuette-again the setting hole is preserved on the top face. Around the "sombrero" were several interesting large pieces of bronze, but most telling was the discovery of two pieces of twisted gold wire immediately to the south. Gold is not something easily overlooked, and its presence here immediately suggested a ritual context, especially since immediately to the south, in 2003, we discovered long gold strands and a gold ring next to an upside-down podium block near an underground fixture, a clear indication of ritual connected with a chthonic setting. Why were the three blocks placed here along with the gold? And what on earth is the "sombrero?" Small pentagonal pedestal for sculpture from PC 27. Finally, after almost three weeks of painstaking excavation and careful documentation, this past Tuesday, the 19th of June, we lifted the blocks. The "sombrero" has a smooth underside, beautifully finished, and my guess at this point is that it is a column capital, perhaps for a votive column, but again, it's just a somewhat informed opinion. The pieces are being cleaned by our conservators, and on Wednesday Chris White was lovingly cleaning the pyramidal statue base when he made an amazing discovery: an inscription on one of its faces. Words will not suffice to explain how remarkable and important is this discovery. This is a dream come true, an inscription that clearly demonstrates the cultic nature of the site and that will certainly help illuminate what was going on at Poggio Colla. Etruscan inscriptions are extraordinarily rare and ours is exceptional because of its context. What on earth was going on here? Why were these objects placed here? What does the inscription say? What in the world, indeed. Marty Reichert and Greg Warden examine the pedestal from PC 27. Marty Reichert excavated all three votive stone pieces this season.   "Votive column capital" lifted from Trench PC 27. Michael Thomas and Matt Coonan with "votive column capital" lifted from PC 27.   Final Report: Michael Thomas As we wrap up our eleventh season at Poggio Colla, it is time to reflect on a productive excavation campaign. We were fortunate to have a remarkable group of students and staff who were all part of a memorable summer of work. This season saw the end of excavation in the Podere Funghi, new information about the early history of the acropolis, and a revamped field school curriculum with an emphasis on research. Next season will be a very different one, as we will engage in limited excavation and focus the bulk of our attention on study. The Podere Funghi After excavating in this area since 1998, we completed work this summer in the Podere Funghi. Although we may reopen some areas for study, including one ceramic kiln which we have for the moment left unexcavated, we feel that we have uncovered the extent of the ancient structure. This season concentrated on what seems to have been a terraced work area to the east of the structure. Under the direction of Katy Blanchard, excavation focused on the delineation of a large burn mark, an area where repeated burning at high temperature literally cooked the clay-rich soil. The result is a thick terracotta-colored stain, similar in effect to the remains of our kiln. This stain, however, suggests a form much larger than our kilns, and lacks the vertical elements that mark the kiln "walls." Burn feature in the Podere Funghi. So what caused this stain in the soil? It is hard to say. Our soil geologist, Neil Tabor, confirmed that in order to bake the earth as it has been in this area, it would require consistent heat over a long period. That is the type of heat consistent with the operation of a kiln. Certainly these remains may have been a different type of kiln, one that was simply damaged by a modern plough. Another possibility is that this burn was caused by an open fire, perhaps used for cooking or drying. Excavations uncovered 20 carbonized post holes to the south and east of the burn mark. The pattern of some these holes suggest that they may have supported a shed roof. Perhaps some of the others may have supported some type of drying rack or shelving. Still another possibility is that this area was some type of outdoor cooking or dining area. Although this hypothesis is perhaps the least likely, it is interesting that the restoration of the large chalice-like vessels found here last year discovered areas of charcoal staining, staining that suggests that these vessels were used as braziers, the type often found in a banquet setting. These are issues we must address as we prepare the publication of the Podere Funghi. Sacred Boundaries and Votive Contexts: New Discoveries on the Acropolis As has often been the case, the acropolis of Poggio Colla produced a dizzying array of finds and some very significant discoveries pertinent to the architecture of the site. Post hole in Trench PC 23. Of special interest was the discovery of new evidence of the site's earliest history. We had always assumed that there may have been a pre-stone architecture phase on top of the site, and this year we may have found evidence of this phase. In PC 23, Robert Vander Poppen discovered a post hole at a very low level. I suspect that this post hole belonged to the building that produced much of the Orientalizing bucchero that we have found in PC 20. PC 20, under the supervision of Ivo van der Graaff, produced even more significant amounts of that same bucchero and impasto. More importantly, it may have given us a glimpse into the oldest history of our site. Underneath the north terrace wall, Ivo discovered a thick (in places over 80 centimeters) stratum full of 7th century ceramics. This deposit was cut into when the southern terrace wall was constructed. Along the top of this mound was a series of simple stones, clearly laid out in a line. It is my belief that these stones may represent some type of early boundary of the site, perhaps even a type of boundary similar to the Roman pomerium, literally the sacred limits of a city. In this case, we could have the boundary of the sanctuary. Interestingly, it is on top of this same mound, less than half a meter to the north, where fortification walls were built. This mound may have functioned as a type of earthwork fortification during the site's early phase. Less than a meter from our boundary stones Ivo discovered two more moulded architectural blocks; these blocks had been utilized as the bottom course of our northern wall in PC 20. They are over a meter in length and, as is the case with many of our reused architectural blocks, they are upside down. Line of boundary stones in front of wall with inverted, moulded architectural blocks in PC 20. Phase IV? We continue to be puzzled by the evidence in PC 26, excavated under the supervision of Josh Moran. Most troubling is part of a wall that seems to be stratigraphically later than the Phase III walls, suggesting perhaps that we may have had a later addition to our building. This trench continued to produce evidence of grain storage, as Josh uncovered what seems to be a floor level with a smashed pithos full of carbonized grain seeds. Lynn Makowsky's paleo-botanical analysis should tell us a lot about the type of grains that were stored in this area. Josh's crew spent many days delicately excavating what seems to have been the remains of the roof that once covered this storage area. Tile fall excavated in Trench PC 26 in 2005. Looking Ahead As I have often said, our season turned up as many, if not more, questions than it answered. This conundrum is one reason that we will utilize next summer as a study season, revisiting much of our material culture with the hindsight of 11 years of excavation. We will have limited excavation, including further study of the area where we found our three bases through excavation of the grid to the west of PC 27. We also hope to excavate out a section of our fortification walls to the north of PC 20. Robert Vander Poppen will open up some previously excavated areas on both the acropolis and in the Podere Funghi for study. The plan is to rotate field school students between smaller trenches and lab research. Finally I should extend my gratitude to both our staff and students for a very successful year. I already look forward to the next. Field Supervisors, Assistants, and selected students making final drawings in 2005 Poggio Colla trenches.     Special Page Co-Directors: Gregory Warden gwarden@mail.smu.edu and Michael Thomas mlthomas@mail.utexas.edu Excavation house phone during the field season: (011-39) 055-844-9834