2001 DIRECTOR'S DIARY P. Gregory Warden Reports from the end of the field season Week 4: I write this report on Thursday afternoon of our fourth week. Now is the time that we begin to see whether our season's strategy will pay off. The portents, as the Etruscans might say, are promising. Trench PC 18 is finally, after much hard work by Kate Topper's team, getting down to stratum 5, the Orientalizing layer, pay-dirt, if you will. This trench is an odd one, at least for our site where the Etruscan remains lie only a few inches off the dusty surface of the hill. In Trench 18 the excavators need to dig through several feet of sterile soil, most of which washed down the hill in recent times, before getting to the Etruscan layers. The upper four strata need to be excavated just as carefully, the dirt sifted throughout, as stratum 5. It is tedious work, several weeks of dull excavation before the excitement of coming down on what seems to be a rare 7th century BC habitation. There should be interesting results from this area next week. Things have been hopping on the arx and Podere Funghi as well, as you can see from the specific reports. We have also had a visit from Professor Frank Vento of Clarion University. Frank spent two days doing remote sensing (radar and resistivity) in the Podere Funghi and nearby areas see Field Director's week 4 report and the Ground Probing Radar page. This was a great educational opportunity for our students as well as some possibly useful information for planning future seasons. Bucchero lid with incised decoration (view from top). Last week I mentioned that some of our most important work goes on in the excavation laboratories and that we have been making important discoveries in the pottery left from last season's excavation in PC 20. The reason for this time lag is that bucchero and painted wares are so fragile that they have to be cleaned by our professional conservators. It's important not to disturb the surfaces of these sherds when they are excavated. Wiping the earth from a bucchero sherd just after it's excavated will often eradicate the surface and any possible decoration. Thus much of the material that came up at the end of last season-and there was a lot of it-had to wait until this season to be cleaned. Although fragmentary, the material is spectacular, exceptionally fine bucchero sottile, decorated and well-fired pottery that tells us about the prosperity of the ruling elite in the seventh century BC. Fenestrated bucchero. Fenestrated bucchero. Some of these pieces are extraordinarily rare, for instance two small fragments that must come from bucchero fenestrated vases, possibly pedestals and stands. Also exceptional some of the stamped pieces, one that has a series of stamped felines, another (unfortunately more worn and less distinct) with a series of goats. Bucchero sherd with running feline stamp. Bucchero stamped "goat" sherd. All these fragments are from the lowest stratum of Trench PC 20, our only early undisturbed stratum on the site. Just as interesting, although possibly a century later, is an unusual bucchero finial that surfaced in Trench PC 21 last year but that was only assembled this past week. Bucchero finial from Trench PC 21. Not all the surprises are good ones, alas. The terracotta bird that caused such a furor at the end of last season (the students called it a chicken) turned out, after being cleaned and joined to other pieces, to be nothing more than a rather lumpy and undistinguished lamp! Oh well…. And then we have the frustrating bits of painted pottery, for instance two Red Figure sherds that bear just enough decoration to give us a tantalizing glimpse of what might be. And that just might be the moral of the story, the methodological lesson of settlement archaeology, that everything we find, whether architecture or the smallest fragment of bronze, is just another frustrating glimpse of the whole, the reconstruction of a physical and cultural reality that lies many years in the future. Red Figure sherd. Red Figure sherd.   Week 5: Director Greg Warden (left) discusses findings in Trench PF 6 with Field Director Michael Thomas. It is Friday, July 20, 6:15 AM. After a week of cloudy and cool weather, great weather for digging, we had a night of hard rain and thunder. The site is soaked, but we will try to get some work done before the students take off for the weekend. Even if we are rained out today, we will have had a productive week. I received an e-mail from one of our excavation friends recently, from Larry Lehman, who excavated with us for several seasons and is now following us on the web. He commented on how frustrating it is that we do not know anything for certain. He has to follow us through the careful, equivocal commentary of our field director and trench supervisors, who have to grope, from day to day, through the bits of evidence that are painstakingly unearthed by the excavation crews. Well, the good news this week is that the pieces are beginning to fit together; a pattern begins to emerge; and we are finally able to come to some conclusions. View of Trenches PF 6, 5, and 7 in the Podere Funghi during Week 5. Trench PC 18 is still a mystery (but there's hope even there), but there is very good news from the Podere Funghi. We have found two kilns and can safely say that the structures here, in PF 5-7, were used as an industrial area, for the production of pottery. It's quite clear that we have at least two phases, and we are coming down on an impressive tile fall/destruction layer that includes the kind of fine pottery that we found in PF 1 and 2 several years ago. These are very exciting developments. Kiln in Trench PF 7. On top of the hill, on the arx, the southwest corner of the monumental building, there is a massive and heavily buttressed structure, quite impressive. In PC 22, near last year's trench, PC 19, there is still the possibility of a cistern (there's some large void under there, but I'm not sue we'll have time to get to it this year). Greg Warden ponders the cavity in Trench PC 22 during trench tours. PC 18, on the northwest slopes, remains enigmatic, but we are just getting to the full stratum 5, the pay dirt that I referred to in my last report. It has been a productive week. Now if we can only stay dry. Week 6: Greg Warden with Sopraintendenza Fedeli from Florence. So much has happened on the last week that I will have to refer you to the individual trench reports for the details. In the Podere Funghi the two trenches, PF 6 and 7, are nearing completion. We have now cleared a larger portion of the structure that we discovered last year, determined that the area has at least two phases, found the kilns, and, as of this week, found a dramatic tile fall. All this is highly satisfying. The only disappointment is Trench PF 8, the test in the southeast corner of the field, which has not found the structure that we suspect existed in this area. View of Trenches PF 5, 6, and 7 in the Podere Funghi. On top of the hill Trenches PC 22 and 23 are still providing us with fascinating information about the latest phases of the temple. We have learned more about the stratigraphy and floor levels of the structures, have cleared more of the massive structures of the southwest corner of the building (there are now two phases of masonry clearly evident), and have dramatic new paving blocks (for a column base) in PC 22. View of Trenches PC 22 (foreground) and 23 on the arx at the end of Week 6. The enigma is still the trench on the southwest slope, PC 18. The pottery from this area is spectacular, all seventh-century in date, but what exactly went on here still eludes us. The clues (quarried blocks, stone circle, elite pottery) just do not seem to fit together. The last week may provide some insight; if not, we will have a lot to ponder in the off-season. View of Trench PC 18 showing worked blocks and ongoing excavation of the stone circle. I need not belabor the fact that we are in a frenzy of activity. Students and staff are putting in long days; trench supervisors are getting only a few hours of sleep a night as the pace of activity increases. It is the adrenaline rush of the last full week of excavation. I will go into more detail in my final report, but this year's staff and students are an exceptional lot, probably the best group we have ever had. I am very proud of them. Week 7: Greg Warden in the Podere Funghi with Dr. Erik Nielsen, former director of excavations at Poggio Civitate, now president of Franklin College in Lugano. It is the end of the season and we are all tired. The staff and students have worked exceptionally hard, and now that we're in the home stretch, most of us are running on adrenaline and little else. The good news is that we have much to be excited about, much to celebrate. It has been an exceptional season, our best yet. There have been extraordinary finds that we have not had time to process and properly present on the web. You will have noticed that we have not illustrated many finds, that objects have not been part of the story that we have told. This is not because we have not found things, for we have catalogued well over a hundred and fifty objects, some of them spectacular, and that tally will certainly rise to over two hundred once we finish cleaning the finds that have come down from our five trenches. No, the reason for the silence about our finds, the actual objects, is that they will require study and interpretation before we present them to the public. Not everything is internet ready. Some things require time, patience, and deliberation. But a more fundamental point is that we are not interested in things for their own sake, but in objects and finds as means for understanding historical context and cultural process. No matter how many splendid objects of museum quality may have been unearthed in the past seven weeks, it is this greater context that must concern us at the end of the season. Black glaze vessel found in Trench PC 23. So the question is not what have we found, but what have we learned? The process of archaeology, the actual digging, moves along at a pace that seems incredibly slow to the lay person. We move by inches, and day by day the progress is barely noticeable. The sum of our seven weeks' work is really not all that much when measured against the many acres, perhaps the hundreds of acres, that constitute our archaeological zone. Yet, if we are doing what we should be doing, some kind of pattern, some kind of picture should emerge. I think that is happening at Poggio Colla. This Monday the trench supervisors, students, and staff took part in what we call "trench tours." Several years ago-using the model of hospital rounds, where a doctor and students will discuss actual cases in the presence of the patient--I decided that one of the best ways for all of us to share information and understand what we were doing would be to have everyone, once every week or ten days, tour the site and take part in a hands-on discussion between staff and students. Monday was our last trench tour of the season. As we toured the site and as supervisors presented their findings, what struck me was the way that trench supervisors did not seem to fully appreciate how much they had learned and accomplished during the season. Greg Warden listens to Gretchen Meyers explain the excavation of Trench PC 23. We have found out a great deal. We now know something about the activity that went on during the site's earliest phase, when the inhabitants set about building monumental architecture (the earliest temple or altar). How do we know this? From Trench PC 18 where we have found what is indubitable evidence of quarrying in the seventh century BC. Here the quarry became a deposit, it would seem, for pottery, some of it elite ware, Orientalizing bucchero. The inference is that there was an aristocratic residence nearby, on the north-west slope of the hill. We might therefore postulate an early phase, in the second half of the seventh century, where the locals were quarrying blocks to build a sacred structure on the top of the hill while inhabiting the slopes of the site. Overview of Trench PC 18 from the southeast. In the next several centuries the site must have grown in wealth and importance, even if the early bucchero pottery suggests that the inhabitants were already prospering in the seventh and sixth centuries BC. By the fifth or fourth century a large rectangular structure, a temple, dominated the west end of the plateau. This structure (Phase II), judging by the surviving podium blocks and column bases, was imposing and could probably have been seen from most of the Mugello and upper Val Sieve. In the third century the temple was destroyed, we know not whether by accident or intent, and rebuilt along the same lines, and with approximately the same dimensions, 11 by at least 23 meters. We know this from trench PC 22 where we have found Phase III foundations placed directly over the foundations of the second phase, a phenomenon that we had encountered in other parts of the building. The surprise here was that the building seems to continue and may be larger than previously postulated. View from the southwest of Trenches PF 22 (foreground) and PF 23 at season's end. Tile fall and large worked blocks as seen from the south in Trench PC 23. Thanks to this year's work we know that the later settlement was quite vast in scope. We have opened up larger areas of the structure in the Podere Funghi, about a kilometer from the arx, where we have what is clearly an industrial area, a place for the manufacture of ceramics, with the clear evidence of three kilns, one of them magnificently preserved. View of the industrial area excavated in PF 7 (foreground) and PF 6 in the Podere Funghi. We have thus found out a great deal. When we analyze our data, continue to research our findings, and ponder the meaning of these things in the coming academic year, we will probably find out a great deal more. I can't wait to come back to Poggio Colla next summer to test our hypotheses. Left: Architect Jess Galloway makes final drawings of architectural elements on the arx at Poggio Colla. Right: Robert Vander Poppen steadies the ladder for Greg Warden during final photography. Season's end: the crew backfilling Trench PF 7 in the Podere Funghi.   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