L'Amastuola
An Iron Age settlement was discovered on a hill in L'Amastuola , about 14.0 kilometers northwest of Taranto in Apulia ( Italy ) . From 2003 to 2010 archaeologists examined parts of the settlement and a necropolis .
settlement
The houses and graves are located south of the homestead that occupies the hilltop. The place was since the late 8th century BC. Inhabited and was fortified with a double wall in the middle of the 7th century - probably in response to the Greek colonization on the coast. The outer ring consists of approximately 3.0 m wide dry masonry . Iapygic ceramics and the remains of a round hut under the house foundations bear witness to the pre-Greek settlement. The ceramics and the rectangular one-room houses from archaic times show Greek influence. Rectangular one-room houses with a floor area of around 10 m² with a courtyard were built above the huts. They are reminiscent of the Greek residential buildings in Megara Hyblaia on the east coast of Sicily . The findings have been covered.
During the first half of the 5th century BC Chr. Is an end to the old and a transition to a new settlement. Apparently the strategically well-located settlement was integrated into the Chora of the Tarent / Taras colony in the course of the 5th century .
Burial ground
On the north and south slopes of the hill there are extensive burial fields , the rectangular pits of which lie close together in the rock. Adults and children have lived here since the 7th century BC. Buried. An older local stele served as a cover for a grave . The sides of the flat, smoothed stele are drawn in, the upper corners are raised and the lower section is prepared in the form of an inlet spigot. An incised zigzag pattern runs along the edge . The stele is reminiscent of specimens from Daunien , Cavallino and Mesagne, but has neither a headpiece nor carved limbs, clothing, jewelry, weapons or figurative scenes. On the southern slope you can still see some of the 250 graves and sections of two roads with cart tracks over a length of 600 m along the road, half covered by the macchia . One of the 3 m wide paths was sunk into the rock.
literature
- Jan Paul Crielaard, Gert-Jan Burgers: Greek Colonists and Indigenious Populations at L'Amastuola, Southern Italy II. In: Babesch - Annual Papers on Mediterranean Archeology , Volume 87, 2012, pp. 69-106, DOI: 10.2143 / BAB. 87.0.2160693 .
Web links
Coordinates: 40 ° 34 ′ 42.5 ″ N , 17 ° 10 ′ 12.7 ″ E