Marzabotto (ancient city)

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Acropolis in Marzabotto
Map of the excavation site
Temple of Marzabotto
Marzabotto grave stele

Marzabotto is a small Italian town in the Apennines , near which the remains of an Etruscan city ​​have been excavated. It is the best preserved and best explored Etruscan city.

The Marzabotto excavations are also closely linked to the beginning of Celtic archeology in Italy. At the 5th Congress for Prehistoric Anthropology and Archeology in Bologna in 1871, the cultural connections of some finds with transalpine Western and Central Europe were mentioned for the first time.

history

The ancient name of the city has not been passed down with certainty. There are two hypotheses. The plateau on which the city stands is called Pian di Misano . From this it was concluded that this name refers to an ancient name. Indeed, an inscription was found in Rubiera that names a place Misa or Misala . In the main temple of the city a short inscription was in recent excavations found: ... ni kainuathi x ... . In -thi is the Etruscan to the locative. So the inscription names a place Kainua .

It is located on a plateau on the Reno , the valley of which is usually very narrow, but widens here. At the end of the sixth century BC The Etruscans began to found colonies north of their actual home country. A number of cities emerged, especially in the Po Valley and on the way there. Already in the sixth century there was a place with oval simple huts near Marzabotto. The floors of these houses are made of clay or pebbles. The walls of the houses were made of wood and wickerwork. During the excavations, there were mainly post holes. Typical finds are shards of Bucchero ceramics, but also isolated ceramics from Corinth . Settlement remains of this phase were found mainly in the south of the city, but can also be detected in other parts.

Around 500 BC The place was expanded to a city with right-angled streets, which was laid out according to a right-angled scheme with approx. 15 m wide main streets. Side streets were 5 m wide. The whole city was about 400 × 500/600 m in size. The exact dimensions of the city can no longer be determined precisely today, as the Reno, on which it is located, has changed its river bed over time and swept parts of the city with it. It was a so-called strip town that followed Greek models. The streets have different widths depending on their importance. In total there was a broad north-south axis and three east-west axes. At several intersections of the streets, a total of five large pebbles with a carved cross have been preserved. They are probably marker points that were used when the city was built and that also had a religious significance and were therefore not removed. Under the streets of the city, which had an open sewer system, there was a water pipe. At a depth of about seven meters there was a water-bearing layer in the ground that was easily accessible through wells. There was also a water distributor near the Acropolis in the city, which was supplied from a nearby spring and then fed the water through two pipes into the city. It can be assumed that the residential buildings were well supplied by wells, since the water was channeled into pottery that had an increased demand for water.

Around 400 BC The Celts, especially the Boier tribe, invaded the Po plain. There were probably armed conflicts, but the sources report little about it. The city probably went around 350 BC. Under. However, there is no evidence that the city was forcibly taken. The city was likely abandoned as trade routes changed and sources of income disappeared. The place remained uninhabited for a while, until some Celts settled here, whose graves were found in various places in the city. In Roman times there was a farmhouse with two ovens in the northeast of the city.

History of the excavations

Ancient ruins on site had been known since the 16th century. In 1781/1781 Serafino Calindri described the city as the place where numerous antiquities were found, especially statues and Roman coins. In 1831 the Aria family bought the site and converted it into a park. In 1839 they came across a votive depot that contained numerous bronze statues. There were further accidental finds until parts of the city were excavated by Giovanni Gozzadini in 1862/63 . Further excavations took place between 1866 and 1869, with Gozzadini now mainly taking care of the necropolis. The excavations were also published in monographs shortly afterwards. Gozzadini believed that the whole city was a cemetery. This is not so surprising as he also found (Celtic) burials in the urban area. In 1888/1889 the first state excavation took place under Edoardo Brizio , who held the chair for archeology in Bologna . He also set up a museum for the finds at Villa Aria. Brozio published a first city map. However, in 1911 the gold finds were stolen from the museum and allegedly melted down. Today they are only known from Gozzadini's drawings. In 1933 the site was bought by the state and the museum was relocated, but it was bombed towards the end of World War II, which meant that most of the finds were lost. Since 1957 there have been excavations again under Guido Achille , who exposed an entire insula (insula I, regio IV). French excavations uncovered parts of Insula V, 3 from 1971 to 1976. In 2002 another, and arguably the most important temple in the city, was excavated.

Residential buildings and workshops

The residential buildings, which are relatively well preserved today, date from the second half of the 5th century. So far, two house types have been identified within the city. On the one hand, there are large residential buildings, which were mainly found in Insula IV, 1; on the other hand, there were houses that were exactly half as large, which are best known from Insula V, 3 so far. The houses have foundations made of river pebbles. The buildings were not close together, but were separated by sewers, which were also made of river pebbles. The rising walls consisted of a half-timbered construction. Most of the houses were probably one story. The strong foundations also make it seem possible that some buildings or parts of them were two-story. The roofs were covered with tiles. There were occasionally decorated bricks. It remains unclear whether these come from residential buildings or from the city's temples. The plan of the houses with the inner courtyard is almost identical to the later atrium houses, as they are mainly known from Pompeii.

There are several workshops in the city. A pottery was excavated in a house of Insula 1 in Regio II, which produced ceramics with a black coating of local clay. In a house of Insula 5 in the region , remains of a metal workshop came to light. Particularly noteworthy is the discovery of the remains of a casting mold for a high-quality bronze statue.

temple

Remains of Temple D

In the north of the city, a large temple has been excavated since 1999, which, according to an inscription, was dedicated to Tinia ( comparable to Zeus or Jupiter ) and which was obviously the main temple of the city. The remains of the building were only discovered in 1999 after parts of the city had been geophysically examined. It was then excavated by the University of Bologna. The temple took up the major part of an insula and was located within a walled temple area (35 × 57 m). The actual temple stood on a rectangular podium and had four columns at the front, five columns at the back and six columns on the long sides. The roof was decorated with terracotta ornaments, as is typical for Etruscan temples. However, only a few fragments were found. At the front a staircase led to the dais. The interior of the temple was divided into several rooms. Two fragments of marble statues were found near the temple, which were certainly produced in Greece. The head of a Kuro who died around 500 BC. BC, once belonged to a 1.1 to 1.2 m tall statue.

In 1856 three temples, two altars and other structures were excavated on the acropolis in the northeast of the city. In the far east stood a temple (about 10.4 × 17.95 m) (Building A) of the Greek type. Next to it was an altar (building B), which is older than the temple. South of the altar was the largest temple (building C; 18.2 × 21.4 m) which must have been a temple of the Tuscan type. The building was divided into three parts with a middle cella and two side cells. This temple was richly decorated with terracotta decorations. Building D is to the west of it. The building (9.1 × 9.2 m) is the best preserved of the local facilities today. What has been preserved is a podium with a staircase on the south side, which is built up from traverse blocks. It was either an altar or a one-room temple. Building E is again to the west and has been poorly preserved. It is probably a sacred building, although other functions have also been suggested. Since no inscriptions were found on the Acropolis, the deities worshiped here are unknown.

Bronze decorations in the Etruscan National Museum in Marzabotto

Remains of a spring sanctuary were found in the far north of the city. The building is badly preserved. It is also not entirely clear whether the temple was already outside the city, on the very edge or still inside the city, as the city limits are not yet known exactly. The facility, which had not been completely excavated before, was only around 7.5 × 9 m in size. There was a square, only 1.5 m deep well surround and next to it a rectangular basin. Carefully worked stones formed walls on at least three sides. Terracotta bricks, antefixes and bas-reliefs once adorned the temple, but it cannot be reconstructed. Numerous small finds such as statues and ceramics came to light. According to this, the sanctuary is in the 6th century BC. Was founded. The architecture is dated to the 5th century. The deity worshiped here is unknown. Spring sanctuaries were very popular with the Etruscans. An outstanding find is a well-preserved bronze statuette of a kore . The figure is 29.7 cm high and shows a young woman from the front. The left leg is slightly forward. The left arm grabs the long robe. The other hand is holding a flower. The face shows an archaic smile . It is probably the best quality kore ever found in the Etruscan culture. It becomes around 520 to 490 BC. Dated and may have come from a North Etruscan workshop.

graveyards

Tombs in Marzabotto; the stone boxes were not visible in antiquity because they were buried underground, only the cippus was above ground

So far, two cemeteries and some individual burials are known. North of the city is the north necropolis , east of the city is the east necropolis . A total of 295 graves are known to date. Most of the burials are in the body, but there have also been numerous cremations. The cremations are often simple box graves. They are square boxes made of local limestone made of plates. The cover is often gable-shaped. The burials were once marked on the surface. Cippi , which are round or egg-shaped stones, usually only roughly hewn, which stand on a base, were particularly common . In Marzabotto there was only one cippus with an incised decoration showing figures. There was only a single stele showing a young, standing woman. Her figure is carved into the flat relief on the front of the stele. A large part of the burial goods has been stolen. However, two graves still contained rich gold jewelry. Ceramic additions are common. A red-figure vase by the Amykos painter who lived around 410 BC was found in a grave . Worked.

Celtic settlement

Between 1867 and 1871, two necropolises in the urban area were examined by Gabriel de Mortillet and Pierre Jean Édouard Desor and the above-mentioned cultural connections across the Alpine ridge were identified. In one cemetery, at the foot of the Acropolis, 17 body burials were found, in the other, in an uninhabited place in the city center, eight were found. Men's graves with weapons, women's graves with fibulae (including one of the Marzabotto type, see below) and bracelets, but all grave sites without ceramics, were uncovered. The two necropolises were dated from the beginning to the middle of the 3rd century BC. BC, when the city no longer existed, but only one or two small settlements (named Boisch after ancient authors ) and one more distant settlement in today's Casalecchio di Reno , as comparisons of the finds from the Latène period show. The funeral rites here and there are different from the rites in other centers in the region (Bologna, Monte Bibele , Monterenzio ), because no Hellenizing Greco-Etruscan customs such as a sympósion ("banquet") or competitions were held. There were also only body burials and none of the cremations that were common at the time. Some of the burials took place in so-called grave shafts, which was considered an argument for a connection between the cis- and transalpine (Celtic) world. A reuse of abandoned wells is now considered more likely. The Celtic presence at the site is dated after the city fell. There are probably only a few families who settled here in the rural environment and buried their dead. Around 250 BC BC they left the place, perhaps in connection with the Romanization of the area.

Some metal objects from the urban area are also partially (deliberately?) Deformed from the Latène period, such as hollow hump hoops and fibulae. Some of them were in the temple area and could therefore be classified as votive offerings ( ex-votos ). One object that can certainly be addressed as an ex-voto is a primer that was deposited in a water sanctuary in the northern part of the city. Vessels with Celtic decorations point to Casalecchio di Reno, where such ceramics were found.

On site is the Etruscan National Museum Marzabotto, in which the finds made here can be seen.

Marzabotto primer

After the above-mentioned copy of the fibula found by Mortillet and Desor in Marzabotto, this type was given the name Marzabotto fibula , also known as the Zurich or wire-shaped fibula . The special shape of this brooch shows a symmetrically arched bow with a two-sided spiral and a semicircular base. It thus represents a mixture of transalpine fibula forms and those of the so-called Certosa fibula and is only represented south of the Po with this one find. A technical innovation of the springtime La Tène is the production from one workpiece in one operation. The material used was mostly bronze wire, more rarely silver or iron. The Marzabotto primer is a key object of the period “La Tène A” (~ 480 to ~ 380 BC); their distribution area is from the Marne region over the Rhine valley , central Switzerland to the upper Danube . It was found in men's, women's and children's graves, the situation suggests that it is safe to carry it on the upper body.

literature

Excavation reports

  • Edoardo Brizio: Relazione suglin scavi eseguti a Marzabotto presso Bologna dal November 1888 a tutto maggio 1889. In: Monumenti Antichi. Vol. 1, 1889, ZDB -ID 206537-x , pp. 249-426, ( online ).
  • Giovanni Gozzadini: Di ulteriori scoperte nell'antica necropoli a Marzabotto nel Bolognese. Fava e Garagnani, Bologna 1870, ( online ).
  • Daniele Vitali, Anna Maria Brizzolara, Enzo Lippolis: L'Acropoli della città etrusca di Marzabotto (= Studi e scavi. 18). University Press Bologna, Imola (Bologna) 2001, ISBN 88-86946-46-5 .

General

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Sievers / Urban / Ramsl: Lexicon for Celtic Archeology. A – K, LZ . P. 1251 f.
  2. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: planned town of the Etruscans , 31
  3. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: planned town of the Etruscans , 31
  4. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: planned town of the Etruscans , 43
  5. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: planned town of the Etruscans , 44
  6. ↑ Guido Achille Mansuelli: Marzabotto: Dix années de fouilles et recherches . P. 111 f.
  7. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: planned town of the Etruscans , 32
  8. ↑ Gozzadini: I ulteriori scoperte nell'antica necropoli a Marzabotto nel Bolognese , Bologna 1870
  9. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: planned town of the Etruscans , 33–37
  10. ↑ C. Reusser, in: Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: Planstadt der Etrusker , 95-101
  11. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: planned town of the Etruscans , 54–56
  12. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: planned town of the Etruscans , 112-115
  13. ↑ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: Plan City of the Etruscans , 57-61
  14. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: Planstadt der Etrusker , 61-62
  15. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: planned town of the Etruscans , 119–121
  16. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: planned town of the Etruscans , 65-77
  17. ^ Bent, Reusser: Marzabotto: planned town of the Etruscans , 109

Coordinates: 44 ° 20 '  N , 11 ° 12'  E