Marzabotto (Bologna)

Archaeological mission coordinator/director

Elisabetta Govi

Research Area and ERC Panels

• Archaeology from pre and proto history to medieval age
• SH6 The Study of the Human Past: Archaeology and history”

Activation date of the campaign and duration

Starting date: 2018.

Overview

Since 1988, the Chair of Etruscan Studies of the University of Bologna has been leading archaeological excavations at Marzabotto. The city was founded at the end of the 6th century BC and was abandoned during the 4th century BC because of the Celtic migration. The research allowed reconstructing the urban layout, inhabited areas, temples, workshops and necropolises.

After the discovery of an entire house (House 1, Regio IV - insula 2), the excavations of the University of Bologna have been directed to the urban sacred area, located inside a regular insula, where was recovered a peripteral temple dedicated to Tinia, the highest divinity of the Etruscan pantheon (Regio I - insula 5). A district connected to the sanctuary was discovered north of this area. Since 2013, the research has been focused on a new area near the temple (in the Regio I, insulae 4a-4b) in order to shed light on some unsolved queries regarding the urban layout. There, an exceptional discovery was made between 2014 and 2015: a tuscanic temple build in the 500 BC ca. The study of the sacred precinct and its relationship with the urban planning is the aim of the current research.

This project, dedicated to the analysis of urban development and architecture, is enforced by the study of the local production, mostly ceramic, through archaeometry thanks to a collaboration with the BiGea (Professor Roberto Braga). Since 2014, the reconstruction of the city with Digital Archaeology directed to research and dissemination (Kainua Project) has been carried on thanks to the collaboration with the SILAB of the Architecture Department (Professor Simone Garagnani).