1998 ANNUAL REPORT Excavations at the Etruscan Site of Poggio Colla (Vicchio di Mugello) by Gregory Warden The Beginning: This year our season began in March. It says something about the scope of our project that excavation is now only a small part of what we are now do, archaeologically, in the Mugello. In March of this year I went to Italy to meet with Dr. David Romano (University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Mark Corney (University of Bristol, UK), and Nick Griffiths, to discuss our survey of the region immediately around Poggio Colla. Corney and Griffiths had arrived to begin an archaeo-topographic reconnaissance. Using a time-tested methodology (the techniques go back to the 19th century) Corney and Griffiths were planning laboriously map and measure the hill, noting all natural and artificial features and delineating major topographic changes on their plan with "hachures." This is arduous work in the rough, wooded land around Poggio Colla. It requires crashing through brambles and shrubbery, working on steep slopes and rough terrain. The weather in March is also a problem, as we are at the edge of the Appenines where storms (sleet and snow are not uncommon) tend to gather and linger. The weather was fine while I was there, during the first week, but turned bitter after I left. I suspect that this is the kind of work that is perfect for the English (an invernal equivalent of the proverbial "noon-day sun") but that would incapacitate the rest of us. The results, however, are impressive, and the resulting archaeo-topographical plan (Figure 1) illustrates the very artificial look of the top of the hill.   Figure 1. The archaeo-topographic plan of Poggio Colla, as measured and drawn by Professor Mark Corney with the assistance of Nick Griffiths in the spring of 1998. The survey work for an enlarged area that will be included in this plan was undertaken this summer (1998). We are grateful to the University of Pennsylvania Museum and its Director, Jeremy Sabloff, for funding for this survey. We were correct, I think, when we first called the poggio an acropolis, and much of our work this spring and summer has borne this out. One of the reasons that we were able to begin our archaeo-topographic work is that this spring the top of the hill was cleared of its trees. With the permission of the Italian forest service, the landowner of the very top of the site, Filippo Viola, at our request, had the chestnut trees harvested. This is normal procedure and happens every eight to ten years. The trees are cut, but one shoot or sapling is left on every stump (some of the chestnuts are hundreds of years old) so that the forest grows back quickly. The poor hilltop had a rather sad and desultory look when we arrived in March, and we cursed the lack of shade later in the summer when we endured what was said to be the hottest summer in some six hundred years (I have no idea how anyone came up with that estimate), but the clearing did allow the surveyors to begin their work. It also allowed those of us working on the hill later in the summer to understand better the relationship of the excavated architecture to the topographic layout. I will discuss this very important point later in this report, but there is no question that the whole area felt different without the trees. For one thing, we could understand why the Etruscans had settled here. From the hill we could see for miles to the north, over much of the Mugello basin, and to the south along the Sieve river valley. We could see the crest of the Appenines and important Etruscan sanctuaries such as the one that was certainly on Monte Falterona and what may have been another one on Monte Giovi. We had known that Poggio Colla was the dominant site of this region, but we had known this by looking at maps. Now we could feel it when standing on the hill. This was clearly a place whose location was perfect for controlling the area. It was a place from which to see, but also a place that was meant to be seen. The former, of course, was done from above, while the latter was done from below, an almost perfect expression of the not-so-subtle equation of power between the inhabitants of the hill and the denizens of the lower slopes. The clearing of the hilltop did not spare Corney and Griffiths from having to deal with dense cover on the southern and western slopes, but the resulting plan (Figure 1) provides a good illustration of the surface topography. It also provided new information that allowed us to make better decisions about the placement of new trenches. However, the archaeo-topographic survey is only one part of a larger survey project. David Romano, along with his Italian colleague, Umberto Moscatelli, has been planning a broader land-use survey of the valley, and Jess Galloway, our architect, has been assiduously working on a topographical map of Poggio Colla and its immediate environs. Results from this multi-faceted survey project are years in the offing, but if all goes according to plan, a diachronic and spatial reconstruction of the valley will eventually emerge. Over the past four years of excavation, I have become more and more convinced about the importance of Poggio Colla for Etruscan archaeology. This awareness has resulted in part from the wealth of artifactual material that we have found (everything from pottery to bronzes to monumental architecture), but I have also come to realize the exceptional research opportunity afforded by our site. Etruscan settlements are rare, and settlements on this scale are even rarer. Furthermore, the site spans the full range of Etruscan history, from the middle of the seventh century to the end of the second century BC, but the most important determinant may be our geographical location. Poggio Colla is the dominant center of the Val di Sieve and Mugello, a discrete and geographically well-defined region in north-eastern Etruria. Thus, we will be able to study the major urban center, Poggio Colla, and its clearly defined "territory." This is why the survey projects are so important. By studying the territory as well as the settlement(s), we should be able to glean new insights into Etruscan urban development. The Site: Poggio Colla is located in the Mugello, about twenty miles northeast of Florence. A team of professional archaeologists and students, under the auspices of Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts and the University of Pennsylvania Museum has now excavated at the site for four seasons. Poggio Colla was first excavated (from 1968 to 1972) by Dr. Francesco Nicosia, the former Superintendent of the Archaeology of Tuscany. With Dr. Nicosia's encouragement we began excavating at Poggio Colla in 1995. That first three-week season revealed the remains of monumental architecture that had first been noted by Dr. Nicosia as well as evidence for a surprisingly wealthy settlement. The 1995 season focused on the center and northern edge of the site. (Trenches 1-3, Figure 2). This first season managed to achieve our primary goal, to define in broad terms the general history or chronology of the site. We determined that the site had at least two phases. This year a more complex picture has emerged, as discussed below. Our working hypothesis in the first few seasons was that the first phase encompasses the seventh through the fifth centuries BC (Archaic-Classical Periods). while the second phase is approximately fourth and third century BC in date (Late Classical-Hellenistic Periods). The fortification walls that surround the upper part of the plateau seem to be part of this later phase. The impressive tumulus tomb, the so-called Tumulo Barsicci, that can still be seen on a terrace south-west of the plateau belongs to the early phase. It now turns out that the chronology may be more complicated than this, but the general outlines were helpful in giving us broad ranges for the main periods of settlement at Poggio Colla. Figure 2. Plan of the plateau known as Poggio Colla. Areas labeled as Units 1-12 are the twelve trenches excavated since 1995 by the Southern Methodist University-University of Pennsylvania Museum team. The most important discovery of our first season, however, was architectural. On the northern edge of the site we continued to excavate two long walls, discovered by Nicosia, that run in an east-west direction. The walls, hereafter referred to as the "monumental walls," are over a meter thick and fairly close together. Between the walls, and at a deeper level, were a series of carved sandstone blocks from an earlier phase of the site, again discovered by Nicosia. We believed that these blocks were the crowning elements for a podium of some kind. Most remarkable, however, was the discovery of a large column base, again made of sandstone, just south of the south monumental wall in what we have called Unit 3. (Figure 2) The base was found in a mixed deposit that included early bucchero pottery of seventh and sixth century date; it had been moved from its original position during a later phase of the site, but it seemed, along with the bronze head found that first year, an indicator that we had found a temple of early, possibly sixth century BC, date. The second season at Poggio Colla was a regular, six-week season that confirmed the site's potential. We continued to find evidence, in the form of superb Orientalizing bucchero, for the early prosperity of the settlement in the seventh and sixth centuries BC. We also continued to find evidence for monumental architecture, two more Tuscan column bases, and several more podium blocks. Our second base (counting the 1995 base as our first) was found under the northern monumental wall, flipped into the foundation trench of that wall in an area excavated by Nicosia. The third base was found at the eastern end of the southern monumental wall (Trench 6) next to three podium blocks which, we thought, had been aligned in the Hellenistic period to form the foundation of a wall. Here we seemed to have further later re-use of Archaic architecture from the site. In the 1996 season we also excavated a storage area on the north flank of the hill (Trench 8) that had been discovered by Dr. Nicosia. This area, of the Hellenistic phase, contained large storage jars (pithoi) filled with grain. The main question at the end of the 1996 season was the location of the Archaic monumental structure (which we suspected was a temple). The 1997 season answered this question but raised a new set of issues. In Trench 8 we found a series of large blocks, set into the bed-rock and aligned in a north-south direction. These blocks must have served as the foundation of a large building. In other areas (Trench 1, 6, and 9) we found evidence for later structures, tile falls and rubble foundations. The fabric of these later foundations is quite different from the foundation in Trench 8, and the rubble walls appear at a different, higher elevation. These later structures had a different orientation; rather than being oriented to the cardinal points, they were aligned to the rectangle formed by the edges of the plateau. In Trench 1 we also found that we had later rubble foundation running almost parallel to an earlier wall of squared blocks. The later wall seemed to recreate the plan of the earlier wall. Suddenly, in one season, we had gone from a site where there was little architecture to speak of, save the two monumental walls on the north slope, to a place where architecture was popping up everywhere, so much so that we were having difficulty explaining it. At the end of the 1997 season we hypothesized that the earlier wall in Trench 8, because of its size and orientation, was the foundation of the temple. The rubble foundations were presumably bits of architecture (whose plan would presumably emerge with more excavation) from the Hellenistic phase of the site. The earlier wall in Trench 1, we guessed, was part of the "temple phase" because of its fabric, but its alignment was a problem. Another problem was the structure in Trench 6. This building reused five (two more were found in 1997) of the early podium blocks and the large Tuscan column base (Base #3). This peculiar building had a south foundation wall of the later, rubble type, and thus belongs to the Hellenistic phase. The problem here was one of conservation. The podium blocks and base were close to the surface and endangered by their dis-interment. I had postponed the difficult decision of whether to remove the major architectural elements. Removal of these blocks would save them from further harm from the elements but would also destroy their contextual integrity. The Cast of Characters: We began on June 16 with the usual high spirits, great expectations, and not a little anxiety. The anxiety was mine for once again we were excavating with undergraduates, our Field School participants, and I had a new or newly reorganized staff. Michael Thomas, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, had taken over the direct supervision of the field work. Michael had been with us since our first season in 1995, but this was his first season of greater responsibility. He was fortunate in having an experienced and competent group of Field Supervisors: Abbi Holt, University of Virginia, Melissa Stoltz, Oberlin College; Justin Winkler, Southern Methodist University. A new addition to the ranks of Field Supervisors was Sarah Kupperberg who is also our Paleobotanist. Sarah graduated from Oberlin and is now at the University of Pennsylvania; she has been at Poggio Colla since 1996 and as an undergraduate did an excellent thesis on the paleobotanical remains from the site. One of the reason that things have gone smoothly from season to season is that we have dedicated and competent students who return year after year, usually at their own expense and at no small sacrifice. Our Field Supervisors, for instance, are all "home grown," trained at Poggio Colla. We also encourage the most talented students from the Field School to return as Assistant Field Supervisors. This year the returning students were Alayne Freidel, University of Pennsylvania; Richard Marius, University of Michigan; and Laura Proud, University of Virginia. They were an enormous help in preparing the Field School students and in assisting the Field Supervisors, and I hope that we can continue to bring exceptional students back every year. Many of these students will go on to become professional archaeologists, and one of the most rewarding aspects of our work has been watching undergraduates become interested in the research and professional aspects of the discipline. This will be one of my fund-raising goals in the future, to try and find funds to help out these talented students. Another asset this summer was Rachel Popelka, an undergraduate at Washington University, whose previous field experience allowed her to serve as our fourth Assistant Field Supervisor. Excavation is only one part of the process of archaeology. Just as important is the kind of work that goes on in the laboratories. This year, I was fortunate to have Karen Vellucci, University of Pennsylvania, back at the helm overseeing the work in the House of Giotto. The second floor of this house, now a museum, has been loaned to us by the Comune of Vicchio and serves as a cataloguing, conservation, and storage area. Karen, a specialist in Italic ceramics, oversees this part of the operation and serves as our cataloguer as well. She is a very busy person, for while at Poggio Colla she also keeps up with her "real job," overseeing the Publications Department of The University of Pennsylvania Museum, and helps me out with some of the time-consuming excavation tasks like finding extra housing for visitors or volunteers at the last minute, the kinds of things that I can only entrust to someone who speaks Italian. Karen has been described by our local Italian friends as a "force of nature," and I was grateful for her energy. Karen's staff in the House of Giotto were otherwise new. Our erstwhile conservator, Jane Williams, was unable to return this summer because of her own professional commitments, and she was replaced by another professional conservator, Ellen Saltzman, and two conservation students, Mina Gregory and Andrew Fearon. We also expanded our support staff this year with a house manager, Anna Jones, and an operations manager, Robert Eckelkamp. Robert is, like Karen, another force of nature, and he worked long hours doing everything that needed to be done to keep a group that sometimes numbered as many as forty five persons organized and working smoothly. His job required unbounded energy, patience, good humor, and many talents, everything from being a mechanic, carpenter, chauffeur, travel agent, accountant, and occasional cook, to name just a few. The first few days of the excavation season are a kind of controlled chaos, no matter how much we plan. The official beginning, I suppose, is when the group meets at the airport. This year we met at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport. We assemble the troops, pick up rental vehicles, gather equipment, and charter a bus that takes us to the Mugello, about a four or five hour ride by bus, three to four hours by car. This requires coordination. This year, for instance, Michael Thomas took off early in one of the rental cars so he could stop off in Cortona where a friend supplies us with discounted groceries (any discount helps when feeding an average of forty persons for six weeks) then had to catch up to us in Vicchio. I picked up our rental van from Renault leasing, then waited for the group to arrive. The problem is that everyone comes in on different flights, at somewhat different times, and that I usually do not know the students (or some of the new staff members) by sight. There are always problems like canceled or delayed flights, or problems with customs (we bring over a lot of equipment each summer), and the bus driver is usually impatient. Somehow, we managed to muddle through, and once again found everyone, even the delayed passengers. I put the final stragglers in the Renault van and raced off to catch up with the charter bus, driving north into the spectacular hills of Umbria and then into the Tuscany, from Rome to Florence through some of the most beautiful landscape in Etruria. The students and staff are usually so jet-lagged that they fall asleep and are thus spared my ruminations on the fact that we are traveling through the very heart of Etruria, past legendary sites like Orvieto, Chiusi, and Cortona, places that were the heart and soul of ancient Etruria. The journey north is a symbolic one, for we are leaving the well-known (and thus obvious) Etruscan centers for a new and liminal area, a place that, because it is not obvious and well-known, offers an opportunity to answer our questions in an entirely new way. Figure 3. Excavation on the eastern terrace (Trenches 10 and 11). The Excavations: Our first priority this past summer was to continue to explore the central area of the acropolis, that is, the area of the temple in the very center of the poggio (the area whose edges are defined by trenches 1, 6, and 8). We hoped to continue to uncover the temple while elucidating the other architectural features. A secondary goal this season was to gain a greater sense of the urban layout by testing peripheral areas. This is where the clearing of trees and Mark Corney's survey proved useful. On the archaeo-topographic plan (Figure 1), and in person, we could see a discernible east terrace whose edges looked remarkably artificial. Was this a habitation area? Two new trenches (Nos. 10 and 11) were placed on the eastern terrace to find out. (Figure 3) We also eventually sank another new trench (No. 12) nearer the western edge of the poggio to see if the two monumental walls continued in that direction (Corney's survey suggested that they did). A third goal was to expand the parameters of our study even further. I reported last year that plowing of a field about a kilometer below Poggio Colla had turned up large amounts of what seemed to be pottery of the Hellenistic period as well as burned brick and tile. Because new mechanical plows are now being used in some of these fields, the archaeological evidence has become endangered. It seemed imperative to me to see what was below the surface in this wheat field, the Podere Bosco, or as it was quickly dubbed, the "Field of Dreams." Figure 4. Trench 12 seen from the south at the end of excavation. Note the massive rubble foundations of the two monumental walls (running from left to right) and the cross wall. In the foreground is a partially-excavated circular foundation whose function is still unclear. East and West: The trenches of the eastern terrace (Figure 3) only provided negative evidence. Both Trenches 10 and 11, excavated by Sarah Kupperberg and her team, turned up no real evidence for occupation on the edge of the terrace. Here, we found mostly bedrock. In fact, Sarah was able to ascertain that the edge of the terrace may have been fortified or at least altered. This type of evidence will be useful; I still believe that the terrace was occupied, but I now suspect that the buildings may be closer to the fortified edge of the hill. So, by eliminating the easternmost area, we will be able to focus our attention on the area near the south-east corner of the poggio next year. That the bedrock in Trenches 10 and 11 was so close to the surface was at least good news for Sarah and her team. After quickly finishing those two trenches she moved up to the poggio itself where she began a new area, Trench 12, on the north slope but farther west than we had excavated before. Sarah's propensity for finding rock continued, but now at least it was not bedrock any more. Now we new evidence for the later phase of the site. (Figure 4) What she found in Trench 12 is that the two monumental walls that run along the north slope (Figure 2) curve slightly at this point and become even more massive and are connected by a cross wall. This can be seen in Figure 4. In the sea of rocks (rubble foundations of the Hellenistic phase) the two monumental walls run across the photograph. Since this area is close to the north-east corner of the site, the point of greatest vantage in terms of view, but also the most exposed, I believe that we are looking at massive fortification walls, the foundations of what may have been a bastion or tower (possibly one of several along this corner?). I am reminded of the heavy fortified north-east corner of the Murlo complex. What this now calls into question is the function of the two monumental walls. They are far too long, and maybe even too thick, to be the foundations of structures; they seem to be terracing or fortification walls that protected the north edge of the plateau. Much more excavation is necessary, but these walls are important clues to understanding the urban layout and the fortification of the site in its later Hellenistic phase. Figure 5. Work in Trench 6 (foreground) and Trench 6 extension (far left), photographed from the west. Jess Galloway, Architect, directs the troops as they use the University of Pennsylvania Museum MASCA ForeSight System to document a find. Jess Galloway sits on the block with his back to the camera while Trench Supervisor Justin Winkler looks on from his desk. Matt Russell holds the prism pole on the left. Nina Quiros works the Laser Total Station while Julie Lewis enters data in the data collector. This system will allow the eventual spatial reconstruction of the finds in their context while also supplying a data base of all major artifact types. Trench 6 Continued, Once More: One of the achievements of the 1997 season had been the clearing of the structure in Trench 6 that reused monumental elements of the earlier temple (Figure 6). These elements include five of the molded blocks that we have dubbed "podium blocks" and our third Tuscan column base. The latter is spectacular (Figure7). Carved out of the local sandstone, it is over a meter in diameter, although its setting ring, the area on which the wooden column would have sat, is approximately the same size as the smaller base (No. 1) discovered in 1995. From 1996 to 1997 Trench 6 was excavated by Michael Thomas who discovered that these architectural elements had been reused to create a rectangular structure of the Hellenistic period (judging by the rubble foundation on the south flank and by the abundant Black Glaze pottery associated with the structure). This structure will hereafter be referred to as Building III-B; the nomenclature will be explained below. He further determined that the podium blocks had been used in a decorative fashion, that is, that their moldings had been set above ground to form a decorative course that supported the building's eastern wall. Figure 6. Trench 6 photographed from the south-east, showing the five molded podium blocks, reused from an earlier structure (probably the temple). Note that the jagged line on the bottom edges of the blocks, indicating that they were re-cut before being re-used. The use of these blocks as a base course is noteworthy. I have always thought of our podium blocks as capping blocks for the Archaic temple podium, but I had to reconsider this opinion on a recent visit to Austin where I met with Dr. Lucy Shoe Meritt. As you may recall from previous reports, Dr. Meritt is the authority on architectural moldings in the Mediterranean; her publications on Etruscan, Greek, and Roman moldings are the standard references for scholars today, and Dr. Meritt is working with Prof. Ingrid Edlund-Berry of the University of Texas at Austin to up-date and re-publish her fundamental contributions to the discipline. This publication is essential to those of us working in this field. One reason is that the Etruscan moldings were originally published on a small scale; scholars working from drawings that have been scaled down do not get the same "feel" for the material as they would from full-scale profiles. Also, new material has come to light since the 1965 publication of the Etruscan and Roman moldings, for instance our blocks and bases from Poggio Colla. It is this new material that Prof. Edlund-Berry is now compiling. Dr. Meritt is a remarkable scholar and teacher. She has made her inanimate blocks of stone come to life for generations of students and archaeologists. In recent conversation with her she mentioned that our podium blocks were most likely base blocks, not capping blocks. If so, they would originally have been used in the same manner as in the later structure in area 6. What this may suggest is continuity between the earlier phase and the Hellenistic phase. The builders of Building III-B would have used the blocks properly, in terms of the site's building tradition, but they did make some changes and created a structure that has a makeshift appearance with its rubble foundation on the south and re-used undecorated blocks in the north. These later builders also deviated from tradition by removing the bottom of the molded blocks (note the jagged line on the bottom of the blocks in Fig. 6) and by not setting them on a stone foundation. My conversation with Dr. Meritt pointed out another lesson to me, that we still have a lot to learn about Building III-B. This past season, under the direction of Justin Winkler, now a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, the structure in Trench 6 was completely excavated. The strata in the northern part of the trench, at least, are deep. Excavating down to bedrock or virgin soil was no easy task, especially working around walls and fragile architectural remains. Several of our excavators became adept at working in what were no more than deep holes, cleaning bedrock in cramped spaces five or six feet underground. Janet Cooper, a graduate student from Southern Methodist University, was among the most adept at this trying work. We would joke that even though she was working on top of a hot and sunny hill in Tuscany, she rarely saw the light of day. Thanks to the efforts of excavators like Janet, we eventually cleared the area. Figure 7 shows Trench 6 from the west; in the foreground of that photograph you can see the depth of the excavation. Figure 7. Trench 6 photographed from the west, showing the monumental Tuscan column base, made of sandstone. The earth baulk to the left of the base was left un-excavated so as to support the base. Note the deep excavation in the foreground where the trench was cleaned down to the natural bedrock. Once Trench 6 was fully excavated, we carefully documented the architectural elements photographically so that we would be able to reconstruct the setting using "virtual reality" and so that we could also create a three-dimensional model of the structures. We have contracted with Learning Sites, a firm in Boston, to create this 3-D model. The reason for such an effort is that last summer I finally had to make a decision about what to do with this area. The column base has suffered more and more each year, and I felt compelled to consider the possibility of removing the major architectural elements (column base and five podium blocks) to the safety of our new storage areas in the basement of Vicchio's Beato Angelico Museum. The problem with this strategy is that it is destructive. In order to save the objects (the architectural elements), I would have to destroy their context, physically as well as conceptually, for the removal of the column base would certainly destroy some of the surrounding features. Now it can be argued that this is what archaeology does; it removes objects from their contexts. But to destroy architectural structures, even if we eventually planned to reconstruct them in a museum setting, is an ethical dilemma. Compounding the decision is the larger issue of what is to become of Poggio Colla and its remains. The possibilities include turning the area into an archaeological park, in which case it would be important to preserve the integrity of the architecture. An archaeological park would be an extraordinarily costly venture. The preparation of the site, its conservation, and its security would afford major problems of funding and organization, and while I believe that Poggio Colla is a very important site, I do wonder whether Italy needs yet another site to maintain. A second possibility is to remove the major elements and to try and recreate the architecture and its context in a museum. But what museum? At this point we do not have a museum, and I am worried at the thought of removing things that may never be displayed properly. We have already removed the first column base and several podium blocks from between the monumental walls, but these elements had no architectural context. They had clearly been moved about and buried in the later remodeling of the acropolis. In the case of the elements from Trench 6 we would also face the dilemma of what building to reconstruct, their original building (the temple), or the later structure (Building III-B) in which they were reused? So what did we do? Well, I decided that in the final analysis the rules of preservation should prevail. We teach our students in the Field School that the less you do, the better. This rule applies to both objects and contexts. I decided that after excavating Trench 6 we should cover the entire trench with mesh, standard procedure after finishing a trench, and back-fill it with earth. I also asked Ellen Saltzman to do her best to consolidate the base in situ. We had already applied a river-sand/hydrated-lime poultice to the base in 1996, and Ellen decided that the best course would be to swathe the base in mud before covering it and back-filling. I quote from her conservation report: "At present there is no viable consolidant for sandstone that will withstand the continued freeze thaw cycle of burial, particularly under damp conditions…. The areas of the column that appear to have fared best are those where a layer of mud remained on the stone. Based on these observations, it was decided to support and protect the column base and fragile areas of the pendulum block by applying a mud plaster to the surface. In the case of the column base, a strip of plastic mesh was wrapped around the sides of the base and fastened with some tension applied in order to further protect the base. The mesh cover made last year was then placed on top of the base and its initial wrapping." Now, the blocks in Trench 6 have returned to the earth, their context was preserved, and we still have the option of easily uncovering the area should it require further study, or should we decide to open it for permanent viewing or for removal to a museum. This was the conservative decision, conservative in every sense of the word, and I feel comfortable with it because there is still much to learn, as was clear from my conversation with Dr. Meritt. If the truth be known, we still do not understand the function of Building III-B. That answer will only come, if it comes at all, as we study the full urban layout of the acropolis area. Figure 8. Terracotta spool or rocchetto whose one preserved end is decorated with stamped decoration in the form of a griffin. Late seventh century BC. Inv. no. 98-02. One of the more interesting finds from Trench 6 was a terracotta spool, what is called a rocchetto in Italian, decorated on its preserved end with a large stamped griffin. (Figure 8) The decoration dates the rocchetto with certainty to the end of the seventh century BC, yet another example of the taste for stamp-decorated ceramics (we have published several examples each year in these reports) at Poggio Colla. This object is an excellent example of beginner's luck. It was found by one of volunteer excavators, Erin Quiros, who was visiting the site for just one day the day. Erin lives in Florence and is the older sister of one of our Field School participants, Nina Quiros, formerly a student at Southern Methodist University and now at Franklin College. Figure 9. Trench 6 extension, photographed from the west with Trench 6 in the foreground. Matt Russell, Southern Methodist University, and Nina Quiros, Franklin College, are excavating. After finishing Trench 6, about two thirds of the way through the excavation season, we expanded the trench to the east (Figure 9). We enough time to reach bedrock in that area as well. This area seems to have been an exterior space, possibly the approach to Structure IIIB. It is a promising area that will need further study. We will definitely expand the excavation area to the east and south, but the expansion may have to wait a year or two, given the nature of our discoveries in the center of the plateau, in the area of Trenches 1 and 8. Figure 10. Trenches on the north of the plateau, photographed from the west. Trench 8 (two sections) is in the foreground, Trench 6 in the center background. The foothills of the Appenines, across the Sieve valley, can be seen in the background. Trench 8, the Heart of the Matter: The most exciting developments, in a summer full of discoveries, came from Trench 8 (Figure 10) which was once again supervised by Abbi Holt, University of Virginia. Abbi, who has been at Poggio Colla since our first season, was assisted by another Virginia student, Laura Proud, who returned after taking part in the 97 Field School. (Figure 11) Laura will write her senior thesis on the stamped ceramic decoration from our site. Trench 8 is the area where in 1997 we discovered the large blocks set on bedrock and aligned to the cardinal points rather than to the edges of the poggio, what seems to be one side of the Archaic temple. In the 1997 report I commented that in the new, eastern extension of the trench, we had come down on several walls in close proximity and on several well-finished square blocks that I thought might have served as a paving of some kind. Trench 8, not far from these new walls, is where we discovered the bronze satyr attachment and the Attic Red Figure sherd with part of the upper torso of a young male. Both objects date to the fifth century BC and show that the site was flourishing at that time. Figure 11. Trench 8, west extension photographed from the west. The walls illustrated in Figure 13 are on the left. Abbi Holt, Trench Supervisor, is on the left; Laura Proud, Assistant Trench Supervisor, is on the right. This past summer we continued to excavate in the area of these new walls and paving stones, in the eastern extension of the trench. On further excavation the paving stones turned out to be part of another wall. We also discovered another large block of the temple foundation. In this one small area we now have three different structures and three superimposed phases of construction at the site. The three phases can be seen clearly in Figure 12. The block in the top center, set at an angle to the other walls, is from the temple foundation (our phase I). The wall on the left is part of the Phase II structure. The walls at the top and right form a right angle and are attributable to our Phase III. Figure 12. Trench 8, detail in eastern extension, photographed from south. The block in the top center, set at an angle to the other walls, is part of the temple foundation (Phase I). The wall on the left belongs to the Phase II. The walls at the top and right are of Phase III. The earliest is the temple foundation whose construction differs from all the other architecture at the site. The temple foundation, which we will call Phase A, is made of large blocks of sandstone, well squared and, again, set on the bedrock in approximately a north-south direction. So far we only have flank of this structure, hereafter called Building I-A. Directly above it, in the left of Figure 12, is a wall made up of sandstone blocks that vary greatly in size. The largest are close to the size of the Phase I blocks, the smaller ones are a third of their size. All the blocks of Phase II are characterized by finished sides and a nicely squared appearance. In Figure 12 we see the eastern wall of the Phase II edifice, hereafter called Building II-A. This wall seems to turn right under the upper wall in the upper left corner of Figure 12 and continues to the west underneath this wall; we picked it up again in a western extension of Trench 8 where it can be seen clearly underneath the Phase III wall. Figure 13 shows this western extension with two of the square Phase II blocks underneath the rubble foundation of the Phase III wall (on the left). The Phase III structure, hereafter called Building III-A, with its rubble masonry thus followed the plan of Building II-A, but with the western wall moved just slightly to the west. This is one of our most important discoveries to date, that there were three monumental building phases at the site, but more information was in the offing, as we shall see, in the area of Trench 1. Figure 13. Trench 8, west extension, photographed from south, showing the Phase III rubble wall over the Phase II wall. Two blocks of the Phase II wall can be seen on the left. Before we leave Trench 8, it is worth noting that this trench once again did not disappoint us with its finds. One of the most unusual objects found to date was a large piece of carbonized wood, one of the most difficult types of material to excavate. Since beginning our work at Poggio Colla I have been converted to the importance of having conservators in the field. Our first field director, Susan Kane, had always believed that it was important to have conservators on the site on certain occasions. I would have agreed that it is certainly important to have them participate in the closing down of the site, for instance when wrapping and consolidating major architecture such as our column base, but I was always skeptical of calling conservators up to the hill whenever fragile finds were in the offing. This struck me as a waste of their valuable time, and I wondered why careful excavation by an experienced archaeologist could not achieve the same results. Over the past few years, however, perhaps because we have had such talented conservators working for us, I have changed my mind. There are instances where the experienced hands and knowledge of a conservator make all the difference. Our carbonized wood was just such an instance. Figure 14. Work in the conservation laboratory. Ellen Saltzman (left) treats an artifact while Andrew Fearon (right) examines an artifact with the microscope. Ellen Saltzman and Andrew Fearon left their lab (Figure 14) and came up to hill to excavate the carbon (at that point it seemed little more than just that) on the one grey and rainy day of what was otherwise and insufferably hot summer. They painstakingly worked (Figure 15) on the carbon even while it started to rain (at which point we at least covered them with the large beach umbrella that we use for photography), cutting around it and removing it in a single hunk with the earth still around it. It was only after several days of drying out in the lab that the true nature of the object emerged: it is a large piece of wood, finished on at least two sides, with a nail driven into it. The nail is not just an ordinary nail, but a decorative boss with a large hemispherical bronze head and a shaft made of iron. We found another such bimetallic boss in Trench 1 this summer; this type of object is used for decoration of elaborate furniture or sometimes for doors. Etruscan doors, as painted in tombs for instance, are often decorated with large bosses, and several types of bimetallic nails, which I had the opportunity to study in my dissertation on the metal objects from Poggio Civitate (Murlo), were found in the seventh-century habitation at that site. The wood is still awaiting complete cleaning and conservation, and attribution will have to wait until next year, but there are two possibilities, and both are fascinating. The most likely is that we have part of a large piece of furniture; the second is that this is part of a door. To my knowledge this would be the only Etruscan door yet found. Figure 15. Ellen Saltzman and Andrew Fearon working on the block of carbonized wood in Trench 8. The other remarkable find from Trench 8 came near the end of the season. The soil at our site is very acidic and hard on finds. Whenever we excavate a diagnostic object, for instance decorated pottery, we are very careful to leave the dirt around it and to rush it down to the conservators. This is especially important for glazed pottery which, if left to dry out, can lose most or all of its decoration. Thus, we often are not even certain of the real nature of the object, as was the case last year when we found the bronze satyr head but could not be sure about what it was until it was cleaned in the lab. The same sort of thing happened this summer (and in the same general area). Abbi Holt found a number of sherds which seemed to be glazed and decorated, and she thought that one of them had a figure, a male head, on it. This sherd and a number of others found with it were taken down to the House of Giotto to be ministered over by the professional conservators. It was with great joy that we later found that quite a few of the sherds were decorated and that we had approximately fifty pieces of an Attic Red Figure kylix. This is probably the same vase that produced the Attic fragment decorated with a male torso that was published in last years report. I reproduce two of the fragments here (Figures 16-17). They show the decoration of the outside of the vessel which consisted of a series of athletes exercising. There is one fragment of the interior (tondo) decoration. I would date the vase to the second quarter of the fifth century BC, but I am sure that experts on Greek vase painting will be able to be more precise, and I am hopeful that as we study and work on the fragments we will be able to reconstruct much of the scene. There is also a good chance that more fragments will be forthcoming as we continue to excavate in Trench 8 next year. Figure 16. Attic Red Figure fragment from a kylix or drinking cup showing the head of a male athlete. Inv. no. 98-50.   Figure 17. Attic Red Figure fragment from a kylix showing the lower torso and hips of an athlete. Trench 8. Inv. no. 98-50. Trench 1, At Last: Trench 1, as its nomenclature indicates, was our first trench, and somehow, for one reason or another, we have continued to excavate it from year to year. We began Trench 1 for the simple reason that we wanted to take a test cut somewhere in the middle of the hill, to make what is called by archaeologists a sondage that would give us a sense of the site's stratigraphy. This it did, but it was in the western baulk of Trench 1 that we found the wonderful Archaic bronze head in our first year. We continued the trench to the west because I was interested in finding out more about the context of the head, and in 1996 we found a tantalizing stone disk and some other finds that convinced me that we should continue to excavate. This we did in 1997, expanding the trench to the south, even though there was much groaning and gnashing of teeth by students assigned to the trench, as I recounted in last year's report, that they were being consigned to something akin to one of the circles of hell, or "Warden's folly" as it came to be known. It was a great satisfaction to me when the 1997 extension revealed two walls, one above the other and of different fabric. These were walls of large buildings, but at the end of 1997 we only had a small section of each. My hypothesis at that point was that we had come across structures that were built on the southern flank of the plateau. Figure 18. Trench 1 photographed from the east. The new Trench 13 is in the right foreground. We were wrong, very wrong, in that assumption, as we discovered immediately in 1998 when we extended the trench to the south and hit another wall, parallel to and at the same level as the upper wall from 1997. (Figure 18) Furthermore, this wall was only about half a meter from the other wall, two small a space for any kind of structure. What we had were back to back buildings, and thus our first wall had to be part of a building that covered the center of the hill. (Figure 19) We now were finding architecture everywhere but only had small bits of each structure. It was at this point that things began to make sense, possibly because the top of the hill had been cleared and for the first time we could take in the entire space. One morning Jess Galloway, the excavation architect, and I were looking at the walls and trying to make sense of them when the big picture began to sink in. We stopped looking at the parts and began to see the whole, that is, that the walls in Trenches 8 and 1 may be related. The lower wall in Trench 1 resembles the Phase II wall in Trench 8, and the upper wall resembles the Phase III wall. They seemed contemporary (that we already knew), but could they be part of the same structure. The distance between them argued against this: could we have such large structures, about ten meters wide? Jess then measured the elevations of the top of the walls and indeed, they matched. Now, looking at the plan with new eyes, so to speak, it really looked as if he walls in the two trenches belonged to the same large structures. With the new evidence in Trenches 8 and 1, we suddenly had an entirely new hypothesis to explain the architecture that we were encountering. Figure 19. Trench 1 photographed from the west showing the upper Phase III rubble foundation and the Phase II wall that runs almost parallel to it. The Phase III wall of what may be another (southern?) building is to the right in the extension at the top of the photograph. But how to test this hypothesis? The end of the season was only a week off. Could we wait another year to find out? Well, if our hypothesis was correct, we would be able to pinpoint the southeastern corners of the structures; after all, we had the northeastern corners and parts of the south flank. Michael Thomas, Assistant Director for Field Operations, decided that we had enough time and enough personnel to excavate one more trench (it would have the inauspicious number 13!) at the point where we suspected that the two walls of the phase II structure would meet. If we found the corner, our hypothesis would be proved. I am always preaching to students that archaeology is scientific in its methodology because we gather evidence, then produce hypotheses that explain it, and then test those hypotheses against new evidence. Here was our chance. Trench 13: Melissa Stoltz, Oberlin College, who has supervised Trench 1 for the past two years, opened up the new trench to the east of Trench 1 (See Figure 2 site plan and Figure 20). We soon came down on top of the continuation of the upper wall. This was expected and we were too far to the west to find the corner of that (purported) building. Excavation dragged on. We came down to the level of the second wall. Yes, it was there and it ran under the upper wall as expected. But where was the corner? At the point where the wall should turn north there was only dirt. Melissa was pessimistic. We hadn't found the large well-shaped block that should have been there if our theory was right. So much for our theory. Excavation continued, agonizingly slowly, as it should always be, and finally, at a lower level than expected, there it was, a large squared block of sandstone just at the point where we were expecting the wall to turn (Figure 19), confirmation that our latest theory seemed to be correct. Figure 20. Trench 13 looking down with north at the top of the photograph. At the bottom (southern) end of the trench is the Phase III wall that continues from Trench 1. Two large blocks of the Phase II wall can be seen on the left as well as the large rectangular block, at a lower level, which may indicate that the wall turns here. This evidence is extremely important. For the first time, a clear picture of the urban development of the acropolis is emerging. What we now seem to have is three major structures in the center of the hill. The temple (Building I-A) probably dates to the end of the sixth and early fifth centuries BC. The next large structure (Building II-A) is of different alignment and about 15 meters in width. Its length is still undetermined. It dates to the fifth or early fourth centuries BC. The third structure (III-A) follows the general plan of Building II-A and seems to be similar in size, but has its western wall further to the west. This third structure is probably contemporary with structure in Trench 6 (Building III-B), that is of the Hellenistic period. What still needs to be determined is the function and detailed chronology of the buildings of the second and third phases. That kind of interpretation will have to be based on careful analysis of the stratigraphy and finds. It is satisfying, at last, that we are beginning to make sense of the evidence that we have so painstakingly gathered over the past four seasons. At the time of the discoveries the feeling was almost euphoric. I quote from this summer's Director's Diary : "I keep telling our students that we are not here to find things, but to find out about things. This refrain has by now become a cliché. Our students repeat it to me every time a new find of importance, a sherd of Greek pottery or an item of bronze, comes to light. We are lucky to have found some exceptional objects once again this year, but it really is true that the most rewarding result of our work has been the fact that we can begin the process of explaining what happened at Poggio Colla and in the Mugello between the seventh and third centuries BC." The New Excavations in the Podere Bosco (Funghi): There was much anticipation this summer about opening up an entirely new area of excavation, on terraces about a kilometer north-east of the site where recent plowing had churned up Etruscan pottery, roof tiles, and other evidence of Hellenistic habitation. Our hope here was that the plowing had not disturbed the entire context and that we would be in time to salvage at least part of the context. Apart from the newness of the enterprise, we were also pleased to be able to excavate in an area where there were no trees and where, we hoped, the stratigraphy would not be as complex as it is on the acropolis. Excavation of this area was entrusted by Michael Thomas who was assisted by Alayne Freidel, a student at the University of Pennsylvania who returned to us for her second season. Alayne's role was especially important since Michael's duties as field director often necessitated his presence on the acropolis. By the end of the summer, after walking the kilometer between the two areas several times a day in searing heat, Michael was in especially fit. Figure 21. The new excavation in Podere Bosco photographed from the west showing pottery and other destruction debris in the bottom (western half) of the trench. We started in Podere Bosco with a very small sondage to give us a quick sense of the stratigraphy. The trench was then expanded to cover a fairly large area. As can be seen in the cover illustration, the excavation area was at the crest of a gentle hill that had spectacular views of the valley and the ridge of the Apennines to the north and east. The site also lies on a natural approach, from the Sieve valley below, up to what was, in the Hellenistic period, the fortified acropolis of the site. The stratigraphy here is quite simple. There is an upper stratum, the plow zone, that includes occasional artifacts, and a single undisturbed stratum that dates to the fourth or third centuries BC. The pottery, at first study, at least, correlates to Phase III on the acropolis. One half the trench, the eastern section,. was devoid of material, probably because of plowing. Figure 21 illustrates this phenomenon; the upper part of the photograph show an area entirely devoid of finds, while the foreground, the western end of the trench is filled with pottery. This latter part of the trench documents a violent destruction where fire reached temperatures high enough to vitrify some of the pottery. Furthermore, pottery was found in great quantity, as shown in Figure 22. In the destruction, masses of pottery fell to the ground where the vases, almost exclusively fine-ware cups or bowls, have lain undisturbed to the present day. We were still finding pottery until the last day of excavation, and masses of material from the Podere Bosco await study and restoration in the laboratories. When this material is studied and pieced back together (we will have many whole vases and complete profiles), the resulting ceramic typology will be invaluable for the reconstruction of the history of the site. Figure 22. Podere Bosco. Detail of destruction debris. The interesting question is what was going on in the fourth and third centuries here in the Podere Bosco, a full kilometer from the height of Poggio Colla? We found broken roof tiles and burned mud-brick but, as yet, no evidence for structures. We are very close to structures, however, and will find them in the next season or two. Will we find houses, working areas, or sheds? Was this a farm complex, a villa of some type, or even an area where pottery was stored and made (hence the endless bowls)? And what kind of destruction was it? I believe that with careful and controlled excavation, now that we have established the questions, we will be able to answer some of the riddles. This is very exciting, for, as I keep repeating in every report, Etruscan habitations are rare, and we will document aspects of Etruscan life and culture that have not been documented before. Figure 23. Podere Bosco, photographed from the south. At top: Robert Bellanger, University of Richmond and Vessela Anguelova, SMU. In foreground: Maura Stoltz (left), University of St. Thomas, and Alayne Freidel (right), Assistant Trench Supervisor, University of Pennsylvania. Planning for the future: We have finally reached a point where we can understand the nature of our project. That it has taken four years to reach this point says something about the nature of archaeology and makes me wonder how such projects get started at all. I have been lucky in having been supported in our first few years by Southern Methodist University, Oberlin College, and the University of Pennsylvania, as well as by friends and donors who have had faith in the project. We were also extraordinarily lucky in our first year when we hit on key areas that turned up finds that revealed the importance of the site, for instance the first Tuscan column base and the bronze head. It would have been far more difficult to have tried to fund the project through traditional granting agencies, for rather than the clear evidence that we can now produce, I would have had to rely on arguments based on suppositions and theories. This may be one of the reasons that traditional large-scale archaeological projects are becoming rare, while survey archaeology and other less expensive methodologies are the order of the day. I do not mean to imply that such strategies do not have their place, but I believe that a combination of traditional site archaeology combined with newer and broader approaches holds the most promise for Etruscan archaeology, at least. Our plan, if circumstances permit, is to continue to excavate at Poggio Colla a long time. I do want to avoid the problem that so many long-term projects have faced in the past, that of proper publication and documentation, by publishing reports such as these annually, reports in more academic venues every two years or so, and a full monograph every five or six years. The latter would include publications by the many scholars working with us at the site. I have already mentioned some of our collaborators, for instance Dr. David Romano, Prof. Mark Corney, Prof. Ingrid Edlund-Berry, and Dr. Lucy Shoe Meritt. I should also mention that Karen Vellucci will be working on our pottery, and that Prof. Patricia Lulof, a member of the Dutch team working at Satricum and an expert on architectural terracottas, has kindly agreed to look at our tiles. She has also offered to speak to the students in our Field School next summer about tiles and roofing systems. We are also working on a research agreement with the geology department of the University of Florence, thanks to Prof. Paolo Canuti. The list will undoubtedly grow, and I hope that some of our students will take part in the process of studying and publishing the results of our enterprise. 1998 STAFF Director: Professor Gregory Warden, Southern Methodist University Asst. Director of Field Work: Michael Thomas, University of Texas at Austin Assistant Director of Materials: Karen Vellucci, University of Pennsylvania Assistant Director of Research: Professor David Romano, University of Pennsylvania Architect: Jess Galloway, M.Arch., Booziotis & Co., Dallas, Texas Conservator: Ellen Salzman, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Geology: Professor Paulo Canuti, Università di Firenze Geology: Riccardo Fanti, Università di Firenze Geophysicist: Dr. Dario Monna, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche Survey Consultant: Mark Corney, University of Bristol Survey Consultant: Bill Fitts, MASCA, University of Pennsylvania Museum Paleobotany: Sarah Kupperberg, University of Pennsylvania Illustration & Webmaster: Kathy Windrow, Eastfield College Illustration: Nick Griffiths Operations Manager: Robert Eckelkamp, Southern Methodist University Housing Manager: Anna Jones, Southern Methodist University Field Supervisor: Abbi Holt, University of Virginia Field Supervisor: Sarah Kupperberg, University of Pennsylvania Field Supervisor: Melissa Stoltz, Oberlin College Field Supervisor: Justin Winkler, Southern Methodist University Assistant Field Supervisor: Alayne Freidel, University of Pennsylvania Assistant Field Supervisor: Richard Marius, University of Michigan Assistant Field Supervisor: Rachel Popelka, Washington University Assistant Field Supervisor: Laura Proud, University of Virginia Conservation Assistant: Mina Gregory, Buffalo State College Conservation Assistant: Andrew Fearon, Intern, Brooklyn Museum STUDENTS AND VOLUNTEERS Field School Participants, undergraduates: Kenyon Adams, Southern Methodist University Robert Belanger, University of Richmond Ella Ewart, University of New Mexico Julie Lewis, University of Massachusetts Robert Vander Poppen, University of Michigan Nina Quiros, Franklin College Mark Russell, Southern Methodist University Matt Russell, Southern Methodist University Katy Serpa, University of Massachusetts Maura Stoltz, University of St. Thomas Jane Walters, Eastfield College Field School Participants, graduate students: Vessela Anguelova, Southern Methodist University Janet Cooper, Southern Methodist University Victoria Harper, Southern Methodist University Master of Liberal Arts Students, Southern Methodist University: Melanie Benjamin Priscilla Benjamin Ainsley Clement Christina Faus Carol Garrard Megan Garrard Anna Jones Susan McQueen Tara Romanchuk Sara Sant' Ambrogio Other students: Chiara Gori, Università di Firenze Volunteers: Jamie McInerney George Hirshhorn Lisa Kemp Tam Phan Ryan Seelbach Lisa Torres Robert Torres ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Donors and Supporters I am most grateful to Dean Carole Brandt, Dean of the Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University, for her continuing support of the Poggio Colla project. Thanks should also be expressed to colleagues at Southern Methodist University for their interest and encouragement, foremost among them Dr. Ben Wallace and his staff (Karen Westergaard, Sandra Trostle, and Mary Beth Lewis) in the Office of International Programs. I am also grateful to colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, especially to Dr. Jeremy Sabloff, Charles Williams II Director of the museum, as well as to Dr. David Romano, Keeper of the Collections, Mediterranean Section, and to Karen Vellucci (Director of Publications) and her staff. Finally, I am most indebted to Robert Eckelkamp, Dallas, for his great help with development, fund-raising, and organization of our "Friends of Archaeology" group. Major funding was once again provided through the generosity of Mrs. Barbara Lemmon, Dallas. I am also grateful for major contributions from Baroness Anne Franchetti and Suzanne Vinson Georges. Our friends in Italy, without whose support our work would not be possible, should also be acknowledged. First of all, I should note Dr. Angelo Bottini, Soprintendente Archeologico della Toscana, for permission to work at Poggio Colla, as well the Archaeological Inspector of our area, Dr. Luca Fedeli, for his help and good counsel. Andrea and Lorenza Santoni, their family, and the Gruppo Archeologico di Vicchio, have done so much to help us that it is difficult to thank them properly in this short space. We also wish to express our gratitude to the people and the Comune of Vicchio, Alessandro Bolognesi, Mayor, for all they have done for this project, the firm "Rosari Romano" for the loan of a storage shed, and the Associazione "il Paese" for hosting a lecture and dinner for the excavation staff. I would also like to acknowledge our many other friends who have helped us in so many ways: Giuseppe Ancarani, Luca and Monika Cateni, and Filippo Viola. List of Figures Figure 1. The archaeo-topographic plan of Poggio Colla, as measured and drawn by Professor Mark Corney with the assistance of Nick Griffiths in the spring of 1998. The survey work for an enlarged area that will be included in this plan was undertaken this summer. We are grateful to the University of Pennsylvania Museum and its Director, Jeremy Sabloff, for funding for this survey. Figure 2. Plan of the plateau known as Poggio Colla. Areas labeled as Units 1-12 are the twelve trenches excavated since 1995 by the Southern Methodist University-University of Pennsylvania Museum team. Figure 3. Excavation on the eastern terrace (Trenches 10 and 11). Figure 4. Trench 12 seen from the south at the end of excavation. Note the massive rubble foundations of the two monumental walls (running from left to right) and the cross wall. In the foreground is a partially-excavated circular foundation whose function is still unclear. Figure 5. Work in Trench 6 (foreground) and Trench 6 extension (far left), photographed from the west. Jess Galloway, Architect, directs the troops as they use the University of Pennsylvania Museum MASCA Foresight System to document a find. Jess Galloway sits on the block with his back to the camera while Trench Supervisor Justin Winkler looks on from his desk. Matt Russell holds the prism pole on the left. Nina Quiros works the Laser Total Station while Julie Lewis enters data in the data collector. This system will allow the eventual spatial reconstruction of the finds in their context while also supplying a data base of all major artifact types. Figure 6. Trench 6 photographed from the south-east, showing the five molded podium blocks, reused from an earlier structure (probably the temple). Note that the jagged line on the bottom edges of the blocks, indicating that they were re-cut before being re-used. Figure 7. Trench 6 photographed from the west, showing the monumental Tuscan column base, made of sandstone. The earth baulk to the left of the base was left un-excavated so as to support the base. Note the deep excavation in the foreground where the trench was cleaned down to the natural bedrock. Figure 8. Terracotta spool or rocchetto whose one preserved end is decorated with stamped decoration in the form of a griffin. Late seventh century BC. Inv. no. 98-02. Figure 9. Trench 6 extension, photographed from the west with Trench 6 in the foreground. Matt Russell, Southern Methodist University, and Nina Quiros, Franklin College, are shown excavating. Figure 10. Trenches on the north of the plateau, photographed from the west. Trench 8 (two sections) is in the foreground, Trench 6 in the center background. The foothills of the Appenines, across the Sieve valley, can be seen in the background. Figure 11. Trench 8, west extension photographed from the west. The walls illustrated in Figure 13 are on the left. Abbi Holt, Trench Supervisor, is on the left; Laura Proud, Assistant Trench Supervisor, is on the right. Figure 12. Trench 8, detail in eastern extension, photographed from south. The block in the top center, set at an angle to the other walls, is part of the temple foundation (Phase I). The wall on the left belongs to the Phase II. The walls at the top and right are of Phase III. Figure 13. Trench 8, west extension, photographed from south, showing the Phase III rubble wall over the Phase II wall. Two blocks of the Phase II wall can be seen on the left. Figure 14. Work in the conservation laboratory. Ellen Saltzman (left) treats an artifact while Andrew Fearon (right) examines an artifact with the microscope. Figure 15. Ellen Saltzman and Andrew Fearon working on the block of carbonized wood in Trench 8. Figure 16. Attic Red Figure fragment from a kylix or drinking cup showing the head of a male athlete. Inv. no. 98-50. Figure 17. Attic Red Figure fragment from a kylix showing the lower torso and hips of an athlete. Trench 8. Inv. no. 98-50. Figure 18. Trench 1 photographed from the east. The new Trench 13 is in the right foreground. Figure 19. Trench 1 photographed from the west showing the upper Phase III rubble foundation and the Phase II wall that runs almost parallel to it . The Phase III wall of what may be another (southern?) building is to the right in the extension at the top of the photograph. Figure 20. Trench 13 looking down with north at the top of the photograph. At the bottom (southern) end of the trench is the Phase III wall that continues from Trench 1. Two large blocks of the Phase II wall can be seen on the left as well as the large rectangular block, at a lower level, which may indicate that the wall turns here. Figure 21. The new excavation in Podere Bosco photographed from the west showing pottery and other destruction debris in the bottom (western half) of the trench. Figure 22. Podere Bosco. Detail of destruction debris. Figure 23. Podere Bosco, photographed from the south. At top: Robert Bellanger, University of Richmond and Vessela Anguelova, SMU. In foreground: Maura Stoltz (left), University of St. Thomas, and Alayne Freidel (right), Assistant Trench Supervisor, University of Pennsylvania. MAJOR FUNDING FOR THIS PROJECT WAS PROVIDED BY: THE MEADOWS SCHOOL OF THE ARTS Dr. Carole Brandt, Dean THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM Dr. Jeremy Sabloff, Charles K. Williams II Director BARBARA LEMMON BARONESS ANNE FRANCHETTI SUZANNE VINSON GEORGES THE PROJECT WAS ALSO SUPPORTED BY Dr. Anne Harnwell Ashmead George Hirshhorn Lisa and Robert Kemp Daniel and Rivka Rago 1996 Annual Report 1997 Annual Report 1999 Annual Report