Tag: Poggio Colla Field School

By Richard Gray
Daily Mail Online
It was a powerful and sophisticated ancient Italian civilisation that had threatened to squash the fledgling Roman state just as it was starting to emerge.

But little now remains of the Etruscan civilisation that had flourished across much of Italy between 800BC and 500BC before it was defeated and absorbed by Rome.

Archaeologists, however, believe they have made an important discovery carved into a huge stone slab fond at an ancient Etruscan temple that may reveal more about this mysterious culture.

They are translating an inscription in one of the longest Etruscan texts ever found, carved into a 500lb stone slab embedded in a temple wall at Poggio Colla.

Within the text they have discovered the name Uni – an important goddess of fertility and possibly a mother goddess.

They believe this suggests the diety had been worshipped at the ancient sanctuary where the slab was found.

Poggio Colla, in Italy’s Mugello Valley to the northeast of Florence, is thought to have been a key settlement for the ancient Etruscans and may have been home to a fertility cult.

A ceramic fragment found at the same site depicts the earliest birth scene to be shown in European art.

Dr Gregory Warden, principal investigator of the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project that made the discovery and an archaeologist at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said: ‘This discovery is one of the most important Etruscan discoveries of the last few decades.

‘It’s a discovery that will provide not only valuable information about the nature of sacred practices at Poggio Colla, but also fundamental data for understanding the concepts and rituals of the Etruscans, as well as their writing and perhaps their language.’

By Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
An ancient tablet recently unearthed in Tuscany has revealed its first secret: the engraved name of a goddess linked to fertility.

The 500-pound (227 kilograms) stone slab, or stele, was unearthed earlier this year at Poggio Colla, a sixth century B.C. site built by the Etruscans. The stele bears a long inscription in a language that has not been used for 2,500 years, project archaeologist Gregory Warden, a professor emeritus at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, told Live Science in April.

Now, translation is underway and archaeologists have discovered that the tablet references the goddess Uni.

“We can at this point affirm that this discovery is one of the most important Etruscan discoveries of the last few decades,” Warden said in a statement. “It’s a discovery that will provide not only valuable information about the nature of sacred practices at Poggio Colla, but also fundamental data for understanding the concepts and rituals of the Etruscans, as well as their writing and perhaps their language.”