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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
Ten years have passed away since the Duc de Blacas, at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries of France, discussed the question of the celebrated Alban Necropolis, discovered in 1817, by Giuseppe Carnevali, beneath an undisturbed mass of peperino, while nearly the same space of time has elapsed since the revival among ourselves of the question of the discovery of vessels anterior to the last volcanic eruption round about the crater of the Alban lake.
page 375 note a Mémoire d'une découverte de vases funéraires pres d'Albano. Paris, 1865.
page 375 note b Visconti, pp. 38–40. “Lettera al Signor Giuseppe Carnevali di Albano, sopra alcuni vasi sepolcrali rinvenuti nelle vicinanze della antica Alba Longa.” Roma, 1817.
page 375 note c Il Periodo Glaciale. Roma, 1865.
page 376 note a Notes on Hut Urns, &c. from Marino, near Albano. Archæologia, vol. XLII. p. 99–123.
It should be stated that an unfortunate error has occurred in the plates of this paper. The Etruscan vessels (pl. ix. figs. 1, 2, 3, and pl. x. figs. 2, 5) were found, not at Marino, but in the famous Regulini-Galassi tomb at Cervetri. Four of these vessels are in the Vatican Museum and one at Parma. We owe the discovery of this error to Count Conestabile, of Perugia, who points it out in his work, “Sovra due Dischi in Bronzo,” p. 29. Torino, 1874.
page 376 note b Dell' Arte Ceramica Primitiva di Lazio, p. 20. Roma, 1868. Also Notice by W. M. Wylie, in Archæologia, vol. XLII. p. 487, pl. xxxi.
page 376 note c Secondo Rapporto. Roma, 1868.
page 377 note a Secondo Rapporto, p. 29.
page 378 note a It may be well to explain that this cappellaccio is a substance composed of volcanic sand and the detritus of rocks, immediately overlying the actual volcanic peperino stone. Hence, perhaps, its name. Cappellaccio, though sufficiently solid, like a gravel stratum, is easily broken and worked with common held implements. Peperino has to be quarried like other stone. Padre Garrucci observes elsewhere that the only mode of reconciling the discrepancies in the accounts of finding the vessels is to suppose that some of the narrators apply the term peperino to this solid upper stratum of cappellaccio.—W. M. W.
page 380 note a Scavi della Necropoli Albana, p. 9. Prato, 1875.
page 380 note b Op. cit. in pl. a, b, c, d, p. 11.
page 382 note a Such a quadrilateral tomb, cut in the solid peperino rock, and covered with a slab of the same stone, was opened in the Testa vineyard in Padre Garrueci's presence. Of the skeleton once there only the lower jaw and teeth remained. With it were two bronze fibulæ of the late Etruscan or Latin type. One of these has two bronze rings suspended on the acus. There were also an iron spear-head and two handmade earthen vessels.
Another interment contained two iron spear-heads and a vessel with broken rim. It is of black pottery with mamillary protuberances around it, and vandyked linear ornamentation.—W. M. W.
page 382 note b Light sandy soil, such as this in question, admits the air, and is unfavourable to the conservation of human remains.
page 382 note c Scavi della Necropoli Albana, fatta da Gaudenzio Testa, e da Sante Limiti, nel 1874, descritte ed illustrati da Raffaele Garrucci d. C. d. G. Prato, Tipografia Giachetti, 1875.
This little work enters further into details, and should be read by any one wishing to study the subject in all its bearings. We learn more particularly from it that Padre Garrucci himself was present at the discoveries in Testa's vineyard, when the ground was broken to a depth of 17 palms without finding anything in the peperino or in the ground beneath it. In the volcanic soil above the peperino were graves which yielded vessels, with iron spear-heads and bronze fibulæ. Testa had made from the graves a collection of vessels similar to the usual Latian vessels. One of these is identical with the one figured in Archæologia, vol. XLII. pl. xxxi. fig. 2, from the Ceselli collection. Another resembles a very remarkable one of the mamillary form, figured in Ceselli's Ceramica Primitiva nel Lazio, tav. i. 15.
An important result of Padre Garrueci's personal supervision is that he finds these interments correspond closely with those he formerly investigated at Palestrina, which enabled him to fix the date more closely. It will be remembered he favoured us with an account of these Palestrina interments in Archæologia, vol. XLI.—W. M. W.
page 383 note a In this work Padre Garrucci gives the length of this remarkable spear as 58 centiniètres, or more than 23 inches. The stem is not rounded, but polygonal, and the central rib is very flat, which suggest Italic affinities, but Padre Garrucci asserts positively that the spear is neither Greek, nor Etruscan, nor Latin, but Keltic. He ascribes its presence here to the second Gaulish invasion of Italy, v. c. 394, which he supports by these references—
Dionysius Hal. (Excerpt. Maï, l. xiv. c.xii.) Οἰ Κελτοὶ τῇΡωμῇ ἐκ δεντέρου στρατεύσαντες τὴν χώραν τὴν ʼ Αλβανὴν ἐπόρθουν.
Polybius, ii. 18. παραγενομένων δὲ πάλιν τῶν εἰς Ἄλβαν στρατεύματι μεγάλῳ.
Livy, lib. vii. cap. xi. “Fœdæ populationes in Lavicano, Tusculanoque et Albano agro sunt factæ.”—W. M. W.