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Excavations at Anglona

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

David Whitehouse  and
Ruth Whitehouse
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Anglona is the site of a prehistoric, Hellenistic and medieval settlement overlooking the Ionian Sea, 60 km. south-west of Taranto (Fig. 1). In 1965 we carried out a short trial excavation at Anglona on behalf of the Soprintendenza alle Antichità for Lucania. The excavation was of an exploratory nature. The site has since been excavated on a larger scale by the German Archaeological Institute, but the results obtained by ourselves were sufficient to call for a brief report. Anglona is a hilltop site which today supports only one standing monument, a twelfth-century church.

However, it has long been known that a medieval settlement existed here and it is thought that the site was also that of Hellenistic Pandosia. Before excavation began, surface finds suggested that the site was also occupied in the prehistoric period. The suspicion was confirmed by the discovery of abundant Late Bronze or Early Iron Age material in securely stratified deposits.

Anglona is situated on a long narrow ridge which runs down to the coast, 12 km. to the east. The topography of the region falls into three distinct zones, each roughly parallel to the coast. Nearest the sea is a low coastal strip, up to 7 km. wide, composed of fossil dunes and alluvium. Behind the strip lies a zone of eroded sand and gravel hills. The loosely cemented deposits weather rapidly, creating low cliffs and steep-sided ravines. Finally, behind the hills, is the mountainous hinterland of Basilicata. Within the space of only 30 km., between Metaponto and Siri, no fewer than five rivers enter the Ionian Sea. The rivers drain a large area of Basilicata and, although sluggish today, at times of increased rainfall they carried a considerable volume of water. The rivers have cut broad valleys through the gravel hills, leaving a series of irregular ridges running at right angles to the coast.

Type
Research Article
Information
Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 37 , November 1969 , pp. 34 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1969

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References

1 We are indebted to the Soprintendente, Prof. Dinu Adamesteanu, for inviting us to excavate at Anglona and for making all the necessary arrangements. The excavation lasted a fortnight and was carried out with the help of five workmen employed by Impresa Volpi, Metaponto. Our thanks are due to Ragionere Bruno Chiartano of Impresa Volpi for his considerable help and encouragement during the excavation. At the end of the dig, we deposited the finds in the magazzino of the municipio at Policoro.

2 The history of Anglona has yet to be written. Racciopi, Giacomo, Storia dei Popoli della Lucania e della Basilicata, Rome, 1901Google Scholar, contains information about the diocese of Anglona and its relations with Tursi.

3 Three seasons of excavation were carried out at Satriano in 1965–1967 by Professor R. Ross Holloway and David Whitehouse on behalf of the Soprintendenza alle Antichità, Potenza, and Brown University. The reports on these campaigns are in the press.

4 We have omitted discussion of the Hellenistic finds because of their poverty and the lack of associated structures. For the results of the German excavation, which was specifically concerned with Hellenistic Anglona, see Schläger, Helmut and Rüdiger, Ulrich, ‘Santa Maria d'Anglona,’ Notizie degli scavi, XXI 1967, pp. 331–53Google Scholar.

5 Puglisi, S. M., ‘Huts on the Palatine Hill, Rome,’ Antiquity, XXIV, 1956, pp. 119–21Google Scholar.

6 Brea, L. Bernabò, Sicily before the Greeks, London, 1957, pp. 171–3Google Scholar.

7 Peroni, Renato, ‘Per una definizione dell'aspetto culturale “sub-appenninico” come fase cronologica a se stante,’ Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Memorie, Ser. 8, IX, 1960, pp. 3–253Google Scholar.

8 Trump, David H., ‘Excavations at La Starza, Ariano Irpino,’ PBSR, XXXI, 1963, p. 26Google Scholar.

9 Puglisi, S. M., La civiltà appenninica. Origini delle communitá pastorali in Italia, Firenze, 1959, p. 32Google Scholar.

10 Mancini, F. e di Cesnola, A. Palma, ‘Saggio di scavo a Grotta “Pippola” (Ischitella)’, BPI, 67–68, n.s. XII, 1958–1959, p. 59Google Scholar.

11 op. cit. in note 9.

12 Müller-Karpe, H., ‘Beitrage zur Chronologie der Urnenfelderzeit nordlich und sudlich der Alpen,’ Römisch-Germanische Forschungen, vol. 22, 1959, Pl. 56AGoogle Scholar.

13 Colini, G. A., ‘L'antichità di Tolfa e di Allumiere e il principio dell'età del ferro in Italia,’ BPI, XXXV, 1909Google Scholar; XXXVI, 1910.

14 Drago, C., ‘Lo scavo di Torre Castelluccia (Pulsano),’ BPI n.s. VIII, V, 1953, p. 155Google Scholar; Karpe, H. Müller, ‘Osservazioni intorno ai bronzi dalle tombe ad incinerazione di Torre Castelluccia’, BPI, n.s. XIII, 1960–1961, p. 187Google Scholar.

15 Quagliati, Q. e Ridola, D., ‘Necropoli arcaica ad incinerazione presso Timmari nel Materano,’ Monumenti Antichi, XVI, 1906, pp. 5–166Google Scholar.

16 Trump, D. H., ‘The Apennine Culture of Italy’, PPS, XXIV, 1958, pp. 165–200Google Scholar.

17 Brea, L. Bernabò e Cavalier, M., Mylai. Societá di Storia Patria per la Sicilia Orientale, Catania, 1959, p. 100Google Scholar.

18 Hugh Hencken, Tarquinia, Villanovans and Early Etruscans, American School of Prehistoric Research, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Bull. no. 23, 1968, p. 471.

19 Op. cit. in n. 15.

20 Unpublished material in Potenza Museum.

21 Op. cit. in n. 14.

22 Op. cit. in n. 6; the cremation material is unpublished in Lentini Museum.

23 Brea, L. Bernabò e Cavalier, M., ‘Civiltà preistoriche delle isole eolie e del territorio di Milazzo,’ BPI n.s. X, 1956, pp. 82–5Google Scholar.

24 Ibid. pp. 80–2.

25 H. Müller-Karpe, op. cit. in n. 12.

26 Faenza, XXV, 1937, pl. XVIa. The surviving fragments from Taranto are kept in the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche at Faenza. The Director of the Museum, Prof. Giuseppe Liverani, kindly allowed me to examine the sherds in 1966.

27 In this context, it is noteworthy that pottery with decoration in brown, green and red was rare in Sicily; only three find-spots are known to me; Caltagirone, Gela and Syracuse. The finds from Sicily are closely comparable with Apulian material and it is likely that they were exported from an Apulian port, such as Taranto or Gallipoli.

28 Ragona, Nino, ‘Le Fornaci medioevali scoperte ad Agrigento’, Faenza, LII, 1966, pp. 83–89Google Scholar.

29 The tiles described in this section are in the Museo Provinciate, Potenza and the Museo Nazionale, Matera. For medieval tiles in Europe, see Forrer, R., Geschichte der Europaïschen Fliesenkeramik, Strassburg, 1901Google Scholar, and Ward-Perkins, J. B., ‘English Medieval Embossed Tiles’, Archaeological Journal XCIV, 1937, pp. 128–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Apulian mosaics are discussed by Bertaux, Emile, L'Art dans l'Italie méridionale, Paris, 1904, pp. 483–94Google Scholar and Venturi, A., Storia dell'Arte italiana, Milano, 1904, vol. 3, pp. 768–9Google Scholar. The pavement of S. Demetrio Corona (prov. Cosenza) in Calabria, which Venturi mentions in connection with the Otranto group of mosaics, is, as Bertaux points out, more closely related to the inlaid floor at Monte Cassino than to the tesselated pavements of Apulia. For stucco panels used as architectural decoration in North Africa, see Marçais, Georges, L'Architecture musulmane d'Occident, Paris, 1954, p. 42Google Scholar, etc. The Sicilian stuccoes have yet to be properly published. The fragments from Caltagirone are in the Museo Statale per la Ceramica, Caltagirone, and those from Taormina in the local Antiquarium. The stucco from Santa Maria di Territi (prov. Reggio) in Calabria was published by Orsi, Paolo, Le Chiese basiliane della Calabria Firenze, 1929, pp. 96–108Google Scholar.

30 See note 3.

31 Dr. G. D. B. Jones and David Whitehouse carried out two short seasons of excavations at Lucera Castle on behalf of the Soprintendenza ai Monumenti, Bari. The results are now being prepared for publication.