News

The fourth excavation day was very productive.

Two other bronze coins were recovered; one is very neat and bears a helmeted head of Roma or Minerva and the prow of a galley. The coin is dated at the end of the 3rd century BC, and you can find a nice picture here.

In the meantime, the 2019 excavation area was cleared from the overgrown vegetation and the southern wall was fully exposed. During this activity, a good concentration of kitchenware and animal bones was found, together with a loom weight. Another wall was identified (USM 22), running E-W. These additions help to better define the plan of the complex that in the coming days will be fully exposed.

Saturday will be a special day at Podere Cannicci. Stay tuned to discover what our archaeologists have in mind!

Today, the excavation presented us with some new surprises!

The removal of the collapse in the southern part of the area, just beyond the wall discovered yesterday (US 21), a new room of the building started to get shape. This room is located just south of the room with the dolia and further cleaning showed the presence of a cocciopesto floor; this is limited at the moment along the eastern section of the area and in the final part of the newly exposed room.

We will be waiting until tomorrow to better define this new space and to decide how to move forward with its excavation.

The first real day of excavations at Podere Cannicci gave some joys and some sorrows! The high temperature of the day (our sorrow!) was well compensated by some exciting discoveries.

The cleaning of the opening of the excavation area revealed the presence of a wall, and the team started to remove its collapse (US 2) which was already exposed last year. During the activities, two Roman bronze coins were found, one of which bearing the shape of the prow of a ship ,and a Janus bifrons. A preliminary date for the coin is around the second half of the 2nd century BC.

Tomorrow, we expect to have some new discoveries.

Today, the 2020 excavation season at Podere Cannicci started. The entire day was spent widening the Area 1000 from the last year, where the remains of a residential and functional building were discovered.

We have decided to enlarge this portion of the excavation as we want to uncover the extension of the complex, its different functions and the chronology for both the construction and the abandonment phases. Last year, we were able to run some c14 samples on the surviving beams and the carbonised table. This year, we hope to collect enough information to fully understand the building in the wider context of the vicus at Podere Cannicci. At this stage, we know that the complex was destroyed by a fire occurred sometimes in the first decades of the 1st century BC; nonetheless, the presence of limited terra sigillata and of an Imperial coin suggests a possible reoccupation of the structure.

Today, we also welcomed the excavation team. Benedetta Baleani, Cleo Barbafiera, Filippo Barthelemy, Maria Teresa Sgromo and Debora Tanganelli joined the project which is directed on field by Dr. Edoardo Vanni. Once again, we thank Luca Giannuzzi Savelli and the Ass. Cult. Odysseus for their generosity that allowed the continuation of the research.

Hello everyone.

Today, September 21, we open the exhibit “Archeologia a Monteverdi. La media valle dell’Ombrone dal periodo etrusco a quello medievale” at Paganico. This is the first occasion to show you all the results of three years of investigations by the Impero Project.

We expect lots of people to come and visit us during an entire day dedicated to our research. We also know that many of you live abroad and it is not always easy to reach Italy from different parts of the world.

For this reason, we have created the Virtual Exhibit section of the website, where everyone from everywhere can visit the exhibition, read the panels and see the new videos that we created for the event.

We hope that you enjoy the exhibit!

Go to the dedicated webpage

Impero Project is growing! We have just added a new team member, Dr. Emanuele Mariotti, our GIS and Remote Sensing specialist. He will be working on developing our GIS platform while conducting remote sensing and geophysical surveys both at Podere Cannicci and Castellaraccio di Monteverdi.

Check the new video added to our video gallery!

Very last day of excavation. Everybody is sad and happy at the same time. Happy for the end of a month of fatigue, early mornings and homesickness; sad because it is the end of the project, there are still many things to understand, dig and discover and because we will had to say goodbye to our great team.

The work was mostly focused in leaving Area 2000 ready for next year excavation, the stump was too stubborn and well anchored to the ground to be removed in the end but it is almost ready to go. We also dedicate the day to the last topographical documentation with the total station, recording the southern tower and taking the last needed points. Our surveyor, Emanuele Mariotti, came at lunchtime to record the last things in Area 1000. Megan organized and counted all the roof tiles fragments that we collected from the collapse, recognizing a small percentage of Roman/Classical pieces between bricks and roof tiles.

Last Monday of the last week of excavation, possible the last full day of digging in Castellaraccio. The team came back to its normal composition, without Marc and the anthropologists.

We focused in cleaning the areas and preparing everything for the closure of the site. In Area 1000 we finished to clean the northern wall (5), still very disturbed by a stump of a tree, and a few detail to clarify some stratigraphical relations, like the connection of the southern wall (17) with the curtain (3). Big news, we found the very first piece of Maiolica Arcaica from Area 1000!

In Area 2000 a small group focused its energies in removing the last big stump left in the room, in order to pave the way for next year full excavation of the room. The last hours were in double checking the documentation to be sure that everything was properly recorded and registered.

This is a sad Friday, since it is going to be the last day of work for our Michigan friends, who will leave for the US during the weekend. Still, they did not want to leave without having finished their work. They removed the remains of the collapse in Area 2000, exposing completely a new layer, testifying the last occupation of the room before the abandonment and the collapse of the structure.

In Area 1000 the removal of the hard context 32, the clay became dry and very difficult to dig, is exposing a new word of structures and layers with at least a new wall and a fire place in the middle of the room. We doubt there will be enough time left to work on these new finds but they will be an interesting starting point for next year campaign.