Le necropoli di Marsiliana d'Albegna: architettura, rituale funerario e cultura materiale

The Marsiliana d’Albegna Project has been carried out by the University of Siena since 2002: the new data from surveys and excavations in the settlement area and the cemeteries, have highlighted the profile of the Etruscan centre, lying on a hill system including the Poggio del Castello, the Uliveto di Banditella and a sector of the Poggio di Macchiabuia. These define a large plateau settlement measuring about 47 hectares, with necropoleis mainly distributed on the southern side. The research has shown the connection between the inhabited area and the rich Orientalizing cemetery located at Banditella, whose investigation has been promoted by Prince Tommaso Corsini from 1908 to 1919. This paper discusses some common features of the funerary architecture of the fossa and “fossa with tumulus” graves recovered at Banditella and Poggio di Macchiabuia. The structure of wooden chambers is revealed from excavations and we can compare them with the problematic information gained from the “fossa with tumulus” graves at Vetulonia, explored by Isidoro Falchi. Some features of the funerary furniture from the newly investigated tumuli at Poggio di Macchiabuia reveal close contacts with the Volcentine material culture, particularly expressed by pottery products such as impasto vessels (brown and red impasto, such as white-on-red impasto) and italo-geometric pottery, represented in the Macchiabuia tombs by vessels close to the Metopengattung production. There is a particular set with bronze ribbed cups, most probably from local fabrics. All these items, located at the edge of the wide ager of Volci at the beginning of the Orientalizing period, show the role of Marsiliana d’Albegna as a Volcentine foundation controlling the northwestern frontier of the metropolis.