IOL. Ignobilia oppida Lucanorum. Anonymous sites of the Lucanians - Insediamenti anonimi dei Lucani

Section: Antiquity
Directors: Olivier de Cazanove, professor, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne; Stéphane Bourdin, professor, University of Lyon 2

Civita di Tricarico. The temple of the Acropolis on top of an earlier house (T. Terrasse).

Presentation

In the present-day region of Basilicata, which corresponds to a part of ancient Lucania, two fortified Italic sites, about a dozen kilometers apart, are being excavated in parallel. The fort of Serra del Cedro seems to be Archaic. In the 4^th century BC a dense settlement formed over the graves of the previous phase, with crouched burials. In 2016 a vast house with a transversal vestibule (pastas) was discovered, that opened onto the outside by means of a threshold with a Doric column.

Civita di Tricarico, the largest of the known Ligurian agglomerations (47 ha), was the subject of a preliminary excavation programme by the École Française de Rome, from 1988 to 2005. Two volumes have already been published in the collection of the EFR, in 2008 and 2014. They relate to the "lower city", with its living quarters, its enclosure and craft activities. The investigation is now focused on the acropolis of the site. Occupation continues until the 1^st century BC. An Etruscan-Italic temple on a podium covered a long pastas house not far from a canonical domus.

The Ignobilia Oppida Lucanorum programme also includes field and geophysical surveys, as well as an architectural study of the important sanctuary of the goddess Mefitis in Rossano di Vaglio, some twenty kilometers away. The aim of the programme "Ignobilia Oppida Lucanorum" is to understand the territorial organization of this district located in the heart of the Lucanian hinterland, with its network of fortified towns, places of worship and minor sites.