Excavations at Tuscania, 1973: Report on the Finds from Six Selected Pits

An article in volume xl of these Papers recorded something of the programme of work which is being undertaken by the British School at Rome, in collaboration with the Italian authorities, on the site of the earthquake-shattered medieval town of Tuscania, in the province of Viterbo some 90 kilometres north-west of Rome. In this article David Whitehouse has given a preliminary sketch of the magnificent series of medieval and post-medieval pottery, the recovery and evaluation of which constitutes one of the most challenging aspects of the situation created by the earthquake. The bulk of this pottery comes from pits which, having outlived their original function as storage pits, reservoirs or cess-pits, were backfilled with material which, though containing a few earlier pieces (as is almost inevitable on an urban site), was in almost all cases broadly homogeneous. In archaeological terms these are closed groups affording a remarkably clear terminus post quem non for the contents of each pit. Much of the pottery from these pits is most attractive work, finding a ready market, and in a country where free enterprise flourishes and the State archaeological authorities are grossly understaffed, it is often a matter of hours between the discovery of a fresh pit and the disappearance of its finer contents. For this reason alone a high priority had from the start to be given to helping the staff of the Superintendency in the race to recover as many intact or near-intact groups as possible. On two occasions, in mid-winter 1972–73 and again later in 1973, groups of pits were cleared, on the first occasion by Peter Donaldson, John Morrish and Laura Glashan, and on the second by Mr. and Mrs. Gaylord, in both cases with the invaluable help of Sig. Enzo Marziale. Since then Sig. Marziale has himself recovered a number of other pits of which the lower parts were undisturbed, of which enough remained of the contents to justify their treatment as significant archaeological groups. Almost all of these pits contained, in addition to pottery, a wide range of other domestic throw-outs, notably broken glass vessels, small metalwork objects and organic refuse.