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PROJECT HISTORY
The Mugello Valley Archaeological Project and Poggio Colla Field School center on the excavation of Poggio Colla, an Etruscan settlement site in the Mugello near the modern town of Vicchio, about twenty miles northeast of Florence, Italy. The project is co-directed by Professor P. Gregory Warden, a Classical archaeologist and Associate Dean of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, and by Professor Michael L. Thomas of The University of Texas Center for the Study of Ancient Italy. Sponsoring institutions include the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, Franklin and Marshall College, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
 Archives
View of the Mugello Valley,
northeast of Florence in Tuscany, Italy
Poggio Colla was first excavated from 1968 to 1972 by Dr. Francesco Nicosia, the former Superintendent for the Archaeology of Tuscany. With Dr. Nicosia's permission and encouragement, the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project continued excavation in 1995. The research design of the project combines stratigraphic excavation with land survey and geophysical prospection to form an interdisciplinary regional landscape analysis of Poggio Colla and the surrounding area. We plan 20 years of field work followed by a series of comprehensive multi-authored reports. Additionally, we have published, and will continue to publish, timely interim reports in scholarly journals. These can be found in both Etruscan Studies and in the Journal of Roman Archaeology.
Map of the environs of
Poggio Colla and Vicchio di Mugello
Poggio Colla was left untouched between
1972 and 1995, when the SMU/Penn excavations (Mugello Valley
Archaeological Project) began. The initial season of the MVAP
was conducted during July 1995, and excavation has progressed
on an annual basis since that initial campaign. The excavation
season normally runs from mid-June to the beginning of August.
View of Vicchio in the
Mugello Valley from the southwest
Poggio Colla is important because it
has undisturbed habitation layers that span much of Etruscan
history. The site seems to have been inhabited by the Etruscans
at least as early as the seventh century and was abandoned or
destroyed in the late third century BCE. Excavations to date
have revealed well-defined fortification walls, an extensive
necropolis area, and the rare remains of an archaic monumental
building, probably a temple. Poggio Colla was inhabited at least
as early at the seventh century BCE, and had monumental architecture
on its north-eastern flank, probably a temple, by the early sixth
century. The site suffered a violent destruction and was then
rebuilt during the Hellenistic period. Remains of the Hellenistic
fortifications can still be seen on the three sides of the Poggio
today.
Fortification walls at
Poggio Colla
Excavation of Etruscan habitation sites
has been rare, although in the past few decades some important
habitation sites (for instance Murlo and Acquarossa) have increased
our knowledge of Etruscan life substantially. Still, the Etruscans
are known primarily from funerary remains, and much of our knowledge
of Etruscans comes from the wealthy southern centers, Veii, Caere,
and Tarquinia. One of the problems is that the Etruscans chose
their sites so well that the major centers were repeatedly built
upon in the Medieval and later periods. We know where the Etruscans
had their major cities, places like Volterra, Orvieto, Cortona,
and Fiesole, but the sites are covered over with modern towns
or cities and are therefore almost impossible to excavate. Poggio
Colla thus offers us an exceptional opportunity, to excavate
and study an important Etruscan settlement, and to do so with
up-to-date methods and technologies. The site of Poggio Colla
should prove singularly important for the information it will
provide about Etruscan urbanization, architecture, and daily
life.
View to the north from
the plateau of Poggio Colla
Of further importance is the archaeological
topography of the Mugello basin, a region at the edge of the
Apennines at the north-eastern periphery of Etruscan territory.
This area is little-known archaeologically but could provide
important information about Etruscan connections and trade routes
with their Italic neighbors to the north and along the Adriatic
coast to the east. Poggio Colla is located at a strategic location
at the point where the broad Mugello basin narrows into the Sieve
River Valley (Val di Sieve) that forms a natural communication
route to the Arno, and hence to the region around Florence (Agro
Fiorentino, as it was dubbed by Nicosia). The site is actually
made up of two plateaus with a saddle of land in between. The
northernmost plateau, Monte Sassi, has a dominant position over
modern Vicchio and the Mugello. Poggio Colla, on the other hand,
dominates the Val di Sieve and affords a more protected location.
For other scholarly reports and information,
see the following:
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