Ricerc@Sapienza

The project is aimed at the excavation and study, with a multidisciplinary perspective, of the necropolis of Castel Sozzio (Civitella D'Agliano, VT) which is located in the middle Tiber valley and is the only one under investigation in this region. Research in this site, partially investigated in 1997-98, was resumed in 2020 thanks to the 3 years "Concessione di Scavo" granted by the Direzione Generale Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio.
The settlement to which the funerary area pertained is still unknown and only future investigations and in-depth historical and topographic studies will help in identifying it. The necropolis counts at least 30 tombs of different typologies a large number of which were reused several times. A preliminary chronological analysis, based upon clues still to be fully verified, dates its use in the 5th-6th/7th c. AD but, as no furniture was found in the graves, it is difficult to define their exact chronology. Anthropological studies are hence essential to integrate archaeological data so as to understand the origins of the people using the necropolis, their habits, lifetime, lifestyle, and to reconstruct the historical, social and economic setting of this peculiar territory at the borders between Etruria and Lazio in the phase of transition from Antiquity to Middle Ages. Actually this was a crucial period for the region that, after the fall of the Roman Empire, saw the struggles between Goths and Lombards, and Byzantines.
During the Early Medieval period a still unidentified church of S. Maria and a small fortified settlement upon the hill south of the necropolis were built. Thus both archive research and history of art can give a key contribution to outline the cultural and artistic background of the site in an evolving territory. Research at Castel Sozzio can shed light not only on population patterns, but also on the reciprocal relations between the different peoples and cultures interacting in the region in this crucial period.