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| Archeological Museum |
Piazza Duomo, 42
Palazzo Pretorio
Colle di Val d'Elsa (Siena)
tel +39 0577 920.490
fax +39 0577 920.490
email museo.archeologico@comune.collevaldelsa.it
Opening hours in summer (1 May - 30 September):
from Tuesday to Sunday 10.30 - 12.30 / 16.30 - 19.30
Closed on Mondays
Opening hours in winter (1 October - 30 April):
from Tuesday to Friday, 15.30 - 17.30
holidays and days before holidays 10.30 – 12.30 / 15.30
– 18.30
Closed on Mondays
Prices:
full price euros 3,00
reduced euros 2,00
Single ticket for all 3 municipal Museums: full price euros 6,00
reduced euros 4,50
for family groups (min 3 people), 1 ticket is free.
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| History |
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The main characteristic of this museum, which is dedicated to the memory of the great Sienese scholar Ranuccio Bianchi Bandinelli (1900-1975) (see photo), to whom we owe the first systematic studies of the local area,
consists in having put together a collection of finds which come exclusively from the Elsa valley area, to give visitors a historical understanding of this area, beginning with the Eneolithic period and continuing until the Middle Ages. |
There are only sporadic finds relating to the Paleolithic in the Colle di Val d'Elsa area, and in the Elsa valley as a whole, a fact due more to the lack of systematic, focused research than to the actual absence of this cultural phase.
Finds displayed in the Archeological Museum from this earliest period are dominated by two Eneolithic underground tombs from the Le Lellere area, which came to light during digging for road works, with enough finds to allow firm dating to the 4th millennium BC.
However, with the advent of the full Etruscan period, from the Archaic era down to the end of the Hellenistic period, Colle boasts a large number of finds, and a variety of graves and a plethora of necropolises, which make it one of the largest areas of archeological interest in Tuscany, thereby making the Archeological Museum which houses those finds one of the most important in the whole region.
The area of Colle, which was subject to the authority of Volterra, was an important crossroads to and from central and northern Etruria, a fact attested to by some very important finds, especially in the vicinity of two large necropolises: the Le Ville necropolis and the Dometaia necropolis.
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In the necropolis situated north-west of the small collection of houses at Le Ville, the first productive excavations in the area were carried out in the 18th century, and continued in the following century (1872), leading to the discovery of numerous objects of various sorts,
as well as the more recent exploration by the Gruppo Archeologico Colligiano (Colle Archeological Group) which, with the aim of cleaning the burial site in the area reported from the various excavations, has, since 1976, uncovered fully 10 chamber tombs, all seriously damaged, and often filled in owing to the collapse of their roof. They had already largely been robbed.
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The use of the necropolis continued until the end of the Hellenistic period. As far as we are currently aware, the necropolis was divided into two groups of tombs a few hundred metres apart: the necropolis which certainly seems to be Archaic, and which looks down onto the Senna, a seasonal stream; and the predominantly Classical and Hellenistic necropolis, which looks toward the river Elsa.
Worthy of mention in the first group, the more Archaic group, is Tomb 1, both owing to its characteristic shape and owing to the grave goods it contained, which can be dated between the mid-7th century and the 6th century BC.
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Around 20 tombs have been cleaned and studied since 1974 at the Dometaia necropolis and, although they are spread out in a long line over the crest of the ridge, two larger groups can be discerned among them: one around 150 metres away before one gets to the houses at Dometaia, and the other in the borgo (hamlet), both along the road and underneath the houses themselves.
In the future, a full-scale Etruscan archeological park will be created around this necropolis.
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Many of the tombs in this necropolis have survived today almost physically intact, owing to the characteristics of the soil.
Of the tombs which can be visited, two are to be mentioned owing to their fine state of preservation and monumental scale. Tomb 1, which has a complex plan and 'fake architecture', with a long dromos (access passage-way)
and a small entrance-way, has a large rectangular central chamber, around 2.5 metres wide by 4.7 metres long, with a pitched roof bordered by a continuous cornice, and side walls and a central “columen”; six rectangular
side-chambers (two along each of the three side walls), each with a platform-bench on the three sides, except for the small chamber on the left on the back wall, which has no bench on one side. Another interesting detail
is the presence of several examples of Etruscan writing, carved onto the platform, which are yet to be deciphered.
The style of the tomb, and the skill with which it was made, reminds one of the monumental tombs found in the more famous and better-publicized parts of Etruria, and its date suggests it was used from the Archaic period (6th century BC) until the late Hellenistic period.
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The reasons why the museum arouses such interest are also due to the splendid pieces which come from the tomb of the noble Calisna Sepu family, in the context of the Pierini Tomb (7th century BC).
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The Calisna Sepu tomb, considered to be the richest Hellenistic find made in northern Etruria, has large black-slip vases which are regarded as among the most representative of this kind of pottery, the only example of overpainted Volterran kelebe, some very fine bronze mirrors, and a large array of table ware as used by the Etruscan upper class.
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"An artist who has become a master of his craft may safely forget the rules."
Arturo Graf, Man of letters and poet (1848-1913)
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