Another typical example of the terremare, which I wish to describe shortly, lies 1¼ mile north of the Po, near the town of Viadana. This station was accidentally discovered a few years ago by the brothers Pietro and Giacomo Tassoni, the peasant proprietors of a field in which they were making trenches for planting vines. In the course of their operations they dug up fragments of pottery, which they brought to the Arciprete Antonio Parazzi of Viadana (already widely known as a skilled archæologist and the founder of an excellent museum of the local antiquities of the district). Some of the fragments of pottery turned out to be Roman, while others were undoubtedly pre-Roman, and this led to a preliminary investigation of the locality, in which the experienced eye of Parazzi soon detected the site of a terramara dwelling. A full report of the subsequent excavations and results obtained was published by Parazzi in the Bullettino for 1886 (B. 451)—a monograph which is a perfect model of the descriptive details of an investigation conducted on scientific methods.
First of all let me emphasise the fact that there was here no mound at all. The field was quite flat, and to reach the surface of the terramara beds a stratum of considerable thickness, varying from 1 to 2 feet, of the ordinary alluvial deposits had to be passed through. The terramara beds then continued for a depth of 8 or 10 feet, underneath which came the subsoil on which the settlement was originally constructed. It is noteworthy that in one part of the area, underneath the terramara beds proper, a peaty bed, similar to that at Castione, was discovered. To make the resemblance still more striking, this terra uliginosa also contained the remains of a palafitte. These piles were very well preserved, and some of them may now be seen in the Museum at Viadana.
It was impossible, without enormous labour, to explore this settlement to a great extent; but by a few well-directed trenches Parazzi ascertained that it was of a quadrangular shape, and orientated to within 11 degrees, and that it was surrounded by a ditch and a dyke. The enclosure, exclusive of the area of the dyke, had a superficial area of about one English acre. Its four sides measured, respectively, 208 (N.), 218 (S.), 227 (W.), and 237 (E.) feet. The dyke was 26 feet broad at its base, and 11 feet 6 inches high, and showed that it had been added to on three different occasions. Its inner edge appeared to have been very steep, a fact which suggests that, as at Castione, there had been some kind of support to prevent the earth from falling in. The ditch was 34 feet wide, and its maximum depth was 6½ feet.
The underlying peaty stratum, containing the piles, occupied much of Parazzi's attention, and he goes largely into its minutiæ. One curious fact which he records is that the dyke passed over its middle, leaving a considerable portion of the terra torbosa and palafitte outside the area of the terramara deposits. This undoubtedly suggests the idea that the palafitte existed prior to the terramara settlement. From the character of the relics we shall, however, see that both belonged to the same age and people.
On the surface of the terramara beds Roman remains were largely met with, and in one place they came upon a rectangular excavation, measuring 18 square mètres, containing ordinary earth, bricks, tiles, fragments of jars, and other Roman pottery. When this was cleared out there was found at the bottom, at a depth of 7 feet 6 inches, a Roman pavement, and the stratified terramara layers could be distinctly seen in the perpendicular walls. Clearly this cellar was constructed long after the deposition of the terramara beds.
Nor is the settlement of Casale Zaffanella a solitary example in the Viadana district. Already Parazzi has prepared a large map of the neighbourhood, which finds a suitable position on the wall of his museum, with no less than 12 terramara stations marked on it. Among these there is one Cogozzo (B. 372b) situated about one-and-a-quarter mile from the town and within 200 yards of the Po, which presents the same features as that at Casale Zaffanella, and also contains traces of a palafitte. Its area is an orientated quadrangle covering about an acre, but it is completely buried in mud, its highest point being 31 inches below the surface. It is surrounded by a ditch and dyke; and, moreover, the inner edge of the dyke was found to be almost perpendicular, showing that originally it must have had some kind of contrafforte.
Some of the objects from this group of terramara stations, now deposited in the Viadana Museum, are represented in [Fig. 86], Nos. 1 to 13.
GORZANO (MODENA).
The old-school views advocated by Dr. Coppi, viz. that the terremare were remains of funeral pyres (roghi), so much biassed his mind that for many years he appeared to have paid little attention to the significance of the strata, and consequently the first two volumes of his magnificently illustrated monograph on the terramara settlement at Gorzano (B. 207 and 261) lose much of their value from having the objects of different ages indiscriminately mixed. This defect is so far removed in the third volume that he divides the deposits into upper and lower, corresponding to the historic and prehistoric periods. But, notwithstanding this defect in Dr. Coppi's earlier works, his investigations are of considerable scientific value, as his numerous matter-of-fact observations are strictly to be depended on.
The accompanying plan and sections of Gorzano will convey some idea of the position of the terramara beds in respect to their immediate surroundings. The deposits (marked c on section A) extended in length about 90 to 100 mètres from north to south, and 70 mètres in breadth, with an average thickness of 3½ mètres. The settlement was constructed on a natural elevation, rising about 9 mètres above the rest of the plain and 11 above the bed of the adjacent stream Tiepido. It was surrounded by a ditch and a dyke, and it also contained the remains of a palafitte. The existence of piles is clearly proved by Dr. Coppi himself, who gives a section (C) showing their respective positions, but at the same time he denies that they indicate the remains of a palafitte.