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October 5, 2007
Holy Etruscan Snoods, Batman, it's Fanum!
After all these years of reading and listening it never ceases to amaze me that we can misplace important cult centers like this - just forget quite where it was. Over there? Over here? No, that one was . . . . So an archaeologist thinks she's found the cult center for the Etruscan League, or whatever those people called themselves. Nothing certain yet, no inscriptions, but here you go, from the BBC:
Fanum Voltumnae, a shrine, marketplace and Etruscan political centre, was situated in the upper part of the Tiber river valley.It lies at the foot of a huge outcrop of rock, upon which is perched the mediaeval city of Orvieto.
A walled sanctuary area, 5m-wide (16ft) Etruscan roads, an altar, and the foundations of many Roman buildings that have laid buried for two millennia have been discovered.
And as the dig closed for the 2007 season, with tarpaulins being pulled over ruins to protect them from the winter weather, Professor Simonetta Stopponi of Macerata University was upbeat about the site's significance.
"I am confident that for the first time we have positively identified one of the most important lost sites of the ancient world," she told the BBC.
. . .
Livy mentions Fanum, and stresses its importance no less than five times.
But he failed to mention where Fanum was situated, and after the fall of Rome, all memory of its exact location was lost.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at October 5, 2007 6:53 AM