This morainic basin is situated in the vicinity of Ivrea, immediately
to the south of the village of Giovanni, and it also has yielded, from
time to time, antiquities which leave no doubt that it was a home of
the lake-dwellers. The bog is of an oval shape, about 1¼ mile in
length, and half this in breadth, and is beautifully situated amidst
groves of chestnut and walnut trees interspersed through rich meadows
and fields. On its margin are found the trunks of trees, from 1 to 2
feet in diameter, still attached to their roots and lying just as they
had fallen with their points directed to the centre of the bog. These
trees are generally pine, oak, hazel, alder, etc.
Below the ordinary peat there is a layer of blackish mud which, on
being dried, is combustible, and underneath it lie the stratified
layers of ancient lake silt, consisting of a whitish clayey substance.
In the blackish intermediate layer there was found, in September,
1864, a canoe 8 feet 4 inches long, 1 foot 9½ inches broad, and 8
inches deep. (A model of this canoe is now in the Museum at Turin.)
A few years later (1868) another canoe was found in this turbary, of
slightly larger dimensions, having two paddles in it (=Fig. 60=, No.
17). The following objects are, among others, described and figured by
Gastaldi as coming from the same place, viz.:--Specimens of pottery
(Nos. 14 and 23), one of which (No. 23) is a lid of a vessel precisely
similar to the one from Mercurago (=Fig. 53=); flint and stone
implements (=Fig. 60=, No. 20); wooden net-floats (No. 21); two bronze
pins (Nos. 10 and 11); and a remarkable bronze pendant (No. 15),
supposed, however, to be of Etruscan or Roman origin, and of later
date than the other remains. (B. 168 and 294.)
Other turbaries in the western districts of the Po that have yielded
prehistoric remains, but with which there were no piles or other
indications of lake-dwellings, are:--
TORB. DI TORRE BAIRO.--Fragments of vessels made on the wheel. In
another small bog a quern-stone was found which is supposed to be of
Roman times.