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.