La raccolta del Museo Archeologico-Virtuale di Narce; dagli scavi clandestini al Museo

In 2013, after a long struggle against illegal excavations in the area of the Faliscan town of Narce, the Municipality of Mazzano Romano and the Archeological Superintendence of South Etruria inaugurated the Virtual & Archeological Museum of Narce (MAVNA), thanks to a successful intuition by Maria Anna De Lucia Brolli. This paper presents an overview of the peculiar collection of MAVNA. This collection is divided into two different sections. The first section originates from the ‘collection’ of the local parish of San Nicola di Bari (mostly rescuing vases from the confessions of the tomb looters) and the second one come from private donations by the local community. The peculiar formation of this collection reflected the heterogeneity of the materials, both in terms of chronology and provenience. The collection consists of nineteen different classes of material, dating from the Late Bronze Age to the 1st century B.C.E. Concerning the chronological distribution of the groups of finds, most of the artifacts can be dated to the 7th, 6th and 5th centuries B.C.E., and a major second group to the 2nd century B.C.E. Regarding the provenience, the largest group of the pottery probably came from the different necropoleis in the southern area of Narce, dating back to the Orientalizing and Archaic period (Monte Lo Greco, Monte Soriano, Monte La Corte and Cavone of Monte Li Santi). On the other hand, a second group of pottery and votives may come from illegal excavations at the sanctuary of Monte Li Santi Le Rote