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Templi Italici in Schiavi d'Abruzzo | Print |
stones.jpgThe Schiavi d’Abruzzo archaeological site is located in the Colle della Torre district, at 864 metres above sea level. It stands alongside the country road climbing from the bottom of the Trigno valley to the town. Its panoramic setting dominates the valley below and the Molise mountain chains home to Pietrabbondante.
Two parallel temples, built one next to the other but at different times and using different construction techniques, are all that is visible today. They stand in a clearing terraced by a long wall of polygonal e ashlar masonry, comprising the western edge of the sanctuary. Recent exploration work has made it possible to increase our knowledge of the area, thanks to some important new finds: main temple.jpgthe monumental altar opposite the minor building, an extensive necropolis on the slope to the south-east of the temples, used from the 10th century B.C. to the height of Roman times, therefore partly contemporary with the nearby sanctuary, and another holy site a little further downhill, featuring a small two-room building abandoned shortly after the social war.
  The two-floor mediaeval tower is also visible today, built behind the polygonal masonry wall of the sanctuary. The area owes its name, Colle della Torre (Tower Hill), to this structure.

Main temple
 
The main temple stands at the centre of the sacred site and has architectural features typical of Etruscan/Italic cult buildings, also found in other Samnite sanctuaries in the Pentri and Caraceni area: tall podium (h 1.79 m; length 21 m; width 11 m) with frontal steps, single quadrangular cella (7.33 m x 6.73 m) in antis, preceded by a pronaos with four columns (tetrastyle).
main temple2.jpg The building was made from local limestone. The podium, with its ashlar masonry nucleus, is clad with large stone slabs, embellished with cornices with ogee and cyma moulding. The columns, of which the site conserves the remains, were 5.95 m tall and had an Attic base and smooth shaft, tapering towards the top and crowned by a schematic, ionic, rough capital with four faces.
  Production markings related to the positioning of the colonnade enable us to reconstruct a pronaos with four frontal columns and two lateral, recessed columns, in line with the threshold of the cella.
The main temple came back into use as a church and burial area in mediaeval times.

The minor temple
 
Built next to the main temple when the holy site was refurbished and extended, the minor temple (approx. 7.40 m x 13.30 m) is constructed in an indefinite style from small limestone blocks, with no podium. It has a very simple plan: a single, slightly elevated cella and pronaos with four brick columns at the front.
minor temple.jpg The cella is almost square in shape and still has the remnants of plaster on its walls. It is paved in red opus signinum, decorated with small tesserae in order to form three “rugs” around the masonry remains of a base positioned behind the back wall where the statue of the god would have stood.
A partly damaged inscription, bearing the names of the eponymous magistrate Ni. Dekitiis Mi. and the builder G. Paapis Mitileis, stands out in the area behind the entrance threshold.
The temple can be dated to the early 1st century B.C. on the basis of this inscription.


tempio2.jpgAdmission is free and the opening time is until sunset.
 
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