Card author:
Location:
Date:
The so-called Selva di Malano and the contiguous localities Sterpeta and Poggiarello constitute the northernmost part of the territory of Soriano, located at the extreme offshoots of the Cimini. Here there are scattered many remains of villages and necropolis of the Etruscan Roman period; but, more particularly, the Ancients used here many of the countless large volcanic boulders scattered on the ground, working them for the purposes inherent in their practices of life, burial and worship.
Info: Soriano Terzo Millennio Onlus Association
Tel / Fax 0761.75.95.38 3486576158 Paolo archeologia@sorianoterzomillennio.org
ProLoco di Soriano nel Cimino, Piazza Umberto I, tel./fax 0761746001
01038 – Soriano nel Cimino (VT) Tel / Fax 0761.746001 – info@prolocosoriano.it
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AREA OF MALANO
DESCRIPTION
The so-called Selva di Malano and the contiguous localities Sterpeta and Poggiarello constitute the northernmost part of the territory of Soriano, located at the extreme offshoots of the Cimini. It is very bumpy, with deep and wooded stony gorges, furrowed by streams, which further downstream flow into the large Vezza torrent (right tributary of the Tiber) and with slopes currently deforested and cultivated with hazelnut groves.
It appears that in Roman times the area was crossed by the important Via Ferentiensis (which connected Ferentum with Falerii Novi) and some of its branches. Here there are scattered many remains of villages and necropolis of the Etruscan Roman period; but, more particularly, the Ancients used here many of the countless large volcanic boulders scattered on the ground, working them for the purposes inherent in their practices of life, burial and worship. Recent researches, carried out by distinguished Italian and foreign scholars, have ascertained that the Etruscan-Roman rock monuments existing in the area even constitute the maximum concentration of remains of this type still preserved and the maximum concentration of surviving Latin rock epigraphic documents. For their excellent state of conservation, the following should be noted, in particular:
– an ovoid boulder with ten steps obtained accessing the flattened top, where are the remains of presumably small ares, cut from the live and provided with moldings (perhaps dedicated to three pagan divinities). The monument is known with the name of “Sasso del preachatore”, because it resembles a pulpit;
– a large monolithic cube, carved with a fake ashlar and molded at the base, presumably a Roman sepulchral stone;
– another boulder, modeled in its upper part, in such a way as to obtain an almost cubic body, molded below, with a projecting base like a gallery and a live cut ladder, resting on the left side and accessing an upper shelf. This monument is also called “Sasso del preachatore” and seems to be a pagan altar or a podium intended for aruspicina;
– a Roman chamber tomb with an elegant architectural pediment carved in the living, obtained at the base of a gigantic rock bank, on which the remains of a small medieval Benedictine abbey building, dedicated to S. Nicolao, are preserved.
Among the preserved rock epigraphs (about ten), all of a funerary character, the one in which reference is made to the magistrate CAIVS ANICIVS, who appears to have been a quadrunviro in the nearby city of Statonia, deserves to be remembered.
ESSENTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
D’ARCANGELI V., Monumenti archeologici ed artistici del territorio di Soriano nel Cimino e delle zone limitrofe, Soriano nel Cimino 1967.
D’ARCANGELI V., Soriano nel Cimino nella storia e nell’arte, Viterbo 1981.
GASPERINI L., Iscrizioni latine rupestri nel Lazio, I, Etruria Meridionale, Roma 1989.
GIANNINI P., Centri etruschi e romani dell’Etruria Meridionale, vol. I, Grotte di Castro (VT) 2003.
MENICHINO G., Escursionismo d’autore nella Terra degli Etruschi, III, Viaggio nella Tuscia: I Monti Cimini e le valli delle antiche civiltà rupestri, Pitigliano (GR) 2008.
MUNZI M., La nuova Statonia, in Ostraka, 4, 2, Napoli 1995.
PATRIZI D., La Selva di Malano, in Tuscia, IX, 29, Viterbo 1982.
SANNA M. – PROIETTI L., Presenze archeologiche lungo la Via publica Ferentiensis e le sue diramazioni, Viterbo 2007.
SORIANO NEL CIMINO, a cura della CARIVIT (autori: D’ARCANGELI V. – SANTOCCHI A.), Viterbo 1993.
STEINGRABER S. – PRAYON F., Monumenti rupestri etrusco – romani tra i Monti Cimini e la valle del Tevere, Grotte di Castro (VT) 2011.
WETTER E., Ricerche topografiche nei territori circostanti Acqua Rossa, in Opuscula romana, VII, 9, Lund ( Svezia) 1969.