2,500-year-old ‘monumental’ temple unearthed next to identical set of ruins in Italy
Archaeologists in Italy unearthed the ruins of an ancient temple 70 years ago. Now, they’ve found its twin.
The Vulci archaeological park was one of the most important urban centers in Italy before the Roman empire, according to a Nov. 10 news release from the University of Freiburg. Excavations in the area during the 1950s uncovered the Tempio Grande, a sacred temple built by ancient Etruscans.
A team of archaeologists have uncovered ruins of a similar building nearby, photos show.
The “monumental temple” was built around 2,500 years ago, sometime between the end of the sixth century B.C. and the beginning of the fifth century B.C, archaeologists said in the release. The building is about 115 feet long and 147 feet wide.
It is easy to claim something is a temple but proving it is another matter. If these buildings were close to each other, they could have been a prison complex, a factory, or just two commercial buildings that rented out space.
Given that large buildings are often used for various purposes once the original owners sell out or die, these may have housed a religious group at one time. Still, we doubt they were initially constructed as a temple.
Archaeologists plan to study different phases of the new temple’s history to understand more about ancient Etruscan religion, social structure and daily life, the release said. Already, researchers have made progress toward this goal.
“Our knowledge about the appearance and organization of Etruscan cities has been limited until now,” Franceschini said. The newly-found temple is “offering us insights into more than a thousand years of development of one of the most important Etruscan cities.”
Since archaeology cannot see into the past, it is hard to imagine that a foundation will provide much information to study. The archaeologists will be doing a lot of reading into the foundations to get the story they are comfortable with.
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