Protohistory of an Etruscan city: Raniero Mengarelli and the discovery of Caeretan Iron Age necropolises/Protohistoire d’une ville étrusque: Raniero Mengarelli et la découverte des nécropoles caerétanes de l’Àge du Fer

At the beginning of the 20th century, while Raniero Mengarelli was carrying out the excavation of the monumental Etruscan necropolis of Banditaccia, some simple burials, so different from the great Orientalizing mounds, came to light by chance both in loc. “Sorbo” and in loc. “Cava della Pozzolana”: it was the first time that evidences from the Iron Age were found in the city of Caere. Parallel to his most famous archaeological campaign, Mengarelli therefore started two other excavations, between 1910 and 1916, with a resumption in 1929, at “Sorbo”, and between 1910 and 1943, with various interruptions and restarts, in “Cava della Pozzolana”, that led to the discovery of a total of 454 and about 430 Iron Age burials respectively. If we add to these the approximately 200 tombs investigated a few years later (1961-1963) by the Lerici foundation in loc. “Laghetto” and the 164 excavated more recently by M.A. Rizzo (1996-1999) on the same site, the impressive number of about 1200 burials found is exceeded, making the necropolis of Caere among the largest known Iron Age contexts in Etruria. However, despite this, most of the testimonies referring to this period have remained unpublished up to now and many of the grave goods found during the excavations have not been touched since they were deposited in the warehouses at the time, making at the same time the necropolis of Caere one of the Iron Age contexts less known and studied in Etruria. Suffice it to say that for a long time they have been considered evidence of a people who would have inhabited the city before the arrival of the Etruscans. The resumption of the study on the materials and documentation relating to the “Cava della Pozzolana” necropolis, entrusted to the writer and subject of his PhD project, made it possible to reflect on how the history of research has influenced our perception of a phenomenon or a historical period such as in the specific case of the Iron Age in Caere. This communication would therefore like to dwell on some fundamental themes that have characterized past research on the most ancient phases of Caere, and which will certainly characterize future studies, such as: how did a non-archaeologist like Raniero Mengarelli relate to the discovery of these important contexts that today we would define protohistorians, at a time when protohistory had yet to define itself as a discipline? Since most of those excavations have been carried out by Etruscologists, but often been interpreted by scholars of prehistory or protohistory, how has this influenced our perception of the topic? Is there actually a distinction? But above all, how is it possible to take into account what has been done so far in approaching a new analysis of finds made almost a century ago? How this background should change our methodology?