Museo civico archeologico di Magliano Sabina

History

The Civic Archaeological Museum of Magliano Sabina, previously housed on the top floor of the Municipal Palace, was established in the last decade of the last century, exactly in 1989, with regional funding from the Museums Office of the Lazio Region and the contribution of the Municipality and is currently housed at Palazzo Gori in the town’s historic center. Its establishment was possible thanks to a collection carried out over decades following all kinds of interventions carried out on the territory, both agricultural and service, by some local enthusiasts who gathered in a research group.

Through the constant study and review of a large number of fragments, there are 1683 items inventoried and cataloged in the I.C.C.D (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) format and 800 exhibits from surface collections conducted within a geographical area that reaches from the River Nera to the River Farfa.

The museum’s collection consists of fragments that have been carefully reviewed and analyzed, alongside new topographical surveys of the region. This research has contributed to the scientific identification of the cultural origins and development of the Tiber Valley’s inhabitants, spanning from the Iron Age to Archaic periods. A notable outcome of this work was the identification and study of an Archaic settlement that once stretched across the hills where the town of Magliano now stands.

Description

The museum's layout is on three floors divided into sections devoted to prehistory, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Hellenistic, Archaic, and Roman periods up to medieval evidence. The first three floors can be visited by the public and house artifacts are displayed according to provenance and presented in chronological succession, which makes it possible to trace the fundamental lines of the Tiber Valley civilization.

In addition, the ground floor houses the reception offices that contain a small library for consultation available to users and a room dedicated to temporary exhibitions or educational workshops; the third and last floor, on the other hand, houses the warehouse with artifacts that are out of display or under restoration.

The sites from which the materials on display come, dating mainly to the Middle Paleolithic, were collected on a high terrace at the confluence of the L'Aia stream with the Tiber approximately fronting the estuary of the Treja, consisting of gravelly and sandy alluvial deposits known by the toponyms of Grappignano, Colli Oti (Area archeologica di Poggio Sommavilla), Macchia Grande, and Colle Rosetta. Materials can be divided into two distinct groups: one strongly modified by transport and external agents with encrustations that have altered its legibility; the second characterized by artifacts obtained with a predetermined chipping technique, i.e., capable of producing chips of controlled size (known as the Levallois technique, explained at the entrance with simulations of flint chipping).

Divided into 3 rooms, it collects archaeological documentation found in the area covering the time span from the Protohistoric Bronze Age to the invention of writing. …