Memoria e identità ai confini di Chiusi. La necropoli di Tolle tra l'Orientalizzante e l'età Arcaica

The Tolle necropolis, located near the natural pass of La Foce on the border between the Val di Chiana and the Val d'Orcia, is one of the largest burial grounds in the western part of the territory of the Etruscan city of Cleusin/Chiusi. The extensive excavation conducted between 1996 and 2011, under a concession from the management of the Civic Archaeological Museum of Chianciano Terme in collaboration with the local Geo-Archaeological Association, has yielded one of the most significant discoveries in the archaeology of Chiusi. Of a total of over 1,000 largely intact burials, dating from the 8th to the 1st century BCE, 760 contexts span the 200 years from the Early Orientalizing period (720-680 BCE) to the Late Archaic period (510-480 BCE). The exceptional database available allows, for the first time in the region, the use of statistical-combinatorial and spatial analysis methods to study the material culture and funerary customs of a large, unified funerary context. This enables, on the one hand, the construction of a detailed chronological-typological sequence and, on the other, an integrated interpretation of spatial and anthropological data, aimed at highlighting the evolution over time of the funerary ideology expressed by the Chiusi elites during the transition through crucial phases marked by the rise and crisis of the gentry elites and the consolidation of the urban structure in the age of Porsenna.