L'INTERPRETAZIONE DI STRUTTURE ETRUSCHE ARCAICHE: IL CASO DI MURLOL'analisi della datazione, l'estensione, la pianta e la posizione dell'edificio monumentale con cortile a Poggio Civitate (Murlo, provincia di Siena) indica la sua funzione di ‘centro commerciale in età pre-monetaria, in una regione non completamente urbanizzata. Essendo cosi visibile — una sorta di affermazione politico-economica — ed offrendo riparo e sicurezza ad un gran numero di persone o di merci, il ‘Murlo Upper Building’, una delle strutture più grandi dell'epoca (c. 575 a.C), caratterizzata da una progettazione innovativa e da una decorazione insolita, era stato progettato come parte di un sistema commerciale di prodotti su larga scala. La sua prossimitá ad una regione mineraria e il suo uso nella produzione di beni di lusso assortiti, cosi come il progetto di una struttura che funzionava come la ‘stanza del commercio’ dei moderni forti coloniali europei, conferma ulteriormente la sua funzione commerciale in un'era di contatti stranieri sempre più sofisticati e di cambiamenti sociali.

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and the temples at Thermon and Calydon) employed terracotta tiles as roof covering. Classical temples such as the Parthenon were roofed with marble tiles, also of great weight. 1 By the end of the Archaic Period, Greek builders were using one of two systems for tiles, either the 'Corinthian' flat pantiles with angular covers, or the 'Laconian' with both pan and cover rounded in section. 2 The weight of roofs constructed with either system would be similar, of course. The earliest practice, though, as already attested at Corinth and Isthmia, was to use a 'combination' tile consisting of one pantile and one cover tile moulded in a single piece. These were approximately as heavy as two of the Classical Corinthian tiles, and must have been as difficult to lift and place on the roof as they were to form and fire.For ease of calculation, and since our study is intended as theoretical, we suggest (assuming a specific gravity of 2 for terracotta), as an average of all types of tiling systems, including the Etruscan (see below), a weight of approximately 60 kg for a covering of terracotta approximately 1.0 x 1.0 m and 50 mm thick. For instance, a Corinthian pantile 0.57 m wide x 0.68 m long weighs 20.2 kg. 3

Chariots were important weapons in ancient warfare for almost two millennia in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Chariotry in the Bronze Age Aegean was obviously of great significance, but discrepancies between epic descriptions and archaeological evidence have often led to controversy. The Etruscans, Latins and Picene tribes took rapidly to chariotry after its introduction into Italy in the 8th century B.C.—probably by Levantine interests which also persuaded Cyprus and Tartessian Spain to adopt chariots as part of an extensive aristocratic prestige system.