GARAGUSO
Lucania, Italy.
A native settlement on the left bank of the Salandrella river (ancient
Chalandrum) on the Ionian Sea. To the N, the settlement
bordered on the valley of the Basento river and therefore
on Metapontion territory. The first traces of life date to
the end of the 8th c. B.C. Recent excavations indicate that
the first settlement is beneath the present town, and its
necropolis is in the public gardens. There are also traces
of habitation in the districts of Filera and S. Nicola, and
in the district of Fontanelle there are remains of an
ancient sanctuary in a ravine.
Contact with the Greek world occurred in the 6th c.
B.C. and much is to be learned from the votive depository
of the sanctuary. During the last quarter of the 6th c.,
late archaic Greek ware appeared: one alabaster statuette and a small marble model of a temple, both
discovered in the Filera district. The period of greatest
prosperity, to judge from ex-voto offerings in the depository, falls between 550 and 470 B.C. No traces of life
during the second half of the 5th c. B.C. have been found.
During this period, Greek coastal influence, well documented on coins, almost completely destroyed the native
production, which was primarily represented by a type
of kantharos decorated by a broken line that started on
the body and terminated at the top with the symbol of
a hand. The colors are very lively in the local ware in
contrast to native production elsewhere.
In the middle of the 4th c., there is evidence of renewed activity. The first half of the 3d c. B.C. marked
the end of all life in the settlement. A similar pattern
is encountered in nearly all the inland Lucanian centers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
C. Valente,
NSc (1941) 252-57; M. Sestieri Bertarelli, “Il tempietto e la stipe votiva di Garaguso,”
Atti e Mem. Soc. Magna Grecia (1958) 67-78;
D. Adamesteanu,
Atti IV Convegno Taranto (1965) 138-39;
Popoli anellenici in Basilicata (1971) 36-38.
D. ADAMESTEANU
