Cartier Trinity Diamond Paved Ring

Vouchers devoted to archeology Lucca: II. The Fellowship of the Walled Burials

Abstract

Giulio Ciampoltrini

When the summer of 2006, ended the excavation of the Old Church of Soiana - the St. Andrew demolished after the earthquake of 1846 - was common and shared commitment rapidly to account for all the information that this case study of archeology of protection was made available to the research. Thanks to the invaluable tool offered by the News of the Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage of Tuscany could offer them the year after a brief presentation, but the prospects of a systematic issue went away for the usual difficulty of interventions - soprattutto sugli oggetti devozionali (medaglie, crocifissi) – indispensabili per la corretta valutazione dei materiali restituiti dalle indagini.
L’esplorazione della ‘sepoltura murata’ di San Martino in Colle, nell’anno successivo, ripropose in modo ancor più stringente il problema, rendendo indifferibile la ricerca di canali di finanziamento del restauro. Per una favorevole serie di circostanze, fra 2008 e 2009 fu possibile acquisire la lettura di una parte significativa dei ‘segni della devozione’ che i due scavi avevano aggiunto a quelli, già editi, dalle ricerche negli Orti del San Francesco di Lucca, in Santa Chiara di Castelfranco di Sotto, e agli inediti dai saggi di tutela preventiva condotti in 2001 in the graveyard outside the cathedral of San Martino in Lucca.
The completion of the restoration is still far away, perhaps destined to be lost in the mists of endless problems that archeology of protection faced in a scenario of dwindling resources and sometimes missing, but what has been achieved can be brought to the reading public and - one hopes - to the visitors of the exhibitions in the efforts that Lucca dedicated annually to the streets of the Saints, and find in the Museum of the Cathedral the focal point of reference. It would be too easy to recall that the 'signs of devotion' are also often signs of pilgrimage - real or spirit - the sanctuaries that between the seventeenth and eighteenth century were much loved landmark of religiosity 'popular', and that the 'walled tombs' which stretched between the cathedral and the building now houses the Museum comes a significant part of the materials that make themselves available in here. We just hope that this shared commitment - seemingly minor and marginal to those who come to browse the booklet, really exhausting - I can testify that the archeology of protection is also a valuable tool to enter the history of the communities that have preceded us on these lands, entrusting to the ground 'signs' of their lives.