At the site of the Christian church of San Martino a Poggio in Frascole, a stips votiva was unearthed in 1887. Such deposits, collections of small, often humble offerings, were common in antiquity, left by worshippers at sacred places to honour a deity or seek a favour. The principal ancient activity here appears to have taken place around the middle of the third century B.C., a period when the Etruscan civilisation was in its late flowering, increasingly entangled with the expanding Roman Republic. The find suggests that long before the church stood, this hilltop was a place of ritual, perhaps a rural sanctuary or a wayside shrine. The continuity of sacred use across centuries, from Etruscan or early Italic worship to Christian devotion, is a quiet reminder of how landscapes hold memory, layer upon layer, even when the architecture changes utterly.
Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.
Atika pings you when you walk or drive past heritage like this. Works offline, no account needed to explore.
Short, true stories of overlooked heritage sites, drawn from the Atika atlas. Free, no spam.