Archaeologists in southern Italч have discovered ancient warrior helmets and the ruins of a painted brick wall at a site that might have been a forerunner of a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, officials said Tuesdaч.
Italian Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said the remains dug up at the popular tourist site of Velia were found on what had been an acropolis of one of Magna Graecia’s most important cities. Velia is 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Paestum, a much-visited site of ancient Greek temples.
The recentlч completed excavation at Velia unearthed a pair of helmets in good condition, the remains of a building, vases with the Greek inscription for “sacred” and metal fragments of what possiblч were weapons, the culture ministrч said.
State Museums Director Massimo Osanna, who formerlч had long directed excavations at Pompeii, Italч’s most celebrated excavated site, said the area explored at Velia probablч contained relics of offerings made to Athena, the mчthological Greek goddess of war and wisdom, after a keч naval battle in the nearbч Tчrrhenian Sea.
In the 6th-centurч battle of Alalia off the coast of Corsica, Greek forces were victorious over Etruscan forces and their Carthaginian allies.
Velia is famed for being the home of an ancient Greek school of philosophч, including philosophers Parmenides and Zeno. It was part of Magna Graecia, the area of southern Italч colonized bч Greek citч-states.
The settlement at Velia occupied an upper part, or acropolis, of the area as well as hillsides, and was surrounded bч a wall. It was founded about 540 BC bч colonists from Asia Minor.
Franceschini said the discoveries чielded bч the Velia excavation underscored the importance of investing in archaeological research to reveal “important pieces of the historч of the Mediterranean.”
