News Otricoli

The landscape of Otricoli and its Acropolis, one of the most important archaeological sites of Umbria

At the border with the Lazio and along the left shore of the Tiber, narrow and castled on a hill rises Otricoli, an ancient installation lived by the Umbri initially, and then from the Romans. To testimony the civilisations that during the centuries succeeded in the control of the territory, remains the finds in the place of Cerqua Cupa and those near the Tiber river.

The first ones make reference to an Umbrian necropolis dated around the VII century B.C. A conspicuous numbers of graves that concealed important funeral outfits, today in exposure near the Museum of Villa Giulia, in Rome.   For what concerns the second site, it deals with one of the most important among those presents in Umbria. It is found in the low part of the mountain on which is situated the modern Otricoli, near the Tiber river. The ancient Ocriculum developed itself in fact around an important port zone, strategically sets to border between Umbria and the Sabina as connection among the transport river street Tiber and the via Flaminia.

Today the visible archaeological material is imposing, and it probably goes back to the Augustan period of the Roman civilisation. One of the main monuments are the Thermal baths of the I century B.C., inside which was recovered the precious polychrome mosaic today exposed in the Vatican Museums. These were removed from the famous Sala Ottagonale, a place with vault coverage and apse walls.

The other places are not certainly less fascinating, like the imposing Amphitheatre, a construction dated I century, of which are still visible the staircases, the entries and the corridor covered from vaults extending along the whole perimeter.

Many other buildings can be admired in the vast archaeological area of Otricoli as the Theatre, built in the I century B.C., set to the hill, the Forum, of which few details remain and the Grande Sostruzione, the plinth of a religious building on two floors.

In the low part of Otricoli, on a great handle of the Tiber river, rose the prestigious Oil Port through which numerous and varied commodities came, among which a predominant role had the oil, precious and abundant product.

The site is today one of the vastest and most important of Umbria, especially for what concerns the Roman presence on the territory. The area is very well equipped and constituted almost in full by pedestrian runs. To the historical beauties is added a natural and environmental context of particular relief, delivering to the visitors a very suggestive open-sky museum. 

Otricoli: the Head of Jupiter - It's a splendid head in marble tall almost 60 centimetres, recovered during the 1782 excavations. It probably belonged to a statue of great dimensions representing the div...