The Cave of Castelvenere

Excavations carried out at the Cave of Castelvenere in the province of Lucca have brought to light archaeological remains from various epochs datable from the second millenium B.C. up to the first centuries of the Christian era. The objects discovered suggest that the cave was the scene of cult activity a conclusion supported in part by the recovery of a number of unusual bronze figurines of great antiquity, all either female or hermaphrodite. The Cave of Castelvenere is situated on the left bank of the Turritecava river, a righthand tributary of the Serchio, at the base of the great limestone cliffs of Monte Penna in the Commune of Gallicano. The entrance to the cave is at an altitude of around 650 metres, and lies at the eastern end of a subvertical wall several kilometres long and at various places more than a hundred metres high that runs in an east-west direction between the villages of Cardoso and Vallico di Sopra. The cave has a wide opening in the shape of an irregular rectangle oriented towards the south [Fig. 1(a)] and in front of this one can see calcareous terracing formed in ages past by the flow of the water that runs along the left-hand side of the cave. The succession of steps and hollows on the right that extend from the entrance all the way inside the cave are also clearly due to the concretionary and erosive actions of what today has become little more than a rivulet. Our exploration was limited to the first chamber, which is horizontal, funnel-shaped, and around fifty metres long [Fig. 1(b)]. At the end of this section the tunnel forks and by following the right-hand branch one can, as shown by the reconnaisances of various speleological associations, continue for about a kilometre into the side of the mountain. The cave is known to most locals as the Cave of Casteltendine but older people tend to refer to it as the Cave of Castelvenere, with the first name likely being a simple evolution of the second; we shall in any case adopt the older term both for ethnological reasons and, as we shall see, for archaeological ones1. The oral tradition of the inhabitants of these parts has an abundance of stories – who knows to what extent the stuff of legend – that suggest the cavern was the stage for banditry, communal feuding, and massacres. The cave most certainly must have been used in times not too remote from our own since only ten or so metres below the entrance there are the remains of a fortification with walls that appear to be mediaeval. It seems furthermore that not long ago pottery fragments datable from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were found in the cave. This latter news amongst other reasons made us sure that unknown people had been excavating inside the cave and we thus felt compelled to intervene. The work of the Department of the Natural History of Mankind, done in collaboration with the Archaeological Development Group of Lucca and with the Lucca section of the International Institute for Ligurian Studies, has consisted primarily in sifting through the mounds of topsoil left by the clandestine diggers and in the rectification of the walls of the clumsy excavation with the aim of ascertaining the stratigraphic progression. Careful analysis seems to have made clear, however, that the material is found mixed together and without cultural sequence. Both animals and man have in fact contributed to the confusion of the not very substantial (20-50 cm) deposit, as has the stream which when in full flow has on various occasions encroached upon the entire surface of the cave. This is also suggested by the extremely fragmentary nature of the pottery unearthed. One must however make clear that neither the man-made articles nor the faunal remains show signs of flotation. In short it seems obvious that the objects were deposited by man more or less in the area where they were brought to light (probably on the 1MDT: This is not obvious to me. Older references tend to refer to it as “Cascaltendine” which is different again and more like the supposedly newer name. See e.g. “An excursion to Mount Gragno and the Cave of Cascaltendine”, by P. Magri 1880. Transl. M.D. Towler