Torre Mordillo, Italy Excavation Records

The expedition to Torre del Mordillo, Italy was conducted in conjunction with the search for Sybaris and the later colony of Thurii. Sybaris was a wealthy Greek colony in southern Italy, in the region known to the Romans as Magna Graecia. Sybaris was founded in 720 BCE and was destroyed by the rival colony, Croton in 510 BCE. After a failed attempt by the Athenians to establish a new colony at the site of Sybaris, they founded a new city, Thurii nearby in 443 BCE. Thurii became well known for its coinage and pottery.

Sybaris's exact location was a mystery due to Croton having diverted a river over it and its bordering river changing course over centuries, but was uncovered during the expedition beginning in 1961 led by Dr. Froelich Rainey, director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum in collaboration with Dr. Giuseppe Foti, Superintendent of the Antiquities Department of Calabria and Carlo Lerici of the Lerici Foundation. In 1963, Oliver C. Colburn assisted at the site as a research associate, joined by Penn classical archaeology grad students, Mrs. Curtis Jones (aka Betsy Whitehead) and Nancy Palmer in 1966. The 1967 excavation was directed by G. Roger Edwards, with Colburn as Associate Field Director, and excavators Betsy Whitehead, Phyllis P. Katz, and Dorothy K. Hill.

During the Sybaris expedition in May 1963, the University Museum group, directed by Rainey with Elizabeth K. Ralph (of the University Museum's Applied Science Center for Archaeology) as Assistant Director, decided to run remote sensing surveys in the foothills around the plain of the Crati River while an Italian team (the Lerici Foundation) continued drilling operations near Sybaris. These surveys revealed a heavy fortified wall on the eastern end of a plateau called Torre del Mordillo (named for the medieval watchtower on the site). The plateau was naturally fortified and overlooked an ancient trade route to the west and the sea to the east. Proton Magnetometers and a Geohm were used to survey the area.

Torre del Mordillo was revisited in the 1964 season, during which Ralph traced a terracotta pipeline connecting the site to a nearby spring, indicating that this was a significant settlement requiring a sophisticated system for securing water. Thanks to this evidence, Penn continued its Torre del Mordillo project alongside the Sybaris expedition in 1966 and 1967 in hopes of dating the site and determining whether this was the site of Thurii.

By the end of the 1967 season, evidence of a settlement predating Thurii's founding indicated that the site was inhabited over a much longer period than that attested for Thurii, though Thurian colonists likely occupied the site.

Oliver Charles Colburn, Ph.D. was born in 1910 in Herkemer, NY. He graduated from Union College in 1933 and went on to study chemistry at Cornell before working as a chemist from 1939-1945. Colburn worked overseas for several years in the 1950s, with assignments in England, Italy, and Greece. In 1963 Colburn joined MASCA as a research associate and enrolled at Penn to study the Museum's Mediterranean section, fulfilling the requirements for a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology in 1970. The 1963-1967 expedition at Torre del Mordillo became the subject of Colburn's doctoral dissertation, The Quest for Thurii, which he completed in 1973. Colburn was also a member of the Board of Managers at the University Museum beginning in 1968 and was appointed as a trustee at the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) in 1976. After his death in December 1979, the Ann C. and Oliver C. Colburn Fellowship began being awarded annually by the AIA to students interested in studying at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Greece.

Results of the excavation have been published in Atti della Academia Nazionale dei Lincei: Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità, Series 8, Vol XXXI, 1977, pp. 423-527; Magna Graecia Rassegna di Archeologia, Vol II, No. 1, Jan-Feb 1967, pp. 1-3; and in Museum publications: "A Habitation Area of Thurii" by Oliver C. Colburn, Expedition, Vol. 9, No. 3, Spring 1967, pp. 31-38; "Torre Mordillo" by G. Roger Edwards, Museum Newsletter, Vol. 6, No. 1, Winter 1968; and "Torre del Mordillo: 1967" by G. R. Edwards, Expedition, Vol. 11, No. 2, Winter 1969, pp. 30-35. Also see The Quest for Thurii 1963-1967, Oliver Colburn's unpublished dissertation for the University of Pennsylvania, completed in 1973, 576 pp. Some published material has been retained with the collection for convenience.

The records had been housed in the Mediterranean Section under the care of G. Roger Edwards until ca. 1979, when they were transferred to the newly established Museum Archives. These records include correspondence, field notes, research materials, publications, and photographs, primarily relating to the 1966-1967 excavations and the work of Oliver Colburn and Roger Edwards. The collection has been divided into the following five series: Correspondence; Field Notes; Post-Excavation Analysis; Publications, Reports, and Bibliographies; Maps, Plans, and Drawings; Photographs; and Catalog Cards.

Correspondence (1965-1977) The correspondence consists mainly of letters from Roger Edwards as field director reporting to Museum Director, Froelich Rainey on the 1967 excavation and letters to G. Foti, Superintendent of the Department of Antiquities in Calabria. There are also several letters between members of the excavation team before, during, and after the 1967 season. This series also includes correspondence between Colburn and various classical coin scholars - most notably Colin Kraay, an English numismatist at Oxford. There is also correspondence concerning the publication of Colburn's dissertation, The Quest for Thurii and its Italian translation, which was published in the journal, Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità. Much of the publication correspondence is between Colburn and Paola Zancani-Montuoro, an Italian archaeologist involved with the Sybaris project.

Field Notes The Field Notes series encompasses several field notebooks, find catalogues, and trench summaries. The bulk of this material concerns the 1966-1967 excavations, though it includes Colburn's diary from the initial 1963 survey. Field notebooks for the 1966 and 1967 seasons are arranged according to the original volume numbers on each notebook with the exception of Vol. III. Vols. I and II are from 1966 and Vols. IV-VII are from 1967, with each volume acting as a single excavator's field notes for the season. Volume III is a list of finds from the 1966 season and was placed later in the series amongst other find catalogues. Additional trench-specific field notebooks from 1967 were placed at the end of the series.

Post-Excavation Analysis The Post-Excavation Analysis series consists of analysis and correspondence related to terracottas and other objects found in the excavation. There are also lists of coins found at the site with notes on their possible origins.

Publications, Reports, and Bibliographies The Publications series includes published and unpublished materials and bibliographies of sources relating to Torre del Mordillo and Thurii. This series also includes a bound copy of Oliver Colburn's dissertation, The Quest for Thurii, including mounted plates.

Maps, Plans, and Drawings Included in this series is a list of the maps, plans, and drawings deposited in the archives. Of the 28 documents listed, 16 are present in oversized materials. The location of the remaining 12 is unknown. This series also includes inked publication drawings.

Photographs Photographs include a photo index organized by roll and 45 pages of mounted photos of the 1967 excavation with roll and frame numbers. 18 of 35 original negative rolls were lost due to brittle emulsion, so this set constitutes the main photographic record of the 1967 excavation, primarily consisting of excavation views. This series also includes a list of photos from Sybaris that relate to Torre del Mordillo.

Box MS21 contains photographs used to illustrate articles that have been kept with the collection for reference. They include excavation views and artifact photos, organized by subject, and uncatalogued.

Catalog Cards The Catalog Cards include photos and descriptions of all finds from the excavations in 1963, 1966, and 1967. Cards are arranged by year and provenience.

Publication Information: University of Pennsylvania: Penn Museum Archives,

Finding Aid Author:

Use Restrictions:

Preferred Citation:

Sybaris, Italy Expedition Records Froelich Rainey Director's Office Records MASCA - Froelich Rainey and Elizabeth Ralph Records