The
The site Work begun in 1985 at the former De Vennera clinic for the construction of the headquarters of the Banca Popolare Cooperativa di Crotone (now Banca Popolare dell’Emilia Romagna) brought to light an important archaeological palimpsest . Investigated almost exhaustively until 1991, with ministerial and private funding (B.P.C.), the palimpsest has made it possible to recognize significant frequentation, which, apart from a few traces from the Bronze Age and Iron Age, from the last quarter of the 8th century B.C. to the 14th century A.D.

Greek Age
The data that emerged for the Greek phase can be summarized as follows:
▪ Settlement of the Achaeans of the last quarter of the 8th to mid 7th centuries BC, overlapping with the indigenous phase from the Bronze Age reaches to the Iron Age;
▪ Urban structuring with the definition of the road network by the mid-7th c. BC and subsequent building in the lots in the area (Isolate 1 and Isolate 2, with N-S orientation ) between the late 7th c. BC and early 6th c. BC;
▪ Construction, also in the Archaic period, of a monumental building made of calcarenite (“tuff”) blocks, to be related to the monumental building identified in 1932 by Raffaele Lucente in the area of the former Bank of Italy (now the headquarters of BPER);
▪ Building of dwellings and craft activities within the blocks in three overlapping phases, from the Archaic Age (6th cent. BCE) to the Hellenistic Age (3rd cent. BCE), basically always respecting the limits of lots and room articulation. Particularly notable for the organization of space and the location of courtyards, as well as for refinement, appear to be the houses from the Classical and Hellenistic periods of Isle 2, with a match in other city areas (excavations of the North curve of the stadium, “Gravina” area, Messinetti/Via Tedeschi area);
▪ Destruction, apparently violent, in the last decades of the 3rd cent. BC and radical change of use of the area in which kilns are made. This phase is

to be related to the Italic (Brettii) and Carthaginian occupation until the end of the Second Punic War.

Roman Age
After centuries of neglect, with accumulation of alluvial silt-clay layers, in the Roman period, between the end of the 1st and all of the 4th cent. AD. a sector of the large necropolis of the imperial phase was implanted in the area, which also encompassed the area of the former Bank of Italy (excavations 1932) and the Town Hall (excavations 1992-93 and 2016) and which in ancient times was located along two main road arteries, leading from Crotone south to Scolacium and Rhegium and northwest, past the Esaro, to Petelia and Copia-Thurii. The types of tombs attested are varied (incinerations in ollae and caccabi, terragne pits, alla cappuccina in pits or covered with masonry, a cassone, a cupa), with usual grave goods for the period often including an oil lamp, imported earthenware, glass artifacts, the coin as “Charon’s obolus,” and clothing items.

From the early Middle Ages to the 14th century.
In the early Middle Ages, as the cemetery area fell into disuse with the final establishment of Christianity, a masonry pipeline was built in a marginal area, pertaining to a nearby artisanal fish-processing plant (5th century AD).
Still, between the middle centuries of the Middle Ages and the 14th century, the district, by then definitely suburban and close to a craft complex with kilns for decorated ceramics and butti (discharges of work products) identified in the Messinetti/Via Tedeschi area and at the construction site of the municipal theater (Via Paternostro), is stably occupied only with functional structures (circular cobblestone wells and silos, quadrangular masonry silos) . This was followed by complete abandonment from the 14th century until the first decades of the 20th century, with the resurgence of construction in the area following the new building expansion of modern Crotone arranged in a radial pattern towards the hinterland and the N and S coast starting from a new fulcrum: Piazza R Lucente, then of the Revolution and finally dedicated to the great philosopher, scientist, mathematician and politician Pythagoras of Samos, who founded his school of thought here around 530 B.C., experimenting with and indicating styles of living and eating and administration of the polis.