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Medieval Silos of Piazza Magnante in Anguillara Sabazia: the town’s underground storeroom
In 2007, during repaving works in Piazza Magnante in the historic centre of Anguillara Sabazia, workers accidentally discovered an archaeological area. Thirty-three medieval silos excavated directly into the tuff bedrock were found, used for centuries as the village's storeroom. They had been hidden beneath the cobblestones since 1950.
Seven hundred years of underground history
The area had been used continuously for approximately seven hundred years: first as a granary, and later as a waste-site from the end of the 15th century onwards, when the construction of a granary overlooking the square rendered them redundant. The eight silos investigated so far have yielded a variety of artefacts: kitchenware, pitchers, glazed and painted bowls, fragments of blown glass including bottles and drinking glasses, and the bones of wild boar, sheep, goat, and deer. Waste accumulated over roughly 700 years of daily life, preserved beneath the square.
What to see today
Two of the explored silos are visible through eight shatterproof glass panels supported by an iron structure, which has been embedded directly into the square’s pavement.
