The Etruscan Foundation Fieldwork Fellowship

This last summer, Thessa Theriault was recipient of a Fieldwork Fellowship from the Etruscan Foundation. The Etruscan Foundation Fieldwork Fellowship is designed to support participation in field schools or in archaeological fieldwork at Etruscan and Italic sites of non-Greek Italy from the Bronze Age through the 1st Century BCE. The fellowship is open to U.S., Canadian and European citizens who are students enrolled at an accredited college or university in the United States. Competition for the Fellowship is very intense since only a handful are awarded worldwide in any given year.

Her research project focuses on the Etruscan phases of the college's excavation at Coriglia near Orvieto, Italy. This was her third year at the excavation where she has served as an assistant trench supervisor. She investigated the evidence in the material culture for aspects of the transformation of the site after the Roman conquest of Velzna in 264 BCE. Velzna, the Etruscan name for Orvieto, was the town to which the site belonged. The material from the site provides a good opportunity to study the paths of Romanization in this part of Italy as well as the absorption of the Etruscans into the Roman World.