Seven Florida State University students who conducted research at the Cetamura del Chianti archaeological site in Italy presented their findings during the 2024 Cetamura Day Conference in Tallahassee.
The conference, held early this fall, spotlighted the first cohort of Reckford Research Fellows, whose work was made possible by a $1 million gift to the Department of Classics by Charlotte Orth Reckford in honor of her late husband and Langford Eminent Scholar Professor Emeritus Kenneth J. Reckford.
The Orth Reckford Classics Fund for Research and Archives supports student research that combines science and the humanities and creates opportunities for students to gain curatorial, conservator and museum experience in the U.S. and abroad via the Archaeology in Tuscany program administered through FSU International Programs at Cetamura del Chianti.
“The incredibly generous donation from Charlotte Orth Reckford has transformed the research agenda at Cetamura after 50 years of excavation and has provided rare archaeological experiences for FSU students,” said Nancy DeGrummond, Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Classics and Director of Excavations and Research at Cetamura since 1983.
FSU students started excavating the site in 1973 after the FSU Florence Program obtained a permit from the Italian government. Excavations have unearthed materials ranging from waterlogged grape seeds to the remains of a Roman bath. The unique artifacts and buildings uncovered span three distinct periods: Etruscan, Roman and Italian medieval. Students can take courses examining a variety of approaches to archaeology in the field, the lab and the museum.
The program has provided hundreds of students with exclusive opportunities to participate in excavation, preservation work and the construction of exhibitions. FSU recently celebrated 50 years of archaeological excavations at Cetamura with the inauguration of the Civic Museum at the Origins of Chianti in Gaiole during the summer of 2023. The museum features spectacular archaeological discoveries from 50 years of excavations at Cetamura by FSU.
“Charlotte Orth Reckford’s generous donation has already funded important work at Cetamura and will continue to provide opportunities for our students to carry out research in Italy and beyond,” said Tim Stover, chair of the Department of Classics. “The donation’s impact on our department cannot be overstated. The research will give students invaluable experience and enrich our understanding of ancient Italy.”
From ancient grape seed DNA to the study of faunal remains and a catalog of stamped pottery, the fellows presented a variety of research throughout the day about their findings while at the Cetamura del Chianti Excavation and Research site. The daylong event also included presentations by DeGrummond, Stover and Lora Holland Goldthwaite, Reckford Senior Research Fellow and a professor at the University of North Carolina Asheville and longtime Cetamura collaborator.
The 2024 Reckford Research Fellows are Illeana Sanders, Hudson Kauffman, Elisa Moscone, Jackson Cheplick, Holly Piper, Eve Rozier and Reckford Digital Scholar David Picker-Kille.
Jackson Cheplick, Grape Seed Project
Cheplick is a senior studying classical civilizations and chemistry who first excavated at Cetamura during the 2023 season and returned in 2024 as a Reckford Fellow and trench supervisor. His research studies ancient water-logged grape seeds discovered in the Cetamura wells using carbon dating and testing for ancient DNA. The research involves collaboration with work on the Cetamura seeds being done at a laboratory at York University. Following graduation, Cheplick hopes to further explore art conservation.
Hudson Kauffman, Situla Project
Kauffman is pursuing a Ph.D. from the Department of Art History focusing on late antique and medieval art a with strong interest in classical civilizations. He satisfied all his interests at Cetamura this summer by digging in a trench with medieval, Roman and Etruscan material. In his study Kauffman continues his research on Etruscan and Roman bronze buckets, or situlae, found in the Cetamura wells, with the goal of finding comparisons in museum collections around Italy and identifying similar vessels across ancient Europe.
Elisa Moscone, Stamp Project
Moscone is a senior pursuing a degree in classical archaeology. Two seasons of archaeological excavation at Cetamura have immersed her in Italian culture and strengthened her interests in Roman history. As a Reckford Fellow during the summer of 2024, Moscone studied Etruscan and Roman stamped pottery found at Cetamura. This work has both expanded the catalog of stamps and extended the range of knowledge abouttrade in northern Etruria, a region of central Italy covering what is now most of Tuscany. Moscone hopes to continue working alongside art professionals and museum curators to refine her skills as an educator.
Holly Piper, Iron Project
Piper graduated with her master’s degree in Classics in spring 2024. Her degree included a specialization in Museum Studies, and in 2022 she won a Bucher-Loewenstein Museum Internship Award in Classical Archaeology to curate a Cetamura exhibition at the FSU Florence Study Center. Piper spent a total of three summers digging at Cetamura, with work in the Medieval castle area and in the Etruscan and Roman ironworks in the Artisans’ Quarter. As a Reckford Fellow, Piper studied iron artifacts and slag from the forge area. She is currently the registrar at the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Lydia “Eve” Rozier, Coin Project
Rozier is a junior majoring in humanities and classical archaeology with minors in museum studies and French. Last summer, Rozier was tasked with updating the Cetamura coin collection, an assignment that appealed to her love of managing and studying antique objects. She reviewed and updated the running catalog of Cetamura coins, adding in 12 coins found after 2014. Rozier received the Bucher-Lowenstein internship in 2023 and has served as an intern, trench supervisor and research fellow at Cetamura.
Illeana Sanders, Bones Project
Sanders graduated from FSU in 2024 with dual degrees in classical archaeology and political science and is currently a first-year master’s student on the classical archaeology track. She has participated in excavations at Cetamura for three years and served as a trench supervisor this summer. As a Reckford Fellow, Sanders’assignment was to gather and assess the faunal remains at Cetamura and to package and prepare them for study by experts. She is interested in broadly researching ancient Roman migration patterns through cultural material.
David Picker-Kille, Sigla Project
Picker-Kille is a doctoral student in the Department of Classics whose research interests concern the development, forms and uses of land transport technologies in the Roman world. He has participated in archaeological projects in Italy, Greece, the U.K. and the eastern U.S. He’s currently collaborating with the University of Milan on the International Etruscan Sigla Project, which focuses on Etruscan inscriptions and sigla (non-literary markings on pottery and other artifacts). As the Reckford Digital Scholar at Cetamura this past summer, Picker-Kille assisted in incorporating new technologies and digital tools in the ongoing studies of the site’s corpus of archaeological material.
For more information about the Department of Classics, visit classics.fsu.edu. To learn more about the Archaeology in Tuscany program, visit international.fsu.edu/Program/Italy/Archaeology.