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Modern Description: The modern town of Laino Borgo sits on a low hill overlooking the Lao river which winds its way through steep gorges to the Tyrrhenian Sea some 30 kilometres away. At the mouth of the river where it empties into the Tyrrhenian, lies the Lucanian settlement of Laos which, according to literary evidence, was also the site of a Greek colony founded by Sybaris after its destruction in 510 BC, however no (in situ) trace of the Greek settlement has as yet been found, although coinage – and dies – issued by Greek Laos have been recovered nearby. The identification of the site of Lucanian Laino Borgo is problematic. The only reference to its existence was contained in a report to the 1962 Taranto conference in which Professor Amedeo Maiuri states: in occasione della costruzione del tronco ferroviario Lagonegro‐Castrovillari e propriamente nel piazzale di Laino borgo con l'affioramento di un bel tratto di muro a blocchi squadrati, di una fornace con scarico di terrecotte figurate e una statuetta di ' Athena promachos' e una stele funeraria, materiale tutto di età ellenistica. (Maiuri 1963, 64) The ferroviario Lagonegro‐Castrovillari was built in the 1920’s and closed in 1978. Using the IGM 1:25,000 scale maps ‐ in which the path of the railway line is still marked ‐ it would seem that the village square of Laino Borgo is several hundred meters away from the railway line, which lies on a high ridge overlooking the town. Its construction would seem to have gone nowhere near the town square. The rail line also goes nowhere near the older village of ‘Laino Castello’, which sits on a high hill overlooking the modern town Subsequently a single indicative observer point has been located on highest point of the old ‘Laino Castello’. The viewshed which was produced however revealed no intervisibility with any surrounding contemporary centre. Subsequent tests were done with observer points in Laino Borgo itself and with several observer points along the line of the old ‘Lagonegro‐Castrovillari’ railway track ‐ which is still visible in the landscape ‐ but all of the analysis revealed no intervisibility with any contemporary site. A viewshed taken from an observer point on ‘Laino Castello’ has been included for illustrative purposes.

Info: Myers Lucania

Brett Andrew Myers, Visual Connectivity and Control in Ancient Lucania, MPhil thesis 2018, Univ. of Sydney

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