- chapter 10: The Western Mediterranean before the Etruscans –
The third phase goes from late LH IIIB to advanced LH IIIC (Italian Recent Bronze
Age [RBA] to Final Bronze Age [FBA] 1), when not only Mycenaean imports are still
widely distributed, but there now begins, and takes hold, the frequent reproduction of
Mycenaean pottery models: large containers for transport and storage (dolia), practical and
everyday kitchen pottery, as well as elegant and refi ned ceramics. This local production
imitating Aegean imported ware – demonstrated by archaeometric analyses (Vagnetti et al.
in preparation) – in its turn originated a new and close contact network all over Peninsular
Italy, where the best-known settlement is Broglio-Trebisacce in Calabria, and including
south-central Sardinia, where the bulk of the discoveries took place in Nuraghe Antigori-
Sarroch (Fig. 10.4, nos. 3–4), at the western extremity of Cagliari gulf (Vagnetti 2011b).
Later on in the LH IIIC and Submycenaean period (Italian FBA 1–2 and 3) the
development both in the production of locally imitated Mycenaean pottery, as well as
in participation in the metallurgical koine, show that the interconnections were deeply
rooted and longstanding, for instance as in the two south Apulian sites of Rocavecchia
and Santa Maria di Leuca, though the number of imports is decreasing (Bettelli 2002).
The evidence of Sardinia is particularly important for two reasons: fi rst of all the highly
fascinating and still open problem of reciprocal spheres of infl uences with the Cypriots, of
which we will discuss below; secondly a phenomenon that began as sailing and trading
contacts but that took root and expanded not only to many other sites in the more or less
nearby areas, the last evidence of which being the sherds found at Sant’Antioco (ancient
Sulky), but also to other fi elds of local activity, apparently infl uencing agricultural
production and related pottery technique. Large containers in polished clay that were
hard-fi red so as to avoid porosity, as well as the beginning of the production of pitchers,
can be linked to the growing frequency of the discoveries of olive pits and of grape seeds
in Late Bronze Age deposits (Sa Osa-Oristano) (Usai A. 2010).
The “slate-gray” pottery, or “Nuragic-gray” pottery (Fig. 10.4, no 5), characterised
not only by the colour of the clay due to a better hard burnishing but also by a whole set
of very peculiar pottery shapes, is found mainly concentrated in south-central Sardinia
and in association with Mycenaean imports and imitations. More and more this typical
Nuragic production is found – and the number of sites where it is recognised is growing
- bringing the evaluation of the trade routes in the Mediterranean from a unique East to
West course to a two-way course. A southern route from south Sardinia goes to Cannatello
in the Agrigento region of southern Sicily and then to the harbour site of Kommos in
southern Crete, both in LH IIIA2-IIIB levels, reaching – as was very recently stated –
Pyla-Kokkinokremos on the south-east coast of Cyprus, a short-lived site dated from Late
Cypriot [LC] IIC and abandoned in 1200 (mid thirteenth-beginning of twelfth centuries
bc) (Karageorghis 2011). A main point for the correct interpretation of historic pattern is
the fact that all these RBA Nuragic clay sherds do not belong to prestige or votive elegant
ceramics but to simple everyday pottery, common vessels used by travelers and sailors;
moreover, the Nuragic jar with “inverted-elbow” handles found in Pyla-Kokkinokremos
(Fig. 10.5) is broken and repaired with a large lead clamp, and the lead – analysed by lead
isotope analysis – comes from the Sulcis-Iglesiente mining region, therefore it is certain
that the jar traveled as an utilitarian container for food or other alimentary merchandise.
We are allowed to conclude that in order to explain the absence of fi nds of Mycenaean
pottery in northern Tuscany where the richest metal deposits are located, though also
depending from the chance of the discoveries, one must take into account Nuragic
Sardinia and its Cypriot connection.