- Mariassunta Cuozzo –
The history that emerges from the archaeological research at Pontecagnano provides
an excellent outline, from its beginnings, of cultural openness and interaction among the
various people who lived in or frequented Campania. As has been stated, between the
First Iron Age and the Orientalizing period, the Picentine center acquires a fi rst-rate role
in the Tyrrhenian region, demonstrating a strong network of relationships with Etruria,
Greek components, Phoenicians, Near Easterners, and Italic peoples.
Orientalizing Pontecagnano has been known until now mostly for the “princely” tombs
926–928 and 4461, all of them male and located in the western necropolis (Figs 16.2, 16.5).
The partial publication of the tomb of the “princess” 2465 (Figs 16.2, 16.4) and the systematic
survey of the necropoleis have revealed the multidimensional character of the community,
enhancing previous readings and proposing questions on the diversity of its identities,
differences and shared characteristics that appear to characterize the Campanian center.
THE FIRST IRON AGEThe widely prevalent funerary ritual is cremation with deposition in a biconical impasto
ossuary placed usually directly in a pozzetto tombs (well-shaped pits) (Pontecagnano II.1;
Dinamiche di sviluppo 2005). For the First Iron Age, apart from two principal necropoleis
to the north-west and south-east of the settlement, one further burial ground is known,
located two kilometers to the south (loc. Pagliarone) that seems associated with a minor
settlement, perhaps a lagoon harbor.
The ceramic imitation of a bronze helmet constitutes in many cases the cover for male
biconical urns; the others are usually covered with an overturned bowl. As in Etruria, in
the fi rst half of the ninth century bc an egalitarian ideology seems to prevail, a sort of
“isonomic” ideal that is manifested in the absence of a marked differentiation between
grave goods and in a prohibition against depositing real weapons in the burials. Some
elements of the funeral offerings seem generally connected to the gender of the deceased,
probably also in relation to the deceased’s status, such as the typology of the fi bulae
which distinguishes between male and female types, the textile equipment that denotes
a certain number of female burials from the fi rst half of the ninth century bc on, and on
the male side, the razor, and from the end of the ninth/beginning of the eighth century
bc, offensive arms (spear and sword; Tomb 180, Fig. 16.3).
The material culture of Pontecagnano is characterized, from the beginning, by
the emergence of a plurality of infl uences: apart from the obvious integration into a
Campanian milieu in the ceramic repertoire, the privileged relations with coastal southern
Etruria (Tarquinia, Veii) are evident. Among the most meaningful indicators one notes,
alongside the biconical vases already mentioned, the presence of a hut-urn (Bietti Sestieri
1992), vases in bronze sheet, the repertoire of the arms and razors. Early contacts are
documented with the Phoenician and Nuragic world (Sardinian bronzes, Tomb 563);
and with Torre Galli, in modern-day Calabria (greaves, Tomb 180). The complexity of
the ideologies, of the rituals and of the religious forms is attested by the famous cover
of an ossuary depicting as its fi nial hand-modeled fi gurines of a couple. Some scholars
(D’Agostino 1988; Cerchiai 2010) interpret the female fi gure as a goddess who welcomes
a hero to his destination in the Underworld (or perhaps it is part of a scene of hieros gamos,
“sacred marriage” with a divinity: Torelli 1997); in a further hypothesis to be projected
in a supernatural dimension, it may be the conjugal couple that in this phase is also
emphasized in the structuring of the burials.