Osservatorio Vesuviano

Bronze chisels are tools used “à percussion posée"; this means they need a minimum length and some functional parts (tang, body, blade); they could have a handle of perishable material and they were used with a hammer to work wood, bronze and other materials. Chisels can be classified following their functional parts; the first element is the shape (rod or socketed chisel); the second one is body section; the third one is tang section. Chronology and distribution of every type were identified to obtain a general view of this class of tools during the Italian Bronze Age.

The facies of San Cono-Piano Notaro-Grotta Zubb ia and the relations between Sicily Aegean during the first phases of Copper Age - The facies of San Cono Piano Notaro develops during the phase of the Copper Age in central and eastern Sicily. Although the majority of comparisons is possible only with local final Neolithic cultures, it’s possible individuate some similarities with final Neolithic/Chalcolithic contexts of the Aegean world. Especially evidences concerning religious aspects of the Necropolis of Piano Vento make these hypothesis likely.

La facies di San Cono-Piano Notaro-Grotta Zubb ia nel quadro delle relazioni con l’Egeo nel primo Eneolitico siciliano - La facies di San Cono Piano Notaro si sviluppa nella Sicilia centro-orientale durante le prime fasi dell’età del rame siciliana. Sebbene la maggior parte dei confronti possibili riguardi le culture locali del Neolitico finale, è comunque possibile individuare alcune somiglianze con le culture del Neolitico finale del mondo egeo. Soprattutto le attestazioni riguardanti gli aspetti religiosi della necropoli di Piano Vento rendono verosimili queste ipotesi.

This work is the result of a research carried out within the course of Italian Protohistory at the Scuola di Specializzazione in Beni Archeologici of the Università del Salento (Lecce). Francavilla Marittima is one of the most interesting Iron Age sites of Southern Italian. It is documented by a number of different complexes (settlements, cemeteries, and a sanctuary) dating from the 10th to the 6th century BC. It can be considered as a key site for the understanding of indigenous - Greeks relationships in the early colonial phase. Since the first excavation, in the 60ties, the cemeteries, especially the main one, at Temparella, have been studied by different scholars. However, it is still possible to analyze them from a new standpoint, through a gender/age approach which may provide a better insight of social structure and organization, within a wider frame of chronological and cultural changes. Unfortunately, since the anthropological data have not been systematically studied, sex and age attribution can only be tentatively proposed, based on observations by the excavator and on the different combinations of grave goods. Tumulus graves of the earliest phases are organized by separate clusters, probably according to kin-groups. Women’s outfits show a high level of complexity, as indicated by the great number of bronze, amber and faience ornaments, also including some imports, in different combinations. Men’s graves stand out for their spatial position, the size of the tomb structures and the systematic presence of weapons and/or tools. Some objects, such as the askos, are specific to the outfits of sub-adults, although apparently there is no sex differentiation. During the last phases, there is a significant decrease in the overall number of graves, along with ritual changes: the funerary structures are plain fossa-graves, and gender differentiations are no longer stressed.

Questo studio si articola in tre parti principali; nella prima viene
fornita una definizione dello scalpello secondo alcuni fondamentali
aspetti tecnologici e formali che permettono di distinguerlo
da tutti gli altri utensili. La seconda parte consiste
nella illustrazione del catalogo di tutti gli esemplari identificati,
suddivisi secondo dei criteri che hanno permesso di individuare
12 tipi differenti; inoltre viene definita la categoria dei
bedani e una loro sintetica tipologia. Nella terza parte vengono
illustrati i possibili confronti tra gli esemplari presi in esame
e quelli extra-peninsulari; infine, viene realizzato un complessivo
riassunto sulle evoluzioni crono-tipologiche dello
strumento e vengono tratte alcune conclusioni sui contesti di
ritrovamento.

What should an archaeologist do if one of the reconstructions of an experimental village is accidentally burning during the night? Simple: pick up a camera and start taking pictures. And then, of course, plan the excavation to record as much information as possible followed by an analytical and detailed publication on the results.