Been doing a deep dive on early Italian burial practices and wanted to collect some very sketchy + preliminary thoughts on wealth and power in period...a (long) thread on Iron Age Italian #archaeology, ending with some questions... 1/17 
The Early Iron Age to Orientalizing transition (ca. 750-700 BCE) witnesses one of more radical changes in Italian material culture, up there with any in premodern period. Bc much relevant archaeology is burial, this change is visible above all in funerary landscapes
The big innovation is appearance of "Princely Tombs," exotic and lavish grave goods, often complex and monumental architecture (mounds, etc.). Bernardini Tomb at Praeneste (cup below, ca. 675 BCE) is famous, but these are widespread + really rich.
Prior EIA cemeteries show homogenous burial often seen to reflect egalitarian society--although more properly oligarchic, since we don't if/how subalterns buried; this homogeneity pertained since LBA, at least in Italy (pic from Volterra)
Striking is not just fact of Princely Tombs, but radical shifts in funerary space accompanying them. These tombs often mark opening of new areas of cemeteries, w/ later burials circling around them for several generations. Classic ex. is Osteria dell'Osa, exc. by Bietti Sestieri
What's fascinating is how very diffuse this spatial transformation is. We find it outside Latium in...Campania at Pontecagnano, in Etruria all over, on the Adriatic at Novilara etc., up in Liguria at Chiavari (Lamboglia's exc. reconstructed by S. Paltineri), all ca. 700 BCE
What's going on?
Traditional explanations turn to idea of rise of the "gens," something which @rometostandrews has convincingly debunked, infra alia (a) because the ancient Roman gens was not a stable concept and (b) this phenomenon goes far beyond Rome's orbit
Traditional explanations turn to idea of rise of the "gens," something which @rometostandrews has convincingly debunked, infra alia (a) because the ancient Roman gens was not a stable concept and (b) this phenomenon goes far beyond Rome's orbit
But this new spatial patterning reflects the commemoration of *political* leaders of some sort. These were not simply "warrior elites" bc (a) weaponry shows up (albeit more limited) in EIA, even LBA, burials in Italy; new elites didn't 'discover warfare'...
They also seem to hold prestige for distinctly political leadership. Note several tombs (again diffuse: Etruria, Latium, Le Marche, Campania) contain sceptres similar to objects from Near East assoc. with kingly power--incl. a woman's burial from Capena, cannot find pic!
Esp. into 6th c., some tombs also have sculptural markers prob representing defunct or their family group: here, tomb-topper of Larth Cupuries Aranthia from Crocefisso del Tufo (Orvieto)
L, another example from Casale Marittimo (early 7th c.), but this was not Etruscan only! A. Naso recently proposes the famous Warrior of Capestrano (R) was one of at least three adult statues placed on top a princely tomb
So, these were seen as individuals, leaders of society, involved in war, yes, but also seen as somehow distinctly political (if that can be distinguished?) and recognized as such
So, lots of questions, but ultimately, big one is tension btwn similarity and difference:
-Why trend across all Italy at this particular time? Seemingly everywhere we see radical spatial transformation as enormously wealthy elites consolidate and propagate political power
-Why trend across all Italy at this particular time? Seemingly everywhere we see radical spatial transformation as enormously wealthy elites consolidate and propagate political power
-At same time, we know these similar social ruptures produce highly variable results. Indeed, for all intents and purposes this LOOKS like state formation; and in Latium, Etruria, Campania, it ends w/ urbanized aristocracy; but in Liguria or Adriatic, that never happens!
-Languages stay distinct, too, and even (many) grave goods and particular funerary rituals vary from site to site, region to region, even sometimes btwn areas of single sites (pic: another possible tomb marker, paleosabellic insc. from Penna Sant' Andrea)
So, no grand convergence, but what is consistent is that period ca. 700 BCE saw intense rise in inequality all over Italy with rich elites now interested in exerting intergenerational pressure on cultural practice even as those practices themselves were highly divergent.
Why all of the sudden ca. 700 BCE? I don't know.
Climate change and production? Metallurgy + early iron weaponry? Greek colonial presence in Bay of Naples? Lots to think about. There's prob some lesson too about historical inequality, but I'm tired and so will stop.
Climate change and production? Metallurgy + early iron weaponry? Greek colonial presence in Bay of Naples? Lots to think about. There's prob some lesson too about historical inequality, but I'm tired and so will stop.
