5. Natura e funzione della deposizione del metallo tra Europa e Mediterraneo: ripostigli della tarda età del bronzo / Nature and function of bronze deposition between Europe and the Mediterranean: Hoards of the Late Bronze Age

Il contributo prende in considerazione i cinque ripostigli dell’insediamento protostorico di Frattesina di Fratta Polesine, datato tra Bronzo Recente 2 e Primo Ferro – fase 1A (XII – X/IX sec. a.C.). I ripostigli, databili alla fase centrale del Bronzo Finale (BF 2 – XI sec. a.C. ca.), sono stati studiati (e presentati in lavori a stampa) dal punto di vista tipologico, cronologico e funzionale. In questo lavoro i complessi sono analizzati con approcci diversi, a partire dalla nuova analisi crono-tipologica del cosiddetto ‘tesoretto’, il ripostiglio composto da oggetti, prevalentemente ornamenti, in bronzo, ambra, vetro, avorio, uova di struzzo e pietra, pubblicato nel 1971. Per quanto riguarda i cosiddetti ‘ripostigli da fonditore’ (nn. 1-4), formati da lingotti e diversi tipi di oggetti frammentati (attrezzi, armi, ornamenti), vengono qui esaminati gli aspetti metrologici e il sistema ponderale. A seguito della pesatura di ogni elemento (compresi i frammenti minimi ad oggi inediti), i depositi sono confrontati con altri complessi italiani ed europei. Infine, sono proposte alcune considerazioni sulla funzione e sul significato dei ripostigli sulla base della revisione dei materiali, delle rare e limitate notizie relative alla scoperta (sfortunatamente avvenuta al di fuori dai contesti stratigrafici pertinenti) e alla luce delle nuove ricerche avviate nel sito dal 2014, mirate alla comprensione delle caratteristiche strutturali e infrastrutturali dell’insediamento. Con queste premesse, e sulla base del confronto con altri ripostigli provenienti da contesti tanto interni quanto esterni agli insediamenti, il contributo affronta il problema dell’attribuzione dei materiali al pertinente ambito funzionale, profano o rituale, ed evidenzia come i confini tra i due ambiti siano spesso sfumati, come dimostrato dalle analogie tra i ripostigli 1-4 di Frattesina e quelli provenienti da alcune vette appenniniche, probabilmente di natura votiva. Nel complesso, e confermato, riguardo ai ripostigli 1-4, quanto suggerito da Anna Maria Bietti Sestieri e Luciano Salzani, ossia il fatto che essi debbano essere stati connessi con officine metallurgiche; per il ‘tesoretto’ viene proposto un possibile ruolo simbolico e/o sacrale.

Although fragmentation is a distinctive feature of Late Bronze Age hoards, little research into scrapping has been carried out so far. The article reviews the most important aspects of fragmentation in Late Bronze Age hoards and discusses a number of characteristic conclusions which are drawn from the archaeological evidence. Recurring patterns in the archaeological record evidently reflect manifold facets of hoarding, both in economic as in religious terms. In contrast, patterns in the way of interpreting hoards rather seem to mirror preconceptions of what the Bronze Age world would have looked like. A less dogmatic approach in explaining fragmentation in Late Bronze Age hoards is suggested.

Apart from some exceptional bronze items, assemblages that confirm the irretrievability of the objects due to specific site circumstances (e.g. deep abysses), little remains to substantiate the unequivocal irretrievability of the deposited objects for the vast majority of the Bronze Age hoards. If we are to understand Bronze Age hoards as votive offerings, then their supposed irretrievability should be taken for granted. Can we therefore obtain some indirect confirmation of their irretrievability? Some characteristics of the Late Bronze Age hoards from the south-eastern Alpine region attest to their irretrievability indirectly (e.g. particularities of their stratigraphy, their structured composition). The case of recently acquired hoards and single finds from the Bled vicinity in the Slovene Alpine area is presented with regard to their extraordinary density and the presence of two golden appliques. Another Late Bronze Age settlement hoard from Dragomelj in central Slovenia is presented with regard to its internal organisation. The correlation between the stratigraphic position of objects in the hoard and the degree of their fragmentation lead to the conclusion that the objects were taken out of the hoard and were redeposited in it. The irretrievability of the deposited objects is therefore far from certain.

The volume collects contributions – most of them presented at a seminar organized in May 2021 for the postgraduate School in Archaeology, Universities of Udine, Trieste, Venezia – on Late Bronze Age hoards in Europe and the Mediterranean, from central and north-western Europe to south-eastern Alps, northern Italy and Late Mycenaean Greece. Towards the end of the 2nd millennium BC most of these regions were strongly interconnected, as a comparative survey of some transformative aspects of their depositional landscapes may suggest. Contexts and modes of deposition, fragmentation and scrap metal, association and composition of hoarded items are the main analytical categories applied at various degree of detail by the single contributors with the aim of explaining nature and function of the deposits and shedding light on the social practices implying deposition.

This contribution focusses on the disputed dating of the ‘Tiryns Treasure’ as well as on the social practices into which its main components may have been integrated, the norms and values of the groups of people using them, and the long-distance contacts of the Tirynthian community both at the time of the hoard’s deposition and the segment of the post-palatial period preceding it. The subphase LH IIIC Late is proposed as the most likely date of deposition of the hoard, and attention is drawn to the hitherto unrecognized presence of amber beads of both the ‘Tiryns’ and ‘Allumiere’ type in the hoard, which confirms a deposition of the ‘Tiryns Treasure’ not earlier than Final Bronze Age 1 in Northern Italy. It is argued that the use and deposition of the objects of the hoard were closely related to elite ceremonial practices carried out in nearby Megaron W and its courtyard. These practices referred to the palatial period past as much as they contributed to the introduction of novel objects and ideas. They also helped fuse long-term local traditions with new material and immaterial features obtained through long-distance contacts. The deposition of valuable objects in the hoard as well as their partial mutilation before deposition ensured their elimination from any future ritual use. It is therefore concluded that, when Megaron W was abandoned towards the end of LH IIIC, the objects that had been used in and around it in the decades before may have been buried in some kind of closure-ritual.

The phenomenon of hoarding is a special aspect of economic, social or political life throughout the European continent, generally divided into utilitarian assemblages and votive deposits. To a lesser extent, it is located at the Helladic area in the third phase of the Late Bronze Age, almost parallel to the establishment of the Mycenaean palatial civilization. To date, only twenty-three hoards of metal objects have been identified from the core or the periphery of the Mycenaean world. Although in most cases there is a lack of data from the context or the conditions of unearthing Helladic hoards, few deposits are recognized as possible collective offerings to the aquatic or supernatural element. Mainly though, they are located in a domestic or public space, which is usually controlled by the administrating bodies of the Mycenaean authority. The brief examination of the Helladic hoards leads to few interesting conclusions, regarding their contents and their possible character or their chronological order, before and after the gradual decline of the Mycenaean civilization in 1200 BC.

The text includes a brief overview on the state-of-the-art of the research on the phenomenon of bronze deposition in the different scholarly environments including the study of continental Europe with the Alps, Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean with the Aegean world. Adopting a comparative approach substantially based on the papers collected in this volume, the author intends to point out the mutual relationships in the phenomenon of hoarding in the different, albeit connected, geographical and cultural regions under scrutiny, with particular reference to the period going from a final phase of the Late Bronze Age or the 12th c. ca. well into the Late Bronze Age/early Iron Age transition.