Recensione volume necropoli di San Mauro a Cividale

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La collina di San Mauro a Cividale del Friuli. Dalla necropoli longobarda alla

chiesetta bassomedievale, Isabel Ahumada Silva, Ricerche di Archeologia

Altomedievale e Medievale, 35-36, Firenze, All'Insegna del Giglio, 2010, 371 pp. + 132

tables

The book edited by Isabel Ahumada Silva inaugurates the Series "Archeologia a Cividale.

Studi e ricerche”. It is the edition of systematic excavations conducted from 1994 to 1996

and in 1998 on the hill of San Mauro. The first random finds on the site date back to 1886

when a rich female tomb was discovered having a golden cross, a Lombard imitation of a

Justinian’s golden tremissis and two gilded silver fibulae (one of them stirrup-shaped and

the other “S”-shaped) as grave goods. Modern excavations have unearthed 79 graves: 22

belong to the Lombard period and 57 date to the Late Middle Ages; the remains of a

church contemporary with the later burials has also been identified.

Even though the late medieval cemetery and church are exhaustively treated, the most

important part of the volume concerns undoubtedly the early medieval necropolis which is

dealt by the author with the aid of several specialized contributions such as

anthropological studies, archaeozoological analysis, etc. On the whole, the San Mauro

necropolis can not be read in its entirety, due both to research problems (the cemetery has

not been completely investigated) and to the many anthropic interventions that

characterize the contexts history (in particular the presence of the late medieval cemetery

that causes partial destruction of the earlier evidences).The necropolis is located in an extra-urban area, similarly to all main early medieval

cemeteries of Cividale; the author does not hesitate to declare the barbaric character of

the finds, tracing the origins of the cemetery back to the generation of Lombard

immigrants. The tombs distribution reflects a continuity with the pre-italic burial rituals

characterized by the presence of dressing elements; the grave goods are a typical

expression of the "Lombard cultural model", to be intended as a homogeneous association

of finds related to clothing, adornment, weapons and offerings usually found in the burials

of immigrant populations dating to the second half of the 6 th century (with an extension, in

some cases, until the third quarter of the 7th century).

In fact, the material culture shows an initial period of use of the San Mauro necropolis

during the last third of the 6 th century, a second period between the late 6 th and early 7th

century (as evidenced by damascened metal finds decorated in pseudo-cloisonné and

spiral style, sometimes associated) and a third period that fits into the first-second decade

of the 7th century. It is therefore part of the oldest set of Lombard cemeteries found in

Cividale, along with Cella - San Giovanni, Gallo and Santo Stefano, to which were added

in later times the burials in the urban center and finally, still in suburban area, Grupignano.



The graves, arranged in three nuclei, were aligned in rows and do not seem to have

originated from polyfocal groups of family burials, clearly identifiable on a topographical

basis and with one or more distinguished individuals who probably played a prominent

role, such as in the nearby church of Santo Stefano in Pertica. Their position was rather

conditioned by the morphology of the place, thus preventing the recognition of potentialparental aggregations which can anyway be contemplated, as in the Piedmontese case of

Collegno, on the basis of anthropological data and similarities in grave goods. The graves,

directly cut in the soil, had a pseudo-rectangular plan and were probably characterized by

burial markers that have not been identified; the dead, with a coverage of stones laid over

the skeleton, were laid in a supine position with an E-W orientation; 8 adult warriors, 7

adult females, 5 children and a young man have been excavated.

The population belonged to a group characterized by hyperdolichocrany, that is a very

elongated skull, but only two individuals were of brachicranial type and probably belonged

to a different ethnic group, perhaps of Mongolian origin as the “shovel-shaped” incisor

teeth might suggest. Francesco and Gabriele Mallegni also made an attempt of

physiognomic reconstruction of the male of burial 44 and of the female of burial 21; for the

first one a Nordic origin is confirmed by a slightly broad and moderately long face with a

straight but not prominent nose; the women shows a propensity towards Baltic forms with

a small and slightly upturned nose.

The infant mortality accounted for approximately 23% with about 13% of individuals who

died within the first 5 years of life; 18% reached or exceeded 40 years and among them

only one woman (females show a very high mortality between 15 and 25 years). The

population was subject to intense physical activity, event though general health and

nutrition status seem to be fairly high (there are no negative indicators such enamel

hypoplasia in the teeth). The diet was based on a high consumption of vegetables and

cereals completed by a discrete amount of meat, even though red meat is relatively scarce

if compared to lower-quality meat or to the important consumtpion of fish.

In all male tombs there was a shield, a spatha and a scramasax ; spearheads have been

discovered only in three cases, but their absence might be due to destruction of the

deposit caused by agricultural work; the same goes for arrows, while only in one case a

bow has been found. The presence of cavalrymen is shown in four cases by a complete

equipment, in burial 43 by the offer of the horse and its harness, in still other graves by the

finding of bites or spurs. Burial 43, dating to the last three decades of the 6 th century, is of

particular interest. The grave pit was very large and covered with limestone rocks. Inside it

a horse was laid on top of the warrior with an opposite orientation; ritual fires, probably

related to a funeral feast (as in five other cases) were identified on the soil over the grave.



The horse was a 4 year old stallion of normal constitution; it was killed during the funeral

rite, as a further offering, by causing injuries in its soft parts. Beyond the social position of

the buried person (the horse represents a strong adherence to an elite lifestyle devoted to

warfare; it is also intended to allow riding in the afterlife), this type of graves is extraneous

to the Roman environment In fact, it is typical of the Germanic world: the habit of buryingman and horse with opposite orientation, a unicum for Italy, is widely attested in several

German-culture areas including the territories where the Lombards stayed before entering

Italy.

Four of the women's graves presented typical features of the traditional Lombard outfit,

represented by “S”-shaped and stirrup fibulae, hairpins and silver fittings belonging to

pendant belt ribbons. Offerings, in general, range from a golden cross (one single case) to

weights, bags, flints, pins, shears, knives, tweezers, rings, bronze vessels, glass goblets,

coins and combs. Of particular interest is a bronze pan (or may be a pan-shaped basin)

from burial 21, dating to the last third of the 6 th century, described in detail by Sandro

Colussa who also provides an elaborated typological and epigraphic discussion. It is

actually a class of finds of Coptic or more generally Byzantine production, that is rather

uncommon in Lombard graves. Of the eight known specimens only three are associated

with Lombard contexts and, with the discovery of San Mauro, which is added to that of

Cella, two come now from Cividale. The exceptional character of the find lies also in a

Greek inscription along the edge of the basin ("Rise up in good health Lord"), which shows

that the pan, before being placed in a female burial, belonged to a male figure.

With regard to the numismatic finds, mostly drilled or used as necklace pendants,

Ermanno Arslan, author of the remarkable and detailed study of coins and paramonetary

material, proposes an interesting hypothesis. He suggests that the production of gold

specimen (but the same goes probably also for the bronze and the silver ones), was

principally aimed at their use as decorative elements with a particular symbolic value. In

addition to careful disquisitions on Cividale’s monetary emissions, he he reviews the issue

of coin necklaces and notes how the weights become alternative or accompany the

monetary necklaces, the isolated gold, silver and copper coins (perforated and/or intact)

and the uncoined metal disks. This is seen, for all the mentioned find classes, as a clear

loss of economic and monetary significance tied to a disappearance of any direct

reference to ancient Roman rituals (such as Charon's obol) as well as to the concept that

used to see grave goods as a "commission", also in money, for afterlife (if not in a

symbolic sense). Funerary rites and grave goods resist as a still heavily germanic and

pagan symbol of status, not yet cleared by Christianity. In general, the material finds,

subject of an extensive study presented in a dedicated volume of plates, find strict



comparisons with grave goods of Hungarian necropolis and of important cemeteries

excavated in Piedmont and Lombardy as well as in central Italy (e.g., Nocera Umbra and

Castel Trosino).

In conclusion, this book is an excellent full edition of a Lombard funerary context; finally

this necropolis has been published with an appropriate set of pictures and drawings,amending the partial reconstructions of previous publications that could be, in some way,

“deceptive” in the reading of materials. The wide range of specialists who have worked on

it put a strong emphasis on the allochthonous character of the burials, finding clear points

of convergence between the rituals of death, the grave goods and the anthropological

traits. The results come right into the wide-ranging debate following the interpretative

revisions on rectilinearity between the late Roman world and the early Middle Ages,

introduced by the ethnogenetic approach and the continuist research lines; although

complex, we can label the discussion in several different ways including "traditionalists vs.

deconstructionists," "discontinuists vs. continuists", "processualists (or neo-processualists)

vs. post-processualists", "materialists vs. idealists."

In Italy, with the aid of tools provided by the social sciences, some arguments have

actually led to a complete denial of the possibility of distinguishing allochthonous

individuals from autochthonous ones (that is, simplifying, barbarians from Romans): the

grave goods are exclusively to be seen as an expression of gender, of ostentation, of

social status and competition but not of cultural membership; in other words, the grave

goods as a sign of distinction express only the social rank of the deceased and of the

family itself. These concepts are also accompanied by an often specious revisionist

operation on the beginnings of barbaric archaeology in Italy.

But the data of the cemetery of San Mauro, as well as a growing number of other cases

from north to south of the Italian peninsula (from Piedmont - Collegno - to Lombardy -

Bolgare - to Puglia, as the works of Sandro Sublimi show for this region) demonstrate that

the gender patterns of interpretation must definitely deal with scientific analyses which,

often confirming evidences decoded by archaeologists from material culture, are able to

establish the allochthonous nature of buried groups. The problem here is not to deny the

ethnogenesis. No one doubts that the origin and formation of new ethnic groups is a

process to be constantly redrawn because of the inevitable flow of people and that the

membranes between the nations were defined by a set of coherent traditions, surely not by

"blood" that is subject to continual changes and modifications suiting the contingencies. It

is rather an issue that goes beyond these considerations and leads directly to the

formation of early medieval Italian societies and economies, in which the presence and

contribution of immigrants, often following threads of rupture, can not be denied; and in



which the cultural mestization that should have been controlled and guaranteed by the

socio-political structures of Late Antiquity, was much rather a long term process. In this

sense, scientific analysis (DNA, isotopes, anthropology, etc.) combined with

archaeological ones, and the recovery of a neo-positivist and scientistic perspective that

directly follows them (instead of the negationism and multi-explanationism of post-processual approaches that sink knowledge into the abyss of impasse), can only lead to a

more objective reading of data derived from material culture.

Marco Valenti

Documents

Recensione volume necropoli di San Mauro a Cividale