IL RACCONTO DELLA BELLEZZA
“Il racconto della bellezza” (in English “The Tale of Beauty”) is a series of exhibitions taking place in Italian Cultural Institutes abroad; it is the result of a cooperation agreement signed in January 2023 between the Directorate General for Museums of the Ministry of Culture and the Directorate General for Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. The aim of this initiative is to promote and enhance the appreciation of Italy’s cultural heritage abroad, a cultural heritage preserved in the deposits of national museums and archaeological sites’ warehouses, in order to improve their reach and understanding by the general public. “Shapes and Colours from Pre-Roman Italy. Canosa di Puglia” is the inaugural exhibition of this initiaive. The exhibition at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City is part of the events celebrating 150 years of diplomatic relations between Italy and Mexico.
CANOSA DI PUGLIA AND THE DAUNIA AREA BEFORE ROME
Before its unification under the rule of Rome, the Italian territory was inhabited by numerous populations, quite distinct in terms of culture. In particular, in Puglia (Apulia), starting from the second half of the 7th century B.C. , the Greeks who had founded the colony of Taranto, the Messapi people in the South of the region, the Peucezi people in the center and the Dauni in the northernmost part all inhabited the region together.
The exhibition narrates the story of the Dauni people through archaeological artefacts recovered in one of the primary archeological sites of the region , in the area of the modern town of “Canosa di Puglia”. Here, between the 4th and 2nd centuries B.C., prominent members of local society (“principes”) were buried in tombs characterized by a large family chamber, excavated in local soft rock quarries, along with objects of extraordinary value that attested their social status.
The majority of the materials selected for the exhibition is preserved in storerooms of the archaeological museums of the main cities in Apulia, Bari and Taranto, as well as in Canosa itself, where it is still possible to visit the archaeological sites where some of the items on display were recovered . Canosa is extremely rich in evidence of its millennial history: tombs, houses, temples, thermal baths, bridges and roads, churches and catacombs, now an integral part of the city’s modern urban fabric , preserve the memory of its central importance, from Protohistory to the Middle Ages, thanks to the network of contacts it built around the Ofanto River.
Since the 19th century, however, the city and its territory have become the object of real treasure hunts that have fueled the international antiquities market. Unearthed artefacts, so spectacular and unique, have enriched museums in Puglia, in Italy, and around the world, often becoming part of private collections. Some of the pieces on display here today come from important operations set into motion and carried out by the [Italian] Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Carabinieri force to counter the illicit trade of archaeological findings.
WEAPONS FOR CHIEFS: THE MALE SPHERE
In the absence of written historical sources, archaeological findings from funerary landscapes show how the wealthiest and most prominent figures of Canosa’s society aimed to narrate their stories and represent themselves.
The armor refers to the typically male figure of the mounted warrior (also known as hoplite mounted on a horse): the deceased was thus buried with a helmet, on which a crest was attached as an ornamental element, along with a breastplate shield with details of the body, and shin-guards. There is no lack of actual weapons, such as spearheads [spear points]. Also present are skewers, recalling the communal consumption of meat.
One of the deceased buried in the St. Martin’s Hypogeum was carrying a spearhead and belt; the tomb was found intact, with the three chambers still perfectly sealed. It was therefore possible to recognize the original funerary practice of semi-cremation: in this rite, the body of the deceased was arranged next to the pile of burning wood (pyre), rather than placed on top of it, in order to cause only partial combustion. The exceptional conditions of the find made it possible to reconstruct the set of objects associated with each buried family member. The male figure is accompanied on his journey to the afterlife not only by his weapons, but also by vases decorated with traditional Dauni geometric motifs and red-figures. The latter were produced in the workshops of the nearby Greek colony of Taranto, initially as imitations of the renowned pottery from Athens, then, eventually, they were modified to meet the demands of local patrons, in diverse vase shapes with diverse painted scenes. The significant appreciation by the Daunian aristocracies of this production testifies their progressive assimilation to Greek culture. The vases are organized into sets intended for the consumption of wine: amphorae for containing wine, caraffes for pouring (oinochoai) it, and glasses for drinking it (kantharoi and skyphoi).
JEWELRY AND PERFUMES FOR PRINCESSES: THE FEMALE SPHERE
Wealth, linked to control of the fertile plains of the Ofanto River and the trade of products of agriculture and livestock, allowed the Canosa’s aristocracy to express its power also through the display of prestigious goods, locally produced or imported.
For women, the hallmarks of social status were jewelry and ornaments made of precious metals, and ointments and fragrances for body and hair care. The vase in the shape of a woman’s head from the Varrese Hypogeum shows us the image of a woman of that time, following the couture in fashion in the Greek colonies of Southern Italy (Magna Graecia): she wears earrings with a rosette and a pendant, while her hair is held up on her forehead by a leafy crown (diadem) and gathered at the nape of her neck by a red net cap (sàkkos).
In the early 2nd century B.C., a young woman is buried in the Hypogeum of the Feathered Serpents, with several objects typical of the female domain: gold and bronze rings, silver beauty care and toiletry items (spoon and hair-pin), perfume containers (unguentariums), and game tokens. Everything was probably kept in a wooden casket, reconstructed here, of which some iron, bronze and bone elements are preserved. Completing the set are the original vases made in the workshops of Canosa: the double situlae (buckets) made of ceramic decorated with bands, called listata, and the colored and molded jars with applied figures of various kinds. On one of these, two snakes with red feathers on their heads represent the contraposition between earthly and otherworldly life. These objects allow us to recognize the gradual assimilation of funerary customs typical of the culture of Rome, with which the aristocracies of Canosa had formed an alliance since 318 B.C.
SYMBOLS OF POWER
The diadem and sceptre on display come from a rich tomb, discovered by chance in Canosa in 1928 and dating from the late 3rd to early 2nd century BC. The monumental structure, excavated in tuff, consisted of several chambers, intended for the burial of members of a wealthy Canosian family.
In the central chamber a woman was buried, wrapped in a gold-weaved dress. Her name, Opaka Sabaleida, is engraved on a silver container in the shape of a shell, which was part of her grave goods, along with her diadem and scepter, a silver mirror, jewelry, balsamware and some glass bowls, found with toilet and weaving tools.
The tiara, ceaseled in gold with precious stones and colored enamels, is decorated with movable elements in the shape of flowers, berries and leaves arranged to produce sounds with movement. The scepter is made of pierced gold foil, originally wrapped around a wooden core. The bone socket is decorated with two winged golden Victories, holding an open scroll in their hands.
Burying loved ones with such precious objects meant showing the community the social prestige and economic power of the entire family, which was able to procure luxury items from distant areas, in this case from Taranto, a specialized production center for goldsmithing.
The symbols chosen to identify Opaka refer to her high status and it cannot be ruled out that such tiara and sceptre were exhibited during the burial ceremony to show signs of royalty, evidencing the extraordinary role of the wealthy princess and her family.
SHAPES AND COLORS: CANOSAN POTTERY
At the end of the 4th century B.C., the great vitality of local aristocracies, in Canosa in particular, led some pottery painters from the Greek colony of Taranto to move to the Dauni territory but perhaps also to Canosa itself, to continue the production of increasingly majestic red-figure vases.
It was precisely these potteries that developed unprecedented interpretations of Greek and local repertoire, through new techniques of mounting and decorating vases: thus was born the so-called polychrome and Canosian malleable pottery, colored and enriched with figures of various kinds. On the traditional Greek and Daunian forms actual “sculptural” elements, obtained with molds, are applied. Decorations, in the meanwhile, are created with a technique that appears to be inspired by the painting on the walls of the buildings of that time: the images are painted, after the firing of the vase, in cold tempera (i.e., without oil) on a white or pink background, using a rich palette of colors, obtained from natural dyes and pigments. Depicted figures are those of women, mythological monsters, and fantastic animals, which all can be interpreted as the guides of souls for their transition to the Afterlife. This new style proved to be a great success judging by the large number of vases decorated in this way that were found in chamber tombs or circulating in antiques’ markets.
In addition to Canosa, another center of production of vases, has been identified in the nearby town of Arpi. Here, inspired by the themes painted on the walls of the tombs themselves, large water and wine mixing jars (craters) decorated with scenes of war and of battles with Amazons (mythical women Warriors), were made.
These vases’ characteristics, with their fragile and prominent decorations, suggest that the vases were not destined to be used in daily life and therefore were produced specifically to be displayed during funeral ceremonies , before being buried in the tombs next to the deceased.
During the rite of the final farewell, a significant role was played by women. Women in fact took care of the body of the deceased and actively participated in funeral processions with gestures of grief and despair. This role is evoked in graves’ trousseaux’ that exhibit female figures: vases in the shape of women’s heads, statuettes of offerers, and, lastly, the so-called “orants”, statues arranged in pairs in burial chambers, in a posture of mourning and prayer, to simbolize the community’s and the family’s eternal mourning of the deceased, can be found.
