Archeonaut - APT Basilicata

uro LucanoA PEOPLE OF REFINED TASTESThe Peuketiantes were shepherds andfamers, but particularly in the laterperiod their level of specialisation andability must have become very refined.For them, the art of war was not simplyan armed skill, but rather a rite in whichstrength and membership of a rank werecelebrated.Their women were skilled weaversand carders, but they were not averseto luxury and had a clear sense of theoikos (home). Once again, the tombsMuseum interiormosaic hallin particular provide us with preciouselements to reconstruct the lifestyle ofthose times.Their burials, which were simple,without covers or external identification,indicate first and foremost the gender ofthe deceased. The Peuketiantes, like theApulian and Oenotrian peoples, buriedtheir dead in a crouched position. Thehead of a family would have been buriedwith his sword, as a sign of command,the other male members with just a lanceand adolescents with a javelin.household work was mainly a femaleoccupation, just as with our own predecessors,while the fathers of the families, with noother concerns, gathered their thoughtsamong the household Penates (....)Detail of themosaic of theseasons,from OppidoLucano, MasseriaCiccottiTraces of life, the approach to deathWomen carried in the tomb their“representation” outfits: gold, bronze,amber and also the tools that havecharacterised their household mastery.For both women and men, funeral wasalways completed with ritual vessels: olla(vases) that were proportionate in size tothe rank of the deceased, drawing pitchers,cups mostly of local productions.What characterised their manufacture?First, decorative geometric lines (such asclepsydra shape, a circle inscribed in astar, the lozenge, the Cross of Malta) andlater in time, animal figures (palmate andsmall mammals were the most popularsubjects).Babies and children who died beforebeing introduced into society, were buriedin large containers (enchytrismoi) andplaced underground within the domesticfence to witness a detachment never reallyhappened from the place in which theywere born.54