13.5: Analysis

Situla Art and Writing at Iron Age Este: Use, ritual, and display

At Este, material supports for situla art included elaborate bronze belt plaques and lozenge-shaped belts, knife scabbards, large drinking and/or high-handled cups and situlae (Capuis and Chieco Bianchi 1992). Sympotic (i.e. related to the ritual consumption of sophisticated beverages, presumably including alcohol) implements such as situlae and drinking cups were also occasionally inscribed, although never when decorated with situla art, as discussed below. All the artefact types listed above acted as status symbols highly appreciated by the local elites, as their widespread deposition in prominent graves testifies. Moreover, the most luxurious drinking vessels, weaponry and belts were often exotic products, either as directly imported items or local reproductions of foreign models, a characteristic which probably increased their worth. The high symbolic value of these artefacts is further attested by the fact that they were not only used to carry the decoration but were also portrayed among the decorative motifs of situla art, thus constituting part of the situla art ‘language’ itself.

For example, situlae are commonly depicted on Venetic and non-Venetic situla art products as key components of highly ritualised elite activities such as processions and libations (Arte Situle 1961; Frey 1969). Although soon integrated into Venetic material culture, they were originally vessels of exotic origin with a widespread geographical distribution, from Continental Europe to Central Italy. Their employment at elite banquets highlights the ‘international’ rituality of alcohol consumption, whose role in promoting commensality, hospitality and power dynamics in late prehistory is well-acknowledged (e.g. Dietler 1990; Iaia 2005: 207–219; 2006; for Veneto see Perego 2010; 2012a). Not surprisingly, therefore, practices of ritual drinking are often represented on situla art objects, which allow us to glimpse the lost language of the ritualised gestures constituting the ritual banquet.

The diffusion of situlae in Veneto relates to the adoption by the local elites of sophisticated practices of consumption which often featured exotic components and were integrated into a larger spectrum of ritual technologies of status construction and expression. The same must have been true of other practices represented on situla art, and bearing strong elite overtones, such as hunting, weaving, sacrificing animals, playing games and conducting warfare. Notably, many artefacts usually appearing in Veneto in wealthy graves (e.g. axes, weaponry, weaving tools, and arrows) relate closely to these practices. Within the tomb, these items were also often accompanied by bronze banqueting equipment, situla art products and, more rarely and mainly from the late Iron Age, inscribed artefacts. As Riva (2010) argues for Orientalising Etruria, the introduction of new food technologies in the elite context is not only to be related to the creation of new modes of political negotiation via the ritual banquet, but also to the promotion of novel practices of embodiment which altered the construction and perception of the elite individual’s self. As such, the specialised equipment for ritual food preparation and consumption may have acted as a metaphorical extension of the elite person him/herself while signalling group belonging (Perego 2012a). In Veneto, for example, the intimate relationship between the situla and the self was reinforced by the occasional adoption of the situla vessel shape for elite funerary urns. This close association of situlae with the elite body was taken even further through the practice of the anthopomorphisation of the urn, which has been identified so far only in the case of wealthy graves. This was achieved by wrapping the situla-urn in a cloth or dress and/or by embellishing- ing it with ornaments and belts employed to re-create the lost integrity of the cremated body. Interestingly, this practice is also well-known from Etruscan and Centro-Italian funerary contexts (e.g. von Eles 2002), and may have been adopted by the Veneto elite alongside the other foreign practices described in this chapter.

The Early Iron Age

One of the earliest Este graves signalling the elaboration by prominent local groups of a shared ritual language in use until the 3rd century is Ricovero tomb 236, a multiple grave of exceptional wealth and ritual complexity dating to the 8th century (Iaia 2006; Chieco Bianchi and Calzavara Capuis 1985: 300–312). The most prestigious urn in the grave was a bronze situla either imported from Continental Europe or produced locally by imitating an exotic vessel shape. While the bones of the deceased have been lost, the weaponry possibly imported from the eastern Alpine region and the pins usually associated with male depositions indicate a male burial. The latter may have been accompanied by a female individual, as suggested by the presence inside the situla of ornaments generally associated with women. The second urn in the grave, a ceramic vessel, yielded rich female ornaments. Apart from weaponry, ornaments and pins, the bronze situla-urn contained a sympotic service for the preparation and distribution of an indeterminate beverage, possibly wine or beer. This sympotic equipment included two different handled containers probably employed to carry the main beverage (e.g. alcohol) and any additional components (e.g. water), while the three strainers might have been used to filter the residuals generally found in ancient fermented beverages. Finally, the high-handled cups were probably used to remove the liquid from the ‘krater’ — the larger vessel in which alcohol was mixed with water. The ‘krater’ was possibly represented in this case by the situla-urn itself. These sympotic implements bear evidence of burning and may have burnt with the dead. The deposition of a sympotic set on the pyre and later in the urn was an extremely rare practice at Este, where banqueting vessels were usually placed unburned in the grave outside the urn. The close connection between the sympotic set from tomb 236 and the dead buried in the bronze situla seems intended to reinforce the vessels’ pertinence to the elite individual(s) buried here, who may have been in charge of the intoxicating beverage’s preparation. The grave assemblage also included an exceptionally sophisticated ceramic drinking and dining set. Part of this service was found in the tomb container and part was placed intentionally broken on the tomb’s covering slab. The ceramic drinking set included numerous high-handled cups possibly used by the deceased’s fellow diners, either in their everyday life or during the funeral (Iaia 2006). The latter may have been allowed to drink, but not to manipulate the precious intoxicant — a prerogative possibly belonging to the person(s) buried in the situla-urn with the bronze set for beverage preparation and consumption. Two other implements interpreted as incense burners seem to recall practices of purification common at the Graeco-Etruscan banquet/symposium: their presence reinforces the idea that the Venetic elite were constructing their social identity in part through the adoption of foreign rituals.

Although pre-dating the spread of both situla art and writing in Veneto, Ricovero tomb 236 proves that the channels of cultural transmission were already established at this stage. The Venetic elites exhibited their openness towards non-local practices of consumption and their ability to adapt diverse cultural influences to their needs. The emphasis granted to the ingestion of sophisticated beverages, presumably alcohol, demonstrates that the ritual techniques of formal drinking later associated with situla art and writing were already a medium adopted to advertise the elites’ status. Significantly, many of the ritual practices adopted in this grave remained in use at Este until the 3^rd century bc, often in tombs containing situla art and inscribed objects, as exemplified by the graves described below.

Benvenuti tombs 122, 124, and 126 were erected near each other between c.625 and 550 bc. These yielded grave goods bearing some of the most ancient and most sophisticated — in terms of compositional complexity — situla art objects from the Ricovero-Benvenuti cemetery. The exceptional wealth and close proximity of the tombs suggest they belonged to an elite group. The rare and exotic grave goods found within indicate that the tomb owners, or their living kin or associates, might have been able to monopolise the production and / or acquisition of prestigious bronze status symbols (Chieco Bianchi and Calzavara Capuis 2006: 46). The most ancient grave, Benvenuti 122, contained two urns dating to c.625–600 bc and probably belonging to women (Chieco Bianchi and Calzavara Capuis 2006: 267–276). The most ancient urn consisted of a bronze situla embellished with a complex decoration of dots, studs and stylised birds of Central European inspiration. This vessel was covered by a bronze drinking cup whose Central European geometric ornamentation is accompanied by vegetal and animal motifs in the manner of the earliest Bolognese situla art style. An influence from Etruria and Bologna is also visible in the luxurious ornaments from the urns. In the case of Benvenuti tomb 126, the famous Benvenuti situla was re-used as a container for a small ceramic urn containing the remains of a 1- to 3-year old child (Chieco Bianchi and Calzavara Capuis 2006: 320–331). The urn was adorned with luxurious ornaments and wrapped in a cloth giving the cinerary human-like qualities. The theme of drinking was evoked not only by the situla itself, but also by the scenes of ritual drinking embossed on the vase and described above. The presence of three high-handled cups in the tomb further emphasised this possible reference to alcohol consumption.

The third tomb of the group, Benvenuti 124, dates to c.550 bc (Chieco Bianchi and Calzavara Capuis 2006: 294–301) and yielded three ceramic urns with the remains of three adults and two children. One of the urns was placed inside a bronze situla, whose lid bore a situla art motif of animals and geometric dots. The grave also yielded a sophisticated bronze drinking set, two bone and bronze distaffs, rich ornaments, a knife from the Adriatic koinè and an axe. A bronze belt plaque and two fibulae were from Lombardy.

As for the earlier Ricovero tomb 236, these graves reveal a clear intersection of diverse cultural influences incorporated into the material culture and lifestyle of the Este elite. Drinking still features as a fundamental means of social promotion and self-expression, while situla art is adopted as a novel status symbol promoting new ways of elite self-representation. In the case of the Benvenuti situla, which featured images of aristocrats involved in socially distinctive activities, the impact of the new technology over the elite individual’s self-perception must have been considerable. In a cultural context in which representations of human beings were possibly rare or absent at this early stage, the Benvenuti situla’s owners, perhaps for the very first time, were able to ideally project themselves and their world on the new medium, like in a mirror.

From the 6^th Century to the Late Iron Age

The production of elaborate situla art motifs on large bronze containers seems to vanish at Este during the 6th century. This has been related to the social changes brought about by the incipient urbanisation, which may have altered the consumption habits of previous situla art commissioners or even wiped out the previous elite groups (Capuis 2001). At Este, this time-span was also characterised by the development of the first local sanctuaries as new loci of public display and political negotiation (Ruta Serafini 2002). It was at that moment that writing presumably appeared in Veneto as a novel technique of status expression, possibly favoured by the new proto-urban elites. The latter, however, also maintained older practices of status construction, including ritual drinking. Significantly, one of the most ancient Venetic inscriptions presently known was inscribed on a bronze cup of Etruscan form, the kantharos from Lozzo near Este (Locatelli and Marinetti 2002). Kantharoi were widely employed at the Etruscan elite banquet and exported. The Lozzo cup dates between c.625–575 bc although the inscription may have been added later. The area of discovery was occupied in Roman times by a sanctuary. The Venetic inscription is probably votive in nature, suggesting that a cult was already established at Lozzo during the Iron Age. The kantharos must have been a valuable item in many respects. Apart from the exceptional value attributed by the Este elite to bronze containers, its exoticism due to its Etruscan shape and its reference to privileged drinking practices relate it to prominent individuals. The emphasis granted to the donors through the inscription of their personal names on the vessel testifies of new forms of expressing the elite individuals’ self and social role in a novel context of display — the sanctuary — via the novel technology of writing.

The Lozzo kantharos embodied a close relationship between three of the main aspects of the elite ‘language’ which I have sketched out so far, namely writing, drinking and the acquisition of exotica. A similar relationship between drinking, the adoption of foreign rituals and, in this case, situla art is evidenced by a belt plaque from Este Carceri tomb 48 (500–450 bc). This belt plaque features a single situla art scene which appears to reproduce the reclined symposium of Graeco- Etruscan inspiration (Capuis and Chieco Bianchi 1992: 95): a woman wrapped in a veil is represented about to serve a man reclining on a couch. The ideology of the reclined symposium may have spread into Veneto from the 6th–5th century bc alongside the importation of Greek drinking vessel shapes and possibly wine. It is unclear, however, when and to what extent the Venetic elites came to imitate the complex ritual practices of the reclined Graeco-Etruscan symposium. This uncertainty is compounded by the extreme selectivity exhibited by the inhabitants of Veneto in the choice of imported vessel types, as they adopted only a restricted number of the whole range of sympotic vessels available in Greece and Etruria. The widespread deposition of local ware even within the wealthiest Venetic graves further suggests the persistence of localised modes of consumption. The ambivalent reaction of Venetic elites towards the new sympotic practice is revealed by the Carceri plaque itself, where the woman holds a jug clearly resembling an Etruscan schna-belkanne. This beaked jug shape — albeit widely attested in regions such as Etruria, Lombardy and Continental Europe — was extremely rare in Veneto. Jugs of any type remained uncommon here until the 3rd century. Their rarity, set against the still widespread use of high-handled cups to serve beverages, further suggests the persistence of traditional drinking practices. It is significant, therefore, that in the case of the Carceri belt plaque a new and possibly uncommon ritual practice — the reclined symposium featuring the employment of a rare vessel shape, the schnabelkanne — was related to a medium, situla art, whose distinctive social value has been already emphasised. These associations reinforce the special nature of both the practice and the medium and emphasise the sophistication of these privileged modes of self-expression.

It is also worth emphasising again the exceptional value attributed in Veneto to elaborate bronze belts and belt plaques, as both status symbols and ceremonial artefacts. Due to their social value and proximity to the body, belts probably constituted important vehicles for communicating an individual’s elevated status, as testified by both their deposition in wealthy graves and their display in sanctuaries as prestigious miniature offerings or depictions on laminas (Capuis and Chieco Bianchi 1992: 84, 97). The importance of belts and belt-elements in the funerary context is emphasised by the wide range of ritual manipulations undergone by these artefacts, including deliberate fragmentation, burning, and deposition around the urn to promote the latter’s identification with the elite body. Este Nazari tomb 161 (400–350 bc) provides an example of this kind of ritual (Tirelli 1981). In this wealthy grave, two bronze situlae contained a ceramic urn each. The largest situla was wrapped in cloth. A lozenge-shaped belt decorated with situla art motifs was fastened around this vessel, apparently to give human-like qualities to the urn-container. This deposition emphasises again the symbolic link elaborated over the centuries between situla art itself, sophis- ticated practices of ‘humanisation’ of the urn and the employment of situlae as urns in elite graves. The grave also yielded a rich service for drinking and for food preparation, including meat roast- ing. This emphasis on the preparation of solid foodstuff via the deposition of roasting spits, fire- dogs, knives and slices is characteristic of wealthy graves from the 4th century and suggests the spread of new elite habits of display and consumption. Not surprisingly, the interment of these implements was often accompanied by the deposition of situla art objects and inscribed vessels (e.g. Capuis and Chieco Bianchi 1992: 86–87).

Evidence enabling the clearest synthesis of the ritual practices described above is offered by finds unearthed in Ricovero tomb 23/1984, 300–250 bc (Chieco Bianchi 1987). This grave of exceptional wealth displays both an intentional ritual conservatism going back to the 8th century and an extraordinary openness towards contemporaneous cultural influences especially from Etruria and the international port-of-trade of Adria, located on the Adriatic Sea slightly south of the main Venetic area. The urn found in the grave was a skyphos containing the remains of an unsexed individual. The skyphos was placed within a bronze situla incised with the name of the deceased, a woman called Nerka Trostiaia. The situla was also wrapped in cloth embellished with rich ornaments probably pinned or sewn on it, again intended to evoke the human body. The importance of alcohol consumption was also emphasised via the deposition of an extremely rich banqueting set at the bottom of the grave, which included several imported items. An Attic red-figure krater was found broken on the tomb’s covering slab, possibly indicating the continuation of a ritual practice that is already attested 500 years earlier in Ricovero tomb 236. Importantly, this grave featured the latest example of situla art presently known at Este, the bronze model of a piece of furniture decorated with animal images.

Mutually Exclusive Spheres?

It is noteworthy that in Veneto, despite the adoption of writing and situla art within the same social milieu and often in connection with exotica, foreign ritual practices and sympotic rituals, inscriptions have never been found to date on objects bearing situla art. This is true for the vast majority of the entire situla art corpus presently known, with only a couple of exceptions (Zaghetto 2007: 180). An obvious explanation for this pattern is that situla art and writing were different communicative systems. The former was a non-linguistic symbol-based system spread over a vast area inhabited by different ethnic groups and possibly developed to facilitate interaction between people unable to speak the same language. The latter was the written form of languages (e.g. Venetic) presumably spoken in the more restricted area where the related inscriptions have emerged. This important observation, however, does not explain why the receivers/owners of situla art items, who may have been exposed to, or even taken control of, writing as well, decided not to inscribe their possessions (or have them inscribed), for example in gift- exchange with people speaking the same language or at the funeral, by putting the deceased’s name on a decorated situla-urn. For the Veneto, this ‘otherness’ between the two ‘languages’ seems compounded by the fact that the interment of both written items and situla art objects in the same grave seems to have been uncommon, with some exceptions such as Nerka’s tomb. As suggested by Whitehouse (pers. comm.), a possible explanation is that few Venetic inhabitants were ‘bilingual’ in the two ‘languages’. It is worth noting, however, that this pattern may partially relate to the limited number of intact wealthy graves dating between the 5^th and 3^rd centuries BC. It is also possible that inscriptions were written on perishable materials now vanished. Another possible explanation for this pattern, however, may reside in the uses to which writing was put after its introduction in Veneto. Although writing may have spread in Veneto as early as the late 7^th or 6^th century bc, at Este the presence of inscriptions inside the grave (i.e. the context in which situla art items are found) is extremely rare before the late 4^th – early 3^rd century bc. One possible exception is a male name inscribed on a bronze tripod or cup buried in a grave dating to the 5^th or 4^th century bc (Marinetti 1992: 138). The practice of inscribing the deceased’s name on urns started in the 3rd century and became more common in the following centuries, especially from c.75–25 bc. The epitaph inscribed on Nerka’s situla is one of the earliest examples of this practice. A similar epitaph is incised on a contemporary situla-urn buried in a wealthy multiple grave, namely Benvenuti tomb 123 (Chieco Bianchi and Calzavara Capuis 2006: 276–294). This tomb yielded several items comparable with Nerka’s grave goods, including lavish ornaments, a bronze model of a loom, three axes and a skyphos. Again, the inscribed situla-urn was possibly wrapped in a cloth. Interestingly, no situla art product comes from this grave, although this may relate to the several re-openings the tomb underwent.

Before 325–300 bc writing was generally adopted in cemetery contexts to mark the gravestones ascribing the ownership of tombs and/or burial plots to prestigious individuals and families. The individuals mentioned on tombstones were 75% male. In the mortuary context, therefore, writing was mainly associated with the male individual and the monumentality, visibility and durability of funerary monuments erected outside the grave. A possible shift in the function and values accorded to writing may have taken place around 300 bc with the spread of ‘hidden’ and more intimate dedications on small, portable items buried in the grave, such as urns and vessels which bore male and female names in a similar proportion. Inscriptions on small objects were not unknown at Este before, but mainly appeared on votive offerings dedicated in sanctuaries, entail- ing different ways of constructing and expressing personal and social identities. This shift towards a ‘hidden’ funerary literacy took place when situla art seems to disappear. The deposition of situla art products and written objects in the same grave was therefore limited to c.325–250 BC, when the two ‘languages’ were briefly in use in the same context at the same time. Later, the progressive erosion of the previous prominent groups’ social identity in favour of novel forms of display and consumption probably led to the disappearance of situla art — a language which had lost its significance in the new social setting. Before c.325, I cannot exclude the possibility that writing and situla art were used contemporaneously in the same context outside the grave. However, it seems that, despite their common pertinence to the elite ‘language’ outlined above, their final destination was different, and entailed a diverse conceptualisation of the two media, due to complex social motivations which are not presently identifiable.