Journal Article

EARLY IRON AGE AND ORIENTALIZING MEDITERRANEAN NETWORKS FROM FUNERARY CONTEXTS IN LATIUM VETUS

Fulminante, Francesca

2018,2019

Overview

A long tradition of scholarship has focused attention on imports and exotic objects coming from the eastern regions of the Mediterranean (so-called exotica) and found in central Italy already during the late Early Iron Age and more commonly during the Orientalizing period. Most of these studies investigated the significance and value of these objects as indicators of far-reaching trade and connections between the eastern and western regions of the Mediterranean. In addition, these studies have considered their role as agents of social interaction and therefore as catalysts for social differentiation and stratification in the western regions, which are generally considered to be less advanced than the eastern ones. This paper takes a long-term perspective by analyzing imports from burial contexts in Latium vetus from the end of the Final Bronze Age to the end of the Orientalizing period. By studying circulation patterns both in terms of gender and age dimensions (in combination with spatial analysis), this study argues that it is possible to detect new, female-specific networks and spheres of interaction between local peoples and external agents. These patterns were previously unnoticed or underestimated in scholarship due to gender biases and preconceptions.

• Publisher: University of Michigan Press