Apulian funerary practices between 5th and 4th century BC

The discoveries of the last thirty years in Apulia have highlighted the leading role of this region, especially ancient Peucetia and Daunia, in the evolution of aristocratic classes able to assimilate external contributions and reprocess them autonomously, within which the presence of high-ranking individuals able to acquire prestige goods of the most different origins (weapons, bronze vessels, goldsmiths and red-figured pottery) is affirmed. In fact, from the last decades of the fifth century BC onwards the aristocratic classes of Apulia were the main patrons and consumers of the products of Etruscan, Greek and Italic workshops. As the most complex elements of the funerary assemblage there was a specific demand for those objects. They were entrusted with the ideological messages and representative needs of the deceased, displaying their wealth, the social role they played in life, and their adoption of cultural and ideological models of Hellenic origin. They also refer to the deceased's forms of religiosity and to their adherence to and participation in beliefs of 'salvific type', albeit filtered through their own cultural values and ideologies (see the red-figured pottery). In fact, it is highly likely that the needs of such a rarefied patronage influenced Italic figured production from the beginning their specific requests governed the selection of themes and compositions. Within the cemeteries of these aristocracies there were several male and female figures of exceptional rank whose status was expressed through the monumentality of their tomb structure as well as through the complexity and richness of the funerary assemblage. The objects within these assemblages were not merely evidence of lavish opulence but were intended to mirror the social standing of the deceased in order to project a specific image and ideology. They were warrior-chiefs and princesses whose graves were furnished with the weapons and armour (for male figures), jewels and personal adornments in precious metal (for female figures) that they took with them at the moment of death - certainly objects of great value, probably imported from Greece and from the colonies of Magna Graecia (Metapontum and Taranto), but also from Etruria. Although often ceremonial, they highlight the position of both leader and chief that the deceased held in life. The weapons, along with Italic vases decorated with scenes reflecting a warlike ideology, and imported bronze vases and metal tools for the symposium, constitute a homogeneous set in terms of the contents and messages they are intended to evoke and transmit. As a whole the funerary assemblages represent the desire on the part of the aristocracy to be distinguished from the rest of society and to achieve an afterlife like that of the heroes of myth.