Capi guerrieri ed eroi dalla Puglia centrale. Il complesso della tomba 24/1976 di contrada Purgatorio a Rutigliano (Bari)

In 1976 at Rutigliano was found, during the excavation of the necropolis in contrada Purgatorio, a large tomb that belonged to a high-ranking warrior, datable to the third quarter of the 5th century BC. In addition to iron weapons and valuable bronze armours, it has yielded a considerable amount of bronze vases, but above all a very rich vascular complex recovered in the adjoining compartment, composed of more than a hundred artifacts. Particularly noteworthy are the Attic and Protoapulian red-"gure pottery, among which seven vases by the Painter of the Berlin Dancing Girl stand out, whose images express a "figurative programme" of exaltation of the heroic deeds performed by the deceased, equivalent to those of the heroes of myth. The objects of this assemblage 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 constitute a homogeneous set in terms of the contents and messages they are intended to evoke and transmit. As a whole this funerary assemblage represents 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.