Bronzo e Ambra: riflessioni su un bronzetto del Museo Archeologico di Bari e sulla circolazione di modelli e artigiani nella produzione delle ambre figurate

In the Archaeological Museum of Bari there is a bronze plaque realized in bas-relief depicting the image of a crouched bull with a human head looking back, identifiable with Acheloo, perhaps coming from the site of Monte Sannace, an indigenous center of central Apulia, and dating back to the end of the VI century BC. This artifact shows considerable stylistic and formal affinities, especially the softness of the lines and volumes, with an amber pendant of the British Museum which depicts the same subject made by the workshop of the "Armento Group" and found in the eponymous site, located at about 200 km from the Apulian site. These stylistic similarities are also visible in other figured amber specimens produced in the same workshop found at other Oenotrian sites. The comparisons with other artifacts made with other materials (ivory and bronze) lead one to think that the small bronze of Bari was made, on the specific request of an aristocratic indigenous, by a traveling craftsman who knew models and iconographic patterns widespread during the Archaic age in Southern Italy and Etruria thanks to the contribution of the artisans of the Ionian school.