High-pressure rocks (blueschists and eclogites) associated with ophiolites. Research Papers (original) (raw)

From the Alps to central Italy The study of Alpine axeheads in central Italy (Tuscany, Umbria, parts of Latium, the Marches and Abruzzi) is based on a sample of 200 polished axeheads, selected from the large Bellucci collection in the... more

From the Alps to central Italy

The study of Alpine axeheads in central Italy (Tuscany, Umbria, parts of Latium, the Marches and Abruzzi) is based on a sample of 200 polished axeheads, selected from the large Bellucci collection in the National Museum of the Archaeology of Umbria in Perugia and from the collections of the Pigorini Museum in Rome. Based on an initial study of this material (D’Amico and De Angelis 2009), it was already clear that this region of the Italian peninsula had plentiful Alpine jade axeheads, although it was not possible to pinpoint their source. In the absence of information about the stratigraphic context of most of these 19th century discoveries – the exception being several tombs that are late in the chronological sequence – the authors undertook a fine-grained typological study, attempting to discern a plausible origin for each axehead, either in the Mont Viso massif or in that of Mont Beigua. These identifications were based on the macroscopic observation of petrographic characteristics that were deemed to be diagnostic. This approach was complemented by spectroradiometric analysis of a series of axeheads in the Pigorini Museum.

Assuming that our studied sample is not completely biased by the old finds, we were able to conclude that Alpine jade axeheads constituted a significant proportion of all axeheads in every region except Abruzzi, where up to 25% of all axeheads were made from igneous rocks. The evidence gives the impression that central Italy participated fully in the exchange of axeheads made in the Piedmont production region from the end of the 6th millennium. Among the Alpine examples, the jadeitites, omphacitites and fine-grained eclogites from the Viso massif consistently predominate, while axeheads made from rocks from the Beigua massif (which include some very beautiful jadeitites) do not exceed 18% of all specimens. That figure is typical of western Europe as a whole.

However, in the Bellucci collection, the proportion of polished axeheads of jadeitite appears to be incredibly high: some 40% of the studied examples are of this rock type. Several biasing factors could account for this unusually high proportion when one compares the statistics with those for northern Italy: the collectors may have been preferentially retaining jadeitite examples from among the axeheads found in the countryside, and in selecting samples for investigation our own study may also have focused preferentially on such axeheads. Whatever the reason, it nevertheless appears that during the Neolithic, in this part of Italy, there was a preference for jades of high aesthetic value.

The regularity, symmetry and the quality of the polish of the jade axeheads in central Italy is also noteworthy. These tools, made from exceptionally tough rocks, were used for a very long time and they were used carefully, to avoid breakage. The surface finish on these axeheads is also notably smoother than on those found in northern Italy, and this is evidently a sign of the high social and ideological value accorded to them.

Further south in the Italian peninsula, where jade axeheads are rarer and amount to only a very small percentage of all axeheads (the rest being of local rocks), local outcrops of nephrite were exploited to produce examples that superficially resemble Alpine jades. Several examples of these nephrite axeheads from Lucania and Calabria were identified in the Bellucci collection, and they are well-represented among the finds from the site of La Marmotta. A detailed mapping of the distribution of these axeheads of nephrite and of Alpine jades would allow us to discern whether there is a concurrence in the use of these two precious rocks, or a complementarity in the funerary and ritual uses, as seen in Malta.

In central Italy, the presence of very long polished axeheads in contexts other than settlements and graves leads us to suspect that we are dealing with hoards and individually-deposited objects that were consecrated – according to the same set of beliefs adopted by almost the whole of north-west Europe during the 5th millennium. Moreover, several axeheads in the Bellucci collection (including one of Altenstadt type and another of Bernon type, both with a glassy polish) suggest that there had been some complicated exchanges between this region of Italy and trans-Alpine regions, perhaps even as far away as the Gulf of Morbihan in Brittany.

While the question of when Alpine axeheads first arrived in central Italy remains unanswered, the peak period for such importations may lie at the end of the 6th millennium and during the 5th. Importation continued after this, in the form of specific axehead types (Remedello and Vihiers) that were buried as grave goods from 3500 BC, in assemblages dominated by quiverfuls of flint arrowheads that mark the rise of the ideology of the warrior. It is to this period that also belong the small axeheads of Alpine jades that have traces of an incomplete perforation on one face, close to the butt. The presence of this ‘pseudo-axehead-pendant’ sign is well known in the hypogea of Malta, where such ‘object-signs’ were used in the subterranean cults and were deposited with the dead.

Finally, the early exploitation of copper in the metalliferous mountains of Tuscany – whose earliest products date as far back as the mid-5th millennium – is perhaps connected to the admixture of influences from the north and the south that is seen in central Italy over the course of the 4th millennium.

Unfortunately, our study is limited by the absence of stratified sites and of closed assemblages, and by the fact that the finds from recent excavations such as that at La Marmotta are virtually inaccessible.