Aspetti di continuità e discontinuità nel rituale funerario messapico: il contributo di alcune sepolture dai recenti scavi delle necropoli di Rocavecchia (LE)

Excavations in the Messapic necropolis of Rocavecchia (LE), in Salento (Southern Italy), were carried out by the University of Salento. The Messapians seem to have introduced, only around 650 BC, taking example from the Greeks, the ritual of inhumation in the grave. The main peculiar features of Messapian funerary rituals are the curled deposition and the use of the same tomb for several burials by the same family group, which is documented from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period. Therefore, the finds from a collective tomb constitute a complex of grave goods. The analytical examination of the objects with the methodological tools of 'gender archaeology' has allowed the identification of the elements peculiar to the male and female worlds. In this frame, within the overall program of multidisciplinary, archaeological and anthropological studies of the Messapian necropolis of Rocavecchia, the object of this paper are six graves. Such twofold approach was required in order to reconstruct the funerary rituals and understand some aspects of the Messapic society.