Abstract
“Montani Atque Agrestes” or Women of Substance? Dichotomies of Gender and Role in Ancient Samnium
Highlights
Historical and gender biases in the study of ancient ‘Samnium’ have obscured the more subtle ways in which ethnicity, cultural identity and social structures were asserted
The most significant division that has occurred as a result of this literature-led research has been the neglect of those other than adult males in the archaeology of the region
San Vincenzo al Volturno and Alfedena. Some of these issues may be explored through the cemetery sites at San Vincenzo al Volturno and Alfedena, less than twenty kilometres apart, located in the north-west of ‘Samnium’ (Fig. 4)
Summary
Historical and gender biases in the study of ancient ‘Samnium’ have obscured the more subtle ways in which ethnicity, cultural identity and social structures were asserted. Sixth and fifth century epigraphic evidence from Picenum makes reference to a ‘safin–’ ethnic, which we later find reiterated on an inscription from the Samnite site of Pietrabbondante (Marinetti 1985: 215–223 for Penna Sant’Andrea; Vetter 1953: Ve. 149 for Pietrabbondante) It may be possible, to discuss the existence of a ‘Samnite’ peoples (‘safin’ in their native language of Oscan) from the sixth century onwards. The names commonly assigned to the region have been derived from the historical sources, written in a later period and with information that may not always be reliably accurate Those named tribes have been treated as a rigid framework into which the archaeological evidence can be shaped and moulded, as has often been the case for Iron Age Britain (Jones 1997: 31). Oscan inscriptions on two helmets from the fourth century specify the communities from which their owners herald, but omit the tribe or ethnic to which they are designated in the historical sources (Tagliamonte 2004: 145)
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