The Apennine Culture of Italy

Abstract

The Apennine Culture of the Middle and Late Bronze Age of Italy extended in space from the Po Valley to the Gulf of Taranto, and from the Gargano to Lipari, and in time from at least 1500 to 1000 B.C. It is represented in the museums by its pottery, and little else. Yet this is sufficient for an examination of it to reveal important regional and chronological variations, which form the subject of the present paper.The pottery of the Apennine Culture consists of two distinct classes, both invariably hand-made. The first is a coarse, unburnished ware indistinguishable from the corresponding classes of pottery in preceding and succeeding periods. Decoration is common, consisting of cordons, plain or impressed, indentations of the rim and, rarely, applied knobs or bosses which merge imperceptibly into the form of the very common simple lug handles. Shapes include heavy jars of various sizes, from great pithoi for water, oil or grain storage, with lugs only, to smaller mug- or cup-like ones, often with single vertical strap handles. Smallest of all are miniature vessels, as little as an inch high, which may be votive (the Grotta Pertosa produced several hundred examples) or simply children's toys. The second, commoner, and much more important ware is a fine, medium, darkfaced, burnished one, and in this all the more characteristic forms were made. A bold decoration of bands, dotted, hatched, excised or void, is frequent though by no means universal.