Samnite burials of children with bronze warrior belts found

Unusual burials of children wearing bronze warrior belts have been discovered in a necropolis in the town of Pontecagnano Faiano outside Salerno, southwestern Italy. The burials date to 4th and 3rd centuries B.C., when the Samnite people occupied this part of what is now the Campania region of Italy.

Located a few miles from the coast along ancient routes connecting the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Apennines, the settlement that would become Pontecagnano was founded in the 9th century B.C. by the indigenous groups who occupied the area. It was integrated into the Etruscan sphere of influence in the 8th/7th century B.C. The region came under the control of Samnite peoples in the 4th century B.C. The necropolis dates to this transitional period of political and cultural change.

A preventative archaeology excavation was triggered by planned urban development in Pontecagnano Faiano. The site, formerly occupied by a tobacco factory, is in the area of the southern necropolis of the ancient town. The excavation ultimately unearthed 34 burials, 15 of them belonging to children between two and ten years old when they died. The graves are clustered in groups, probably reflecting family nuclei.

Most the grave types are earthen pits covered with roof tiles angled against each other. Only three break that mold: stone box tombs, two constructed of travertine blocks and one of tufa blocks. These were expensive materials, indicating the deceased were wealthy and likely of higher social rank.

The graves were furnished with characteristically Samnite goods, including spears and javelins for men and rings and fibulae for women. The pottery goods are small sets used for funerary offerings and ritual banquets and vessels containing perfumes and ointments, also used in funerary rituals.

Uncharacteristically, the bronze belts usually found in the graves of adult men, were only found in the graves of two children between five and 10 years old. These were not just regular belts. They were wide bands of decorated bronze that held the tunic worn by adult men. They were unmistakable icons of warrior identity and social status.

Archaeologists hypothesize that they were placed in the graves of children as a symbol of warrior lineage transmitted to the next generation even after death, a kind of rite of passage into adulthood done in the grave since it could never be done in life. Another possibility is the belts had a protective function in this context, conveying the child’s membership in a noble warrior family to the scary denizens of the underworld.

* This article was originally published here