L'effetto del fuoco in ambito funerario: analisi dei manufatti dalla necropoli della piena età del ferro del CUS-Piovego (Padova)

The aim of this paper is to evaluate, within a cremation necropolis, the alteration and destruction effects, caused by the burning of the funeral pyre, on the artifacts involved in the fire. The purpose is to quantify the loss of material due to the fire and to estimate if the artifacts deposited in the burial represent only a partial assemblage of the grave goods inserted on the pyre. The case study involved in this research is the CUS-Piovego cemetery, dated to the Middle Iron Age (second quarter of the 6th century – half of the 4th century BC). Considering that this paper is a first approach to this kind of research, only a limited sample of burial have been selected (about 6.5% of the graves of the necropolis). The research focus mainly on a macroscopic examination of the artifacts contained within the ossuaries. In order to understand the effects of the pyre burning and to quantify the potential loss of the artifacts, this research considered mainly the data from experimental archaeology.