Funerary practices and sacerdotal rank in pre-Roman northern and central Italy: new data for interpreting the ‘ritual shovel’

Extract

In Early Iron Age cultures (the Golasecca, Este and Villanovan/Etruscan of the Po valley in the 7th-4th c. B.C.), a characteristic metal object has often been linked to unspecified ritual practices of protohistoric Italic peoples, raising various archaeological, anthropological and religious questions. This object, a ‘ritual shovel’ (Italian: paletta rituale; German: Bronzepalette) was first described by G. Ghirardini, who published two examples, one from Padua and one in Rome's Pigorini Museum. In 1902, he drew up a catalogue of 13 pieces and attempted to establish the first chronological sequence. During the first half of the 19th c., various pieces were published, but no studies addressed the typological, chronological and functional questions relating to the ritual shovel until M. Zuffa focused on it, providing what is still the most recent catalogue and the only discussion (fig. 1).