Coppa Nevigata

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Coppa Nevigata is the name of an archaeological site about nine kilometers southwest of Manfredonia , in the Foggia province of the Italian region of Apulia . A fortified settlement, which was particularly important during the Italian Bronze Age, was discovered here and is still being archaeologically explored. It was from at least about 1800 BC. Until the beginning of the 1st millennium BC It is continuously inhabited and is being studied in research mainly because of the numerous discovered purple snail shells, which make a very early purple extraction likely. The settlement also provides the oldest evidence of the production of olive oil in Italy to date .

location

The settlement was located on a slight hill on an extensive lagoon near the coast, in the area of ​​the mouth of the Candelaro River , about nine kilometers south of today's city of Manfredonia. Today the place is about seven kilometers from the coast.

Research history

The first excavations took place between 1904 and 1909 under the direction of Quintino Quagliati and Angelo Mosso , after prehistoric artifacts were accidentally found during work to drain the area in 1903 . During the excavations at the beginning of the 20th century, the entire upper part of the settlement mound was removed - not only by the archaeologists, but also because the state building authority's work on drainage continued during the research. As a result, the layers of the End Bronze and Early Iron Ages were almost completely destroyed. The evaluations and finds of the excavation campaigns at that time were not or only insufficiently published, which is why they were published almost 100 years later by Clarissa Belardelli with the help of archival material and the inclusion of finds that were donated to various Italian museums by excavators and robbery graves at the beginning of the 20th century , worked up. She published her results in 2004. Between 1955 and 1975, intensive archaeological research of the area was carried out under the direction of Salvatore M. Puglisi , which was continued from 1983 to 1996 and from the early 2000s and continues to this day, initially (until 1985) under Puglisi after his death under the direction of Alberto Cazzella, Maurizio Mosoloni and Giulia Recchia.

Settlement history

Individual finds come from the early Neolithic . Several layers of settlement can already be assigned to the advanced Neolithic and the early Copper Age . The first permanent settlement that can be reliably proven existed in the Early Bronze Age , in the 19th and 18th centuries. Century BC It was probably unpaved and destroyed by fire. Around the following settlement was around 1700 BC. BC (in the Proto-Apenninikum ) a defensive wall made of dry stone was built for the first time . This was over five meters thick and had gates that were flanked by defense towers. In the late 16th century BC BC Coppa Nevigata was significantly expanded; So far, however, no traces of a new defensive wall from this phase have been discovered. It was not until the first half of the 15th century BC. BC (at the beginning of the Apennine ) a new wall was built. It was again made in dry stone construction, the gaps between the stones were filled with lime earth. From this, as well as from a later one, around 1400 BC. The defensive wall erected in BC only sparse remains. During the Apennine Mountains (15th – 14th centuries BC) a trench was dug in front of the wall, which apparently still existed in the 13th century when the defensive wall was no longer used. It was only filled in at the beginning of the Iron Age (around 1000 BC).

During the Sub-Apennine period, buildings for production and processing, such as the probable purple extraction plants that were previously outside the fortifications, were abandoned and some of them relocated to the protected part of the settlement.

Purple extraction and olive oil production

Coppa Nevigata receives special attention in research because of the more than 50,000 remains of sea ​​snail shells and mussel shells found , of which purple snail shells make up by far the largest share with 87.1%. These come almost exclusively from the species Murex trunculus . A certain accumulation from the 18th century BC is already noticeable. From approx. 1500 BC. The fragments of purple snail shells are so numerous that researchers consider a purple production site to be very likely by this time at the latest. By far the largest number of finds (approx. 95%) dates to the advanced phase of the Apennine culture (or middle Bronze Age, approx. 15th / 14th century BC), but there are still finds from the Late Bronze Age (approx. 1.6%). Overall, around 95% of the Murex snail shells that have come to light in Coppa Nevigata date from the Middle Bronze Age.

In Coppa Nevigata, the earliest known extraction from olives to olive oil in Italy was also demonstrated. Century BC Dated.

Trade relations

In contrast to some more southern sites in Apulia, e.g. B. Roca Vecchia , are finds of Eastern Mediterranean origin in Coppa Nevigata until the 14th century BC. Extremely rare, although there is evidence of links with the Aegean since the first fortified settlement. The situation changes in the 13th / 12th. Century, when increasingly turntable-made , painted in Mycenaean style ceramics appeared, but which were produced locally (so-called Italomycian ceramics ). Stylistically, it mostly corresponds to the SH -III C ceramic of Greece, which dates back to the 12th century BC. Dated. Closed vessel forms predominate, but a not inconsiderable number of fragments of open vessel forms also came to light. However, it continues to outweigh Italic pottery in the 12th century in the style subapenninischen ( Impastokeramik are made); (Italian) gray goods, so-called pseudo-mynical ceramics , also appear.

literature

  • Angelo Mosso: Stazione preistorica the Coppa Neveigata presso Manfredonia. Monumenti antichi 19, 1909, pp. 305-396.
  • SM Cassano, Alberto Cazzella, A. Manfredini, M. Moscoloni (eds.): Coppa Nevigata e il suo territorio. Testimonianze archeologiche dal VII al II millennio aC Quasar, Rome 1987. ISBN 9788885020825
  • Paolo Boccuccia: Ricerche nell'area sud-orientale di Coppa Nevigata . In: Taras 15 (1995), pp. 153-174. Online version
  • Alberto Cazzella, Maurizio Moscoloni: Coppa Nevigata. Un insediamento fortificato dell 'età del Bronzo. In: Luciana Drago Troccoli (ed.): Scavi e ricerche archeologiche dell'Università di Roma “La Sapienza” , L'erma di Bretschneider, Rome 1998, pp. 178-183.
  • John Evans - Giulia Rechhia: Pottery Function. Trapped Residues in Bronze Age Pottery from Coppa Nevigata (Southern Italy). In: Scienze dell'Antichità, 11, 2001-2003, 2003, pp. 187-201.
  • Claudia Minniti: Shells at the Bronze Age settlement of Coppa Nevigata (Apulia, Italy). In: Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer (ed.): Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the International Council of Archeozoology, Durham, August 2002. , Oxbow Books, Oxford 2005, pp. 71-81. online at Academia.edu
  • Clarissa Belardelli: Coppa Nevigata. Materiali da scavi e rinvenimenti 1903-1909. All'Insegna del Giglio, Florence 2004, ISBN 978-88-7814-249-7 .
  • Alberto Cazzella, Claudia Minniti, Maurizio Moscoloni, Giulia Recchia: L'insediamento dell'età del Bronzo di Coppa Nevigata (Foggia) e la più antica attestazione della produione della porpora in Italia. Preistoria Alpina 40, 2004, pp. 177-182. Online as PDF
  • Alberto Cazzella - Maurizio Moscoloni - Giulia Recchia: Coppa Nevigata. In: Francesca Radina - Giulia Recchia (ed.): Ambra per Agammennone. Indigeni e Micenei tra Adriatico, Ionio ed Egeo. Adda, Bari 2010, pp. 169-175. online at Academia.edu

Web links

Coppa Nevigata article and video on Manfredonia's official website

Remarks

  1. ↑ Belardelli 2004, pp. 155f. (German summary)
  2. ↑ s. Claudia Minniti: Shells at the Bronze Age settlement of Coppa Nevigata (Apulia, Italy). In: Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer (ed.): Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the International Council of Archeozoology, Durham, August 2002., Oxbow Books, Oxford 2005, table p. 73.
  3. ↑ John Evans - Giulia Rechhia: Pottery Function. Trapped Residues in Bronze Age Pottery from Coppa Nevigata (Southern Italy). In: Scienze dell'Antichità, 11, 2001-2003, 2003, pp. 187-201.
  4. ↑ Clarissa Bernadelli: Aegean type pottery from Coppa Nevigata, Apulia. In: Carol Zerner, Perter Zerner, John Wider (Eds.) Proceedings of the International Confernce, Wace and Blegen. Pottery Evidence for trade in the Aegaean Bronze Age, 1939–1989, Held at the American School of Classical studies at Athens. Athens December 2-3 1989. JC Gieben, Amsterdam 1993, p. 347ff.
  5. ^ Claudia Minniti: Shells at the Bronze Age settlement of Coppa Nevigata (Apulia, Italy). In: Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer (Ed.): Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the International Council of Archeozoology, Durham, August 2002. , Oxbow Books, Oxford 2005, p. 71.
  6. ↑ Alberto Cazzella - Maurizio Moscoloni - Giulia Recchia: Coppa Nevigata. In: Francesca Radina - Giulia Recchia (ed.): Ambra per Agammennone. Indigeni e Micenei tra Adriatico, Ionio ed Egeo. Adda, Bari 2010, p. 175
  7. ^ Gert Jan van Wijngaarden : Use and appreciation of Mycenaean Pottery in the Levant, Cyprus and Italy (1600-1200 BC) . Amsterdam University Press, 2002, ISBN 90-5356-482-9 , pp. 253 .
  8. ^ Gert Jan van Wijngaarden : Use and appreciation of Mycenaean Pottery in the Levant, Cyprus and Italy (1600-1200 BC) . Amsterdam University Press, 2002, ISBN 90-5356-482-9 , pp. 251 .

Coordinates: 41 ° 33 ′ 29 ″  N , 15 ° 50 ′ 2 ″  E