Lo studio della tomba 158 di Monte Sirai fra indagini archeologiche e analisi archeometriche

The investigations conducted by Massimo Botto between 2002 and 2004 at the necropolis of Monte Sirai offered the possibility to critically review the funerary rituals practiced in Sardinia during the Phoenician and Punic periods. Furthermore, the study of particularly significant contexts has made possible to recover important data on the social and ethnic composition of the community which, between the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, frequented the uplands and contributed to the process of integration between the local population and Oriental peoples, that had begun long before with the start of Phoenician colonization in the central Mediterranean. Emblematic, from this point of view, is the two-person tomb 158, dated to the decade 575-565 BCE, where, according to the anthropological analyses carried out by Loretana Salvadei, a mother and her child were buried. The examination of the ceramic grave goods allows us to suggest that the woman was ethnically Nuragic and married a Phoenician colonist thanks to the open nature of the Monte Sirai community, which even in the 6th century BCE was able to embrace foreign contributions of different natures and origins. The organic analyses of the content of the deposited objects conducted by Nicolas Garnier have furthermore allowed to shed light on the complex ritual that was celebrated, with the consumption and supply of energizing food, to mark the closing of the tomb. Also, the molecular characterization of a paste preserved in an oenochoe revealed, for the first time in an archaeological context, the presence of flavanones characteristic of Citrus sp.; it represents the first and oldest evidence of Citrus sp. in Sardinia and western Mediterranean.