Mediterranean 'warrior' tombs. A balancing act between the variety of social encounters and the standardizing common discourse among peers during the early 1st Millennium BC

This paper offers some new insights into the Mediterranean world between the very Late Bronze Age and the Early Orientalizing Period, with special attention to some transcultural phenomena hinted at by the assemblages yielded by some of the richest burial contexts furnished with weapons and often simplistically described as having been offered to 'warriors'. First, we will lay out some theoretical constructs that can help with both investigating complex cultural interaction behaviors and approaching the archaeological evidence more appropriately. Additionally, the analysis of the sea-route networks linking the extremities of the Mediterranean Sea at the transition between the LB and EIA, will contribute to establishing the geographic and historical coordinates within which the earliest characters in this story constructed their lives. Then, we will consider two pairs of funerary assemblages of these prominent individuals with the aim of describing their cultural traits, sharpening their cultural behavior, and trying to picture the cultural context(s) they shared and actively contributed to. Two of them, located respectively at Tel Achziv (tomb N1) and at Lefkandi (Toumba grave 79), refer to the beginning of the time frame under discussion, while the second pair of burials, uncov- ered at Cumae in the Tyrrhenian district (Artiaco grave 104) and at Eretria (West Gate grave 6), shed light on some of the complex dynamics occurring in the Mediterranean regions at the very end of the 8th cent. BC. Finally, an overall historical framework will be suggested, and a short discussion on the validity of conceptual tools as 'Orientalizing' and 'Orientalization' will conclude this contribution.