Un eroe tra gli eroi immortali: il capo-guerriero della tomba 24/1976 di Rutigliano-Purgatorio (Ba)

A hero among the immortal heroes: the warrior-chief of tomb 24/1976 from Rutigliano - contrada Purgatorio · A large tomb that belonged to a high-ranking warrior, datable to the third quarter of the 5th century BC, was found in 1976 at Rutigliano near Bari (Puglia, Italy), during the excavation of the necropolis in contrada Purgatorio. In addition to iron weapons and valuable bronze armours, it has yielded a considerable amount of bronze vases, but above all a very rich group of ceramic vases recovered in the adjoining compartment, composed of more than a hundred artifacts. Particularly noteworthy are the Attic and Protoitalic red-figure pottery, among which seven vases realized by the Painter of the Berlin Dancing Girl stand out, the images of which express a figurative program of exaltation of the heroic deeds performed by the deceased, equivalent to those of the heroes of myth. The objects within this assemblage were not merely evidence of lavish opulence but were intended to mirror the social standing of the deceased in order to draw a specific image and ideology. They constitute a homogeneous set in terms of the contents and messages they are intended to evoke and transmit. As a whole this funerary assemblage represents the desire by the aristocracy to be distinguished from the rest of society and to achieve an afterlife similar to that of the heroes of myth.