Forme di autorappresentazione nella necropoli osca di Cuma tra il II e il I secolo a.C.

Priscilla Munzi (1)

1 CJB - Centre Jean Berard

The study combining stratigraphy, funerary typology, funerary gifts, epigraphy and anthropological data provides new data on the Cuman society of this period; moreover, it adds further informations on funerary self-representation of diverse ethnic groups within the city. Cuma is conquered in 421 BC by the Campanians; a century after, in 334 BC, the city get the civitas sine suffragio. The acquisition in 180 BC of the right of using Latin in public acts and of trade lets suppose that the process of “Romanization” is finished at Cuma. The archaeological evidence brought to light in the last years in the northern necropolises displays a frame more articulate, where the Roman presence doesn’t appear as preponderant as what seem to show the historical sources or the urbanistic transformations of public spaces within the city. The sources on which depends our research come all from the northern funerary space. This latter extends from the North/East of the mount of Cuma to the valley that is delimited on the West by the dryed-up lake of Licola, and on the East by the hills known under the name of the Coast of Cuma. In this area, between the IInd century and the first decades of the 1st century BC, the funerary landscape reveals the presence of imposing semi-hypogeum chamber tombs with barrel vaults for multiple inhumation burials, and "parallelepiped” burials with stele, or pits with gravestones (cippus) arranged to accommodate individual cremations. Both chamber tombs and cremation burials contain inscriptions in Oscan or Latin that characterize individuals as of Oscan origin. In several cases, the names engraved in the tuff are related to families already known in Cuma and in the Phlegraean territory. The burials brought to light illustrate the cultural vivacity of Cuma, a city that, despite continuing to preserve a Greek cultural substratum and although it overlooked the Roman world, continues to be influenced by a strong Oscan component. In this type of society, which we could define as mixed, the Oscan families or the families with an Oscan origin, in addition to maintaining their cultural integrity, still hold the political and economic power of the city at this stage. Even though Heii, Modii, Auxii, Antii, Staii get closer to the Roman civilization, in the funerary ritual they "latinized", they went on representing themselves in the first decades of the first century BC according to the "Oscan manner".

Mots clés: Cumae; necropolis

Mots clés: Cumes; nécropole

Mots clés: Cuma; Campi Flegrei; Necropoli

Domaines: Archéologie et Préhistoire

Priscilla Munzi. Forme di autorappresentazione nella necropoli osca di Cuma tra il II e il I secolo a.C.. Marina Cipriani; Emanuele Greco; Angela Pontrandolfo; Michele Scafuro. Dialoghi sull’Archeologia della Magna Grecia e del Mediterraneo. Atti del III Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Paestum (16-18 novembre 2018), III.1, Pandemos, pp.109-122, 2019, 978-88-87744-88-0. ⟨hal-02377701⟩