Most museums currently reopening their doors in Italy after the long months of Coronavirus lockdown are welcoming visitors to enjoy the exhibitions abruptly interrupted in March. The "Eno Bellis" Archaeological Museum and Palazzo Foscolo in Oderzo, in the province of Treviso, are among the first institutions reopening this week. They will reboot with the exhibition entitled "L'anima delle cose" (The Soul of Things) dedicated to the rites and burial sites of the Roman necropolis of Opitergium.
Opitergium was an architecturally interesting place influenced by Roman culture: after the Via Postumia (the road that went from Genoa to Aquileia) was built, the local inhabitants were even given Roman citizenship (between 49 and 42 BC). The town went through a series of urban interventions and the objects found in the graves can tell us a story of splendour in Roman times and of decadence in the years that followed.
There were many different archaeological discoveries in the 1800s in the Oderzo area, but new and multiple excavations in the 1980s allowed to find rare pieces that can be used to document the lives of the people living in the area in Roman times.
The pieces on display in the Museum and at Palazzo Foscolo are taken from 50 burial sites, considered as the richest ones found in a period of roughly 30 years in the ancient necropolis of Opitergium and they are on display for the first time. There were basically three types of burial sites in this area: direct and indirect cremation (in the former case, the remains of a cremated body were buried where the body was cremated, in the latter bones were collected after the body was cremated and then buried) and inhumation.
Among the pieces on display there is a stele dedicated to a young Roman girl who was a slave, Phoebe, dating from the 1st century AD, and a cute clay horse with wheels, a child's toy found in a tomb from the 2nd or 3rd century AD. A writing desk with an iron stylus hints instead at the job of the buried person, who was probably a scribe or a teacher.
But on display there are also inspiring objects for jewel designers: among the mosaics, ceramic and glass vases and bottles maybe imported from Eastern regions, there is an amber pendant with a phallic shape, necklaces made with onyx, bone and silver (dating around the 4th or 5th century AD) or with glass paste beads decorated with zigzag patterns, at times shaped like a jug, with yellow and blue filaments.
These jewels were probably produced in the Eastern areas of the Mediterranean around the 4th century AD and then imported to Opitergium, like other items such as amulets and fibulae (the fibulae didn't have just a decorative purpose, but would first and foremost keep fabric firmly in place).
Among the most unusual pieces there is a ring that integrates a key (1st - 4th century AD), while the most precious jewels include gold pieces with decorative plates inspired by flowers or plants, a design that evokes the traditional motifs of Magna Graecia (dating between the 4th and 2nd century BC).
Other objects include sewing needles and a strigil, a tool used in spas, where bathers had their bodies massaged, oiled and scraped down with a strigil to remove the remaining dirt.
The decorative objects on display and the jewels in particular are very intriguing and prove that accessories have always been part of human history. Slowly going back to normality by visiting a historical exhibition can be inspiring as it may remind us to look at our past to find the strength to face the future, as uncertain as it may be.
Image credits for this post
Photographic archive SABAP-VE-MET (photographs by Maddalena Santi)
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