From the large shaft of Fosso Conicchio grave comes a lot and variety of the famous Iron Age ‘bell-beakers’. The strategic role of this item as the first pan-European prestige gift in the changing networks between big-man is now fully recognized, with a special regard at the decorative code of the stripes recovering the whole surface of the vessel.

Morphology of the object:

Short Bell Beaker style decorated cup, with a flared rim, globular shaped body and rounded base. The surface of the pottery, carefully polished, is of a reddish color with rare gray spots. The ceramics is of a fine craftsmanship with a partially depurated paste.

The body of the cup is entirely decorated with a thick “comb” impressed decoration, characteristic of Bell Beaker Ware. The rim is decorated with a series of triangles, with their vertex pointing upwards, below which there is a plain band. Follows a wide band decorated with oblique opposing lines, another plain band with zig-zag patterns with the spaces filled in by “comb” impressions. Below these there are two wide bands decorated with oblique opposite lines. In the lower part there is an alternation of oblique impressed bands and plain ones.

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Most of the Bell Beaker ware found at Fosso Conicchio can be categorized as “Italian Style” because of their horizontal decorations with an alternation of plain bands and decorative ones. The decorative motifs seem similar to the ones recovered at Grotte del Fantino, in Tuscany, and at the sites of Sant’Ilario and Rubiera, in Emilia Romagna. In regard to the context of the site in its integrity, artificial hypogeums datable back to the Eneolithic Periods not associated to funerary usage are nearly unknown in Central Italy. In regard to the Rinaldone facies only one example of small artificial grotto at Corano (Pitigliano, Grosseto) has been identified. The structure lacked skeleton remains but was characterized by some building peculiarities that suggest cult usage. Cult practice and Bell Beker objects are also attested in the Grotte del Fontino (Grosseto) in which more than 100 funerary depositions were found as well as hearts and several animal bone fragments. On the Adriatic side of the peninsula, inside the Grotta della Tanaccia, at Brisighella, were recovered skull-caps lacking traces of fire linked to Bell Beaker ware.

The cup was recovered in an hypogeum carved within sandstone lacking a volt and completely filled with soil. Within the structure a total of around 90 vessels, some of which whole while others in fragments, were recovered. Ten of these are decorated with impressed techniques that can be traced back to the Bell Beaker style. 40 lithic tools were also recovered among the pottery, four of which “brassards”. The hypogeum consists of an ovoidal shaped room 3,10 by 2,90 m with a maximum height of 1,75m. Within the room, in the middle of the Eastern wall is present a trapezoidal shaped bench, with its rim delimited by a short rail. There are no traces of side corridors departing the room as well as no stone ceiling: it is therefore possible to suggests an entrance from the top probably covered by a wooden mobile covering. Of a large number of vessels recovered during the fortuitous discovery of the hypogeum, while workers were laying down a pipeline, there is no information regarding the original position of the ware, while the location of around 50 objects is attested: these were mainly located on the bank or around it. On the semi-burned fragments of skulls and long bones were also found as well as lithic tools and fire remains. Because of the building technique of the structure at Fosso Conicchio (which has been associated to the contemporary Eneolithic Period oven tombs of the Rinaldone facies) a predominantly funerary use was suggested. Recently on the base of the structure’s typology there has been a reinterpretation of the data. The presence of a bank, the absence of horizontal entrances and the large dimensions of the hypogeum at Fosso Conicchio- are however characteristics absent in contemporary Rinaldone tombs. It has been therefore suggested that the structure had been used for cult rituals. Along with this theory the bank could have been an altar; theory in line with the analysis of the objects found on the bank: small ware (suited to store liquids and food) fragments of skulls and long bones, lithic tools and traces of fire.

BARFIELD L.H., 1987, The italian Dimension of the Beaker Problem, in W.H. WALDREN, R.C. KENNARD (eds.), Bell Bekers of the West Mediterranean, (BAR, I.s. 331) pp.499-515 COLONNA G., 1970, Fosso Conicchio (Viterbo), in Nuovi Tesori dell’antica Tuscia, Catalogo della Mostra, Viterbo, pp.11-15 FUGAZZOLA DELPINO M.A, PELLEGRINI E., 1999, Il complesso culturale “campaniforme” di Fosso Conicchio, in Bullettino di Paletnologia italiana, 90, n.s. VIII, pp.61-159 MORETTI M., 1968, Fosso Conicchio (prov. di Viterbo), in “Notiziario”, Rivista di Scienze Preistoriche, Xxiii, p.415 NICOLIS F., MOTTES E. (a cura di), 1998, Simbolo ed Enigma. Il bicchiere campaniforme e l’Italia nella preistoria europea del III millennio a.C., Catalogo della Mostra, Trento.