An unusual burial of children wearing bronze warrior belts has been discovered in the town of Pontegnano Fiano outside Salerno in southwestern Italy. The burial dates to the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, when the Samnites occupied what is now the Campania region of Italy.
Located a few miles from the coast along the ancient routes that connected the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Apennines, the settlement that would become Pontecagnano was founded in the 9th century BC by the indigenous groups that occupied the area. It was integrated into the Etruscan sphere of influence in the 8th/7th century BC.The region came under the control of the Samanid people in the 4th century BC.
In Pontecagnano Faiano a preventive archaeological excavation was initiated due to the planned urban development. The site, formerly occupied by a tobacco factory, is in the southern necropolis area of the ancient town. The excavation eventually led to the discovery of 34 burials, 15 of which belonged to children between the ages of two and ten when they died. The graves are clustered in groups, perhaps reflecting a family center.
Most types of tombs are earthen pits covered with roof tiles that are stacked against each other. Only three break the mold: stone box tombs, two made of travertine blocks and one of tufa blocks. These were expensive materials, indicating that the deceased was wealthy and of high social status.
The tombs were decorated with characteristic Sammanite wares, including spears and javelins for men and rings and fibulae for women. Pottery wares are small sets used for funeral offerings and ceremonial banquets, and vessels containing perfumes and ointments, also used in funerary rituals.
Unusually, bronze bands, usually found in the graves of adult males, were found only in the graves of two children between the ages of five and 10. These were not just regular ballots. They were broad bands of ornate bronze that held the ingres worn by adult men. They were unmistakable symbols of warrior identity and social status.
Archaeologists speculate that they were placed in children’s graves as a symbol of warrior lineage that was passed on to the next generation after death, a kind of rite of passage into adulthood that was performed in the grave because it could never happen in life. Another possibility is that the belt has a protective function in this context, conveying the child’s membership in a great warrior family to the fearsome denizens of the underworld.
