Abstrakt
This study stems from the analysis of the geometric decorative apparatus of early Iron Age funerary pottery (biconical urns and bowls) from the cemeteries of Verucchio (province of Rimini, Italy), in light of its possible use to symbolically represent the clothed body of the deceased.
The practice of dressing cinerary urns by draping mantles secured by brooches around them is a widespread ritual in the Italian areas under Villanovan influence.
If we accept the theory that considers the cinerary urn as a clay simulacrum of the human body, we can notice how the main decorations are located around the parts identifiable as the neck and the hips, places where it was common to wear scarves, jewelry or belts. We can indeed find the same decorations made by triangles, meanders and crosses (motives often tied to the symbology of the sun, with apotropaic meanings) on bronze belts and mantles with tablet-woven borders alike; therefore, the decorative apparatus of the urn was probably meant to symbolically dress the deceased with a veritable ceremonial garb to accompany them into the afterlife.