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By studying the objects we can reconstruct the gestures and ideas of the people who created them.
The archaeological museums of Latium tell stories of the communities that lived in our region in the past.
OBJECTS, GESTURES AND PEOPLE FROM PREHISTORIC TIMES
Living on the Earth between technique and ritual
From the beginning,
the attitude towards being able to plan
characterised human beings.
We don't know how and what prehistoric people thought
but studying the objects helps us to reconstruct their way of living on the Earth.
THE PEOPLE EXPERIMENT WITH TECHNIQUES
They succeeded in creating tools for activities
they couldn't have done with just their bare hands.
In time, they developed the ability to create plans for a tool,
making it with ever more sophisticated and efficient techniques.
The people learnt to take advantage of nature's offerings.
AND OBSERVE, COMMUNICATE, COLLABORATE TO SURVIVE
When the carcasses of elephants and other large animals
became trapped in muddy waters,
the human groups were able to pick them apart on site,
turning them into food and tools.
But making tools and organising themselves in groups
was not enough
to gain complete control on their reality.
Human existence
remained very uncertain
and insecure.
Studying the archaeologycal finds helps us to understand how,
in order to make life more secure, the human beings developed a new cultural ability,
aimed towards controlling everything that seemed beyond their power.
At the end of the Palaeolithic Age
stone and bone objects
engraved with abstract designs and figures of animals
were found in the depths of a cave, near the remains of fireplaces.
On this pebble, used many times as a tool to hit and strike,
a figure of an animal has been engraved. This gesture, this figure might have invested
a special role or meaning to the tool,
different to that of other non engraved tools.
WHIT A GESTURE, MAN INTERFERES WITH REALITY TO CONTROL IT.
Figures of humans
have also been represented since ancient times.
From the Neolithic Age, for example, little statues of women
with accentuated *** and hips might reveal
the communities' need to represent female fertility
with the aim of controlling the enormous risks
connected with sterility, pregnancy and birth.
From the traces left behind by the communities of the past we can reconstruct the actions and gestures invented by the people
to control everything that threatened them and made their existence uncertain.
During the Bronze Age, some places
such as caves, lakes and rivers, hill topsand mountain tops
have left behind objects and traces of actions that we can defined as rituals.
They seem aimed towards establishing a relationship with the 'other beings'
upon which they though they depended for the wellbeing of individuals and the community.
RITUALS ARE GESTURES THAT ARE REPEATED IN TIME
Inside a cave the products of the cultivation of the land
have been offered
taken from the daily consumption.
On the point of the highest mountain
a great fire was lit repeatedly
around which they gathered for special occasions.
Swords, made specially to be offerings
were thrown into the depths of a lake
Birds,
soaring from one environment to the next,
connect perfectly water, earth and sky.
In a period in which human migration
and the exchange of objects and ideas increased significantly,
representations of aquatic birds, often heavily stylized,
were diffused in extremely vast areas,
used to decorate clay vases
and valuable objects.
Is it a different, non human world to which they allude?
The end of life
is perhaps the most unsettling and difficult experience to face.
Since the Palaeolithic Age you can find traces of the attention that the people dedicated to their deceased
in the attempt to take death away from the dominion of nature.
FUNERAL RITES INTEGRATE DEATH INTO THE NORMALITY OF LIFE
At the end of the Bronze Age, the practice of burning the dead
and collecting the ashes in a vase
became widespread.
Some communities chose to lay out
a collection of vases and other objects next to their deceased
which, specially made, reproduced in miniature
those which were used in day to day life.
The choice of objects
sheds light on the role and function of the individual during their life:
weapons for the men
weaving and spinning tools for the women.
The miniature versions
represent the new, different dimension of the deceased who lives no longer.
At times, the container that held the ashes
was also a miniaturised object.
In some cases
it resembled the shape of a hut
and formed the tomb of a head family.
Funeral rites served to affirm
the unity between members of the community,
following the passing away of one of them
and to confront the fear of the unknown.
On a bowl covering the ashes of a deceased person
male and female figures arranged in a circle
seem to dance around a symbol
which, also giving the impression of movement,
refers back to the idea of the continuity of life.
"I WAS DEDICATED BY MAMARKE APUNIIE TO THE GODDESS VENAI"
A jug found in an Etruscan sanctuary
tells us of a whorshipper
and a deity.
By studying Prehistory we try to reconstruct through the objects
the gestures and ideas of the people.
With the invention of writing
it will at times be the object itself that talks of gestures and ideas.
But that
is another story.