La tomba con scarabeo dalla necropoli di Alife (CE)

This paper focuses on the burial n° 105 discovered in the S-W area of the pre-Roman settlement of Allifae, località Cimitero (Caserta, Campania). The context under study was found during research of preventive archaelogy between 2005 and 2006 by the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici delle province di Napoli e Caserta. Burial n°105 stands out from the others because it presents fibulae that are datable to the 6th century BC together with a red-slip cup of Phoenician tradition and a scarab-seal. The latter is an apotropaic ornament well-attested among funerary objects used in the pre-Roman central and northern indigenous centres of Campania (Cales, Calatia, Capua, Gricignano d’Aversa, Suessula, Cuma, Pithekoussai, Nola, Striano) between the 8th and the 6th century BC. This scarab-seal constitutes the most inland evidence of a category of artefacts that penetrated from the Campanian plain to the Matese mountains through the Volturno valley.