(ANSA) – ROME, DEC 28 – Forged in bronze in Perugia, shortly before the middle of the 4th century BC for a local soldier, perhaps a mercenary. To then arrive who knows how to Vulci, where a few years later he became the pride of a second warrior, so proud of his military headdress that he took it to his grave along with all his rich equipment. Ninety years after the discovery, a newly interpreted inscription opens a glimpse of great suggestion on a fragment of life from 2400 years ago. “A story that has remained hidden under the eyes of all”, explains to ANSA the Etruscologist Valentino Nizzo, director of the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia. Because the magic and also the paradox of this discovery, he says, is that it took place right inside the museum, where the helmet in question was exhibited in the window as early as 1935. Only no one had noticed what had been engraved inside it. , a detail that also makes this find extremely important and rare, given that all over the world – with the exception of a ritual deposit of 150 helmets found in Vetulonia at the beginning of the 20th century with at least 60 specimens all bearing the same noble name – are about a dozen weapons of this type documented in the Etruscan and Italic fields between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC It all started in 2019, says Nizzo, with a request for a study for the 3d digitization of ancient weapons conducted by a New Zealand team. The employee in charge of removing the helmet notices something and alerts the manager. Checks are started, we search the archives to see if that inscription had been studied and interpreted, but nothing, after a few days it appears clear that those seven letters that the engraver had cold-pressed from left to right composing the word “harn ste “inside the neck roll had never been studied. The reason remains a mystery also because the excavations, started in 1928 by Ugo Ferraguti and Raniero Mengarelli, had been carried out with extreme care using a scientific method after years of indiscriminate looting: “who knows, maybe the inscription could not be seen – reasoned Nizzo- when the helmet was recovered from tomb 55 in the necropolis of the Osteria di Vulci, the bronze must have been encrusted with earth and oxidized “. Even the restorer who cleaned and integrated it at the time does not seem to have noticed anything. The death of the two discoverers could have done the rest, leaving an enigma still to be deciphered. Thus, as soon as the study for which it had been moved from its window was finished, the headdress was subjected to a new cleaning conducted by the museum’s restorer, Miriam Lamonaca, and the director set to work to interpret its meaning. The hypothesis, the subject of a scientific article for Sicilia Antiqua that Nizzo dedicated to the recently deceased master Mario Torelli, is that it is a noble derived from a toponym, that is a name that indicates the city of origin of the person, and that the place in question was the ancient Aharnam or the current Civitella d’Arna, a town a few kilometers from Perugia, also mentioned by Tito Livio as the seat of the camp of the praetor Appio, shortly before the battle of Sentino (295 BC) during the third Samnite war. In fact, the helmet of the museum of Villa Giulia belongs to a slightly earlier period, the Samnite wars had not yet begun, but from north to south the conflict in the peninsula was very high. At the end of the time of small armies armed by individual families, the era of mercenaries began, professional soldiers also willing to move ‘for work’. Hence the name engraved under the padding of the helmet, explains the director, to certify its ownership and who knows perhaps also as a hasty business card to introduce yourself to someone with whom you did not fully share the language. The owner could therefore have been a mercenary soldier who moved from Civitella d’Arna to Vulci for needs related to his profession as a warrior, thus integrating into the new community. But it is also possible, and perhaps even more likely, that the owners of this hat were actually two. And that the helmet changed hands, perhaps after the defeat in battle of the first soldier, to take possession of a second soldier, a citizen of Vulci who had not deemed it necessary to delete the internal heading or simply had not seen it , because it is covered with fabric padding. In short, a pinch of mystery remains in the end. Nizzo caresses the helmet and smiles: “Even if it is not possible to establish whether Harnste was his family or that of a rival killed in battle, the public who from now on will come to admire him will have some more elements to imagine his story” .
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Source From: Ansa
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