More bits

The Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz hosts a database called TOMBA, which is "a multilingual internet image database for the tombs of the élites in Bronze and Early Iron Age Europe (2400/2300 - 480/450 BC). The database is localized into Danish, English, French, German, Greek, and Italian."
This is a fantastic resource, if you can get past the frames and javascript design.

Elizabeth Colantoni reviews Roman Roth, Styling Romanisation. Pottery and Society in Central Italy (2007), at BMCR.

The town of Frosolone in Molise is throwing a Transhumance Festival this coming weekend to celebrate the annual return of the Colantuono family and their 300 cows from Puglia. According to the article, the Colantuono are the only family still practicing long distance transhumance between Molise and Puglia (as opposed to the more common short-distance traffic between lowlands and uplands). I notice too that the Wikipedia article 'Transhumance' makes no mention of the Italian variety (somewhat remedied by the discussion in the Italian version, 'Transumanza'.


Research is to resume at the important Nuragic site of Sant'Imbenia, Sardinia. Sant'Imbenia shows evidence of contact with Pithekoussai by the mid 8th century BCE. The new work aims at continuing excavation, setting the site within its broader landscape context, developing it as a didactic tool, and safeguarding it for future generations (no surprises there). If you need to brush up on your Sardinian archaeology, you can check out the recent monograph by Stephen Dyson and Robert Rowland, Jr., Archaeology and History in Sardinia from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages: Shepherds, Sailors, and Conquerors (2007).