6th c. BCE bronze statue seized near Nola

Carabinieri have seized an 80 cm-tall bronze statue from a healthcare provider in Cimitile, near Nola. The statue is described as being of a Greek warrior, similar to the "Etruscan Mars"-type, and dating to the 6th c. BCE. It's a shame there isn't a larger photo -- it looks a bit 'funny' to my eyes, although scholars from the Naples and Pompeii Soprintendenza have apparently confirmed its authenticity.

Sources: Il Nolano, Irpinia News

A bit of this and that

Here's a hodgepodge of things that happened during the long summer months or a bit more recently, with no claim to completeness....

The conference "Etruscan Literacy in its Social Context" is going on currently, September 22-23, in London; follow link for program and abstracts.

Tudisca et al. 2010, "Firing technique characterization of black-slipped pottery in Praeneste by low field 2D NMR relaxometry" is available as an Article-in-Press from the Journal of Archaeological Science (subscription required).

Via Mark Pearce on the Italian-archaeology list comes the news that Vol. XX of Padusa, a must for the site of Frattesina, is freely available as a series of pdfs. A well-illustrated 80-page pdf that accompanies the exhibit in Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Fratta Polesine, "Il villaggio di Frattesina e le sue necropoli XII - XI secolo a.C.", is also available.

July 1 saw the reopening of the galleries of frescoes from the Villa della Farnesina, at the Palazzo Massimo.

A series of talks entitled "Storie interno a Monte Pallano" took place at Tornareccio in Abruzzo on July 31. The event kicked off an exhibit of the same name at the Centro Museale of Tornareccio, which will run until January 20, 2011. The highlight of the exhibit is the 7th c. BCE "Torso di Pallano." More information freely available in a pdf.

There was a month long exhibit entitled "Sulle tracce di Annibale. Gli scavi di Gereonium a Casacalenda" at the Museo Sannitico in Campobasso; of interest is a fragment of a limestone stele with a so-called symbol of Tanit on it, dating to the 3rd-2nd cs. BCE (see image above).

Brief mention of an Etruscan house discovered during construction in Arezzo.

An exhibit of Middle Bronze Age artifacts from the site of Faraglioni is going on display at the Museo Comunale in Ustica, while the first "Museo del Paesaggio" (Landscape Museum) in Italy has opened at Salemi in SW Sicily. Also near Sicily, some underwater finds off Gela, ranging from fragments of Attic pottery to a WWII American helmet. On the other side of the island, three Greco-Roman shipwrecks in the Aeolians.

And a letter from Sandro Bondi to Jovanotti....