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Iron Age

On the threshold of history

9th – 7th centuries B.C.

In the early Iron Age, the Po Valley appears to be inhabited once again, after the long period of abandon that follows the fall of terramare. The success of the so-called “Villanovian” culture in the area of Emilia-Romagna comes about in the same period that the first proto-urban clusters appear in the Tyrrhenian area, prior to the rise of the great Etruscan cities.

The main core of finds from the early Iron Age (9th – 7th centuries B.C.) in Modena comes from the area between the rivers Samoggia and Panaro and pertains especially to cremation necropolises. In some cases the grave goods concern prestigious people, perhaps attributable to the presence of “aristocratic” groups from Felsina, or modern-day Bologna.

 

At the end of the 7th century B.C., the territory is occupied by a series of small settlements, traceable to a colonial movement from Etruria proper, which were arranged mostly to the west of the Panaro and suggest a reorganization of the residential areas around the emerging nucleus of a more sizeable center, perhaps with proto-urban characteristics.

Of particular note among the material on display is the fragment of a fibula that bears a series of marks carved on one side, which probably had a numeric value: one of the most ancient records of the use of a graphic system in the western Emilian area.

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