Worlds in contact: local productions of the Iron Age in ancient Apulia
Room 3 is reserved for local pottery productions of ancient Apulia. Most of the artifacts are part of the collection of the Merlin couple, two illustrious academics of the twentieth century, known for their training respectively in physics and chemistry, who donated a considerable number of vases, mostly large, richly decorated.
You will find artifacts representative of the three large geographical areas of ancient Apulia: Daunia (northern Apulia), Peucetia (current province of Bari) and Messapia (extending between southern Murgia and Salento). For their respective peculiarities, all productions are datable between the 8th and 4th centuries BC and are expressions of local cultures of the Iron Age.
In the showcase you can observe several examples of ollae, large wares intended for liquids or cereals, often present in funerary equipment, to which were added dippers, items used for pouring. Small containers like the askos, on the other hand, were designed to preserve ointments and perfumes. Some decorative details, for example, the myrtle branch and geometric meanders, and formal ones such as the reference to some Greek forms as in the case of perfume containers, show how the exchange between different cultures, in this specific case the Local communities and Greek colonial towns present in the area, was in the past, as it happens today, a phenomenon inherent to the very nature of human relationships.
An exclusive form of Messapian production is the trozzella, a vase with a funerary function mainly linked to high-ranking women. The name, modern, derives from the characteristic wheels applied to the handles of the vase.
Alongside the artifacts from the Merlin couple’s donation, you can also admire some vases from the collection of Eugenio Neumann, a collector from Trieste, who sold to the University of Padua a collection of objects of different origins but with a significant section dedicated to indigenous Apulian pottery.