Fragments with horses and wolf’s teeth

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Fragments with horses and wolf’s teeth. Black impasto and its association with periods and buildings in the monumental area at Acquarossa

By Margareta Strandberg Olofsson

Abstract

A number of vessels in Black impasto, also known as “Impasto buccheroide”, are presented here. The decoration shows a combination of relief, incision and excision. Typical of this specific kind of Black impasto are excised zoomorphic figures, predominantly horses, and rows of excised wedges or “wolf’s teeth”. The find contexts are accounted for and the conclusion is that Black impasto is present in all building periods in the monumental area at Acquarossa. The decorative elements are combined in a way that forms variants which can be placed in a chronological sequence, earlier ones with horses and wolf’s teeth and later ones without zoomorphic figures but still with wolf’s teeth, executed slightly differently and combined with grooves and pit lines. The geographical spread of this particular kind of Black impasto seems to be fairly limited and the production may have been rather local. The chronological span is the last part of the 7th century BC and the first half of the 6th. There is also a discussion of with which buildings in the different periods these vessels may have been associated. In this connection, a previously unpublished hypothesis is presented about the location, extension and appearance of what might have been the earliest building in the monumental area.

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Bibliographical information

Margareta Strandberg Olofsson, ‘Fragments with horses and wolf’s teeth. Black impasto and its association with periods and buildings in the monumental area at Acquarossa’, Opuscula. Annual of the Swedish Institutes at Athens and Rome (OpAthRom) 6, 23–43. Stockholm 2013. ISSN: 2000-0898 ISBN: 978-91-977798-5-2. Softcover, 358 pages. https://doi.org/10.30549/opathrom-06-03