Recent Research on Arpi: A Very Large Daunian Agglomeration in the Hellenistic Period (20 min)

Presenters

Claude Pouzadoux, Université Paris Nanterre, and Priscilla Munzi, Centre Jean Bérard, CNRS, EFR

Abstract

Since 2014, the Jean Bérard Centre has been engaged, with the Archaeological Superintendence of Foggia and the University of Salerno, in a research program on one of the largest agglomerations in northern Puglia, "Arpi: Forms and Lifestyles of an Italian City." With its clay walls that enclose an area of 100,00 ha, its painted chamber tombs, its large aristocratic residences, and its figurative and polychrome vases, this establishment offers the specialist in urban cultures of southern Italy an unusual and extraordinary model. The study of archives, equipment, and decorations has made it possible to specify the stages of its formation and transformations since the first attestations of occupation of the site from the Iron Age, but especially between the fourth and second centuries B.C.E. This paper examines some urbanistic aspects of Arpi alongside the archaeological evidence that indicates contacts between the Daunian, Osco-Samnite, Greek, Roman, and Punic populations.