LE TOMBE 23 E 36 DELLA CASA DI RICOVERO DI ESTE (SCAVO 1984). NUOVE LETTURE FRA RITUALITÀ E ICONOGRAFIA

Forty years after the discovery of the “Tomb of Nerka Trostiaia”, or rather Tombs 23 and 36 in the Casa di Ricovero necropolis at Este, dated to the third century BC and known for the richness and peculiarity of the grave goods, new opportunities for conservation and study have fostered new reading that proposes an integrated interpretation of the two contexts from a multidisciplinary perspective. The pottery, linked to an Etruscan/northern Adriatic circulation, was re-evaluated, and insights were made in the analyses of the burnt bones (physical anthropology), the food offerings and the presence of artefacts made of perishable material (leather?). The new conservation work, which highlights the iconographic decorative apparatus that links the two tombs, has fostered new and more coherent interpretation of the model of bench, whose decoration is inspired by Strabo’s description of horse breeding in the Veneto. The revision has also led to a narrowing of the chronology of the whole funerary context, a true cornerstone of the late phases of the chrono-typologies of the pre-Roman Veneto, placing it in the third quarterof the 3rd century BC.