Tra rito e simbolo. La miniaturizzazione nelle sepolture del Lazio tra Bronzo finale e prima età del Ferro

Between the Final Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age (XI – VIII century BC) the cremation burials of Latium are characterized by a specific ritual costume, which consists in the partial or complete miniaturization of grave sets. The miniaturization, a quite common phenomenon in the Mediterranean world within cultual, funerary and settlement contexts since ancient times, is to be considered a specific ritual behavior that involves the accurate reproduction in a small size of types of artifacts, and that bears a symbolic meaning. This paper aims to analyze some production of miniaturized objects in the funerary contexts referring to their specific models, with the definition of combination “miniature-prototype”. The existence of the object in miniature is indissolubly related to its prototype, cognitive benchmark from which the symbolic reduction begins: each miniature has the ontological necessity to be related to a specific prototype, without which they does not have reason for being. It is therefore quite evident the reason why an analysis on miniaturized objects cannot prescind from a close examination of the system of dimensional and semantic relationships between miniatures and prototypes. After the analysis of the grave goods association, the article aims to offer new points of reflection about this ritual practice, considered as one of the more significant features of the Latium funerary costume during the Final Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age