Alle origini del bucchero. Contributo al riconoscimento di una fase sperimentale della produzione tarquiniese

Several recent studies have delineated the particular characteristics of Tarquinian bucchero and have highlighted the features of a high archaism visible in the local production. Re-examination of the finds from Montarozzi graves, excavated in the 1920s and 1930s, now offers new data, particularly kantharoi and kyathoi whose technical characteristics allow to ascribe to an experimental phase of the production, still closely related to that in impasto. The contexts date the material to the first quarter of the seventh century B.C., emphasising, along with their numerical consistency, the independent role of Tarquinian pottery, alongside other, more successful, developments, such that of Caere. The available comparanda, mainly from the mining territory of Etruria, can also delineate a possible expansive power of the Tarquinian component.