Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Salerno and Avellino
The burial is notable because bronze belts were usually only included in graves of adult men and not children.
Archaeologists working in southern Italy discovered the graves of two young children buried with large bronze belts almost 2500 years ago. The discovery is unusual, as such accessories were typically reserved for adult male warriors in the region’s pre-Roman society.
The burials were found in the town of Pontecagnano, in the Campania region, during excavations at the site of an old tobacco factory. According to a statement from the Superintendence of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Salerno and Avellino, researchers discovered part of an ancient cemetery containing 34 graves dating from the 4th and 3rd centuries BC.
About half of the burials belonged to children between the ages of 2 and 10, highlighting the role that young people played in the community’s funeral traditions. Among them were two children between the ages of 5 and 10 who were buried wearing bronze belts, which are objects typically associated with adult men of Samnite culture.
Archaeologists have been studying cemeteries in Pontecagnano for decades. Since the early 1960s, excavations have revealed more than 10,000 tombs in three cemeteries dating from the 9th to the 3rd century BC, making the site one of the most important archaeological sites for understanding ancient southern Italy.
In the 5th century BC, the city became a center of the Samnitesa group of mountain tribes who spoke the Oscan language and maintained control of the region until the Roman conquest of southern Italy in the 3rd century BC.
Burials from the Samnite period generally followed a clear structure. The graves were organized by family groups and consisted of earthen pits covered with tiles. According to reports, the dead were often accompanied by ceramic offeringsbut other objects were closely linked to gender roles. Men were usually buried with weapons or items associated with warriors, such as spearheads, javelins, and bronze belts, while women were buried with jewelry such as rings and brooches.
The presence of bronze belts in children’s tombs therefore stands out as something quite unusual. Archaeologists had previously identified at least one similar burial in the cemetery, which archaeologist Gina Tomay described as “a discovery of great importance“, noting that the child was also buried with ceramic cups intended to provide food and drink in the afterlife.
Researchers still aren’t sure why belts were included in these infant burials. Some scholars suggest that the items may have symbolized the social roles that children were expected to assume into adulthood, similar to Anglo-Saxon tombs in Britain where boys were buried in warrior gear representing “the men they might have become”.
