Burials
The Golasecca culture is best known by its burial customs, where an apparent ancestor cult imposed respect of the necropoli, a sacred area untouched by agrarian use or deforestation. The early-period burials took place in selected raised positions oriented with respect to the sun. Burial practices were direct inhumation or in lidded cistae. Stone circles and alignments are found. Burial urns were painted with designs, with accessory ceramics, such as cups on tall bases. Bronze objects are usually of wearing apparel: pins and fibulas, armbands, rings, earrings, pendants and necklaces. Bronze vessels are rare. The practice of cremation persists into the second period (early sixth to mid-fourth centuries).
Cremation near the burial site, followed by ash and bone burials in terracotta jars, in excavated pits set at determined distances one from the other in scattered necropolises, characterize a culture of many small village settlements.
At the site of Sesto Calende, south of Lake Maggiore, were two chariot burials dating to the 7th and 6th century BCE accompanied with weapons, ornaments and a large situla while an earlier burial at Ca' Morta - Como (c. 700 BCE) included a four-wheeled wagon in the tomb.
In a Golasecca culture tomb in Pombia has been found the oldest known remain of common hop beer in the world.
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Famous quotes containing the word burials:
“Cole’s Hill was the scene of the secret night burials of those who died during the first year of the settlement. Corn was planted over their graves so that the Indians should not know how many of their number had perished.”
—For the State of Massachusetts, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)