Room XIII
The funeral finds of the last rooms symbolically represent the final stages of life in Spina, that became an autonomous production centre with references to Italic culture and dedicated to the exchange with the Celtic cultures and peoples.
Between the second half of the fourth and the beginning of the third century BC, we note a wide range of vessels in Gnathia pottery (named after the production centre in Puglia) and black-glazed Etruscan pottery, particularly from Volterra (northern Etruria, modern Tuscany), along with local pottery. A significant example is the burial 785 of Valle Trebba, attributed to a woman thanks to the artifacts it contains: an overpainted “Gnathia” skyphos (glass), the pyx (jewelery box with lid) and the krater decorated with an elegant female head with crown and sakkos (headgear), a masterpiece of upper Adriatic production. Four black glazed bowls of Italiote production (Magna Graecia), rare in Spina, set the dating of the burial 552C of Valle Pega in the middle of the third century BC.
Burial 83 of Valle Trebba particularly stands out from the others: dated to the early third century BC, it testifies the presence of immigrants welcomed by the Etruscan community and recognized as "foreigners", coming from the wide surrounding "Celtic world" with which the Etruscans continue to have contacts. The ancient historians such as Polybius and Strabo, referring to the last stages of life of Padan Etruria, often talk about a "mixture" and non-conflicting coexistence between the local populations and the Celtic ones. The young Celt from Spina brings to the afterlife two objects characteristic of his culture: a glass bracelet and an iron javelin. The askoi (containers for liquids) in the form of an animal, of Attic or Etruscan production, and unguentaria in glass paste imported from the East, other than underlinining the high rank of the deceased, show the circulation between the fourth and third centuries BC of luxury goods at Spina, to meet the needs of the richest people of the town, including those of foreign origin .
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