The Intimate Soul of the Pyres: New Archaeological Data from the Terre di Rogo (Pyre Debris) of Pre-Roman Necropolis in Padua (Northern Italy)

Abstract

The ‘terre di rogo’ (pyre debris) are black-coloured layers resulting from the crematory pyres, placed inside graves within the ritual of secondary deposition and containing different materials, including cremation slags. The characterisation of the slags, until now rarely conducted by chemical techniques, can provide useful data to explain more precisely the protocol of the funeral ritual and to better understand the effects of fire during cremation for the accumulation of pyre debris. In this study, a fast screening method using ATR-mode infrared spectroscopy is proposed, which may highlight the need for further investigations with SEM and XRD. The protocol was tested on the black and irregularly shaped cremation slags from the pyre debris of two Iron Age cremation necropolises in Padua (northern Italy). The results of the analysis identified several types of cremation slags within each individual pyre ground and the presence of bone fragments exposed to different intensities of combustion during cremation.