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Thanks to it inland position sheltered by the Apennine ridge, in the Pre-Roman era, the territory of Cantiano was one of those border areas between the Umbrian and Picene cultures Based on the information available thus far, the data on the human population is extremely limited to sporadic findings of materials which can be attributed to
early iron age (900 – 580 a.C.) as well as to the archaic period of the VI centennary. The finds from Piana di S. Rocco and from Col d’Agello were probably part of two disturbed burial sites. All of this seems to indicate that the territory of Cantiano was used more as a transit area than one of settlement along the roadway which, once past the convenient nearby Scheggia pass, communicated with the settlements of the Picenes, Umbrians and Etruscans.


The fibulas

There are 4 bronze fibulas from S.Rocco:Fibula con arco a tre castoni, due laterali ed uno superiore
  1. Fibula with full-centre arch decorated with sets of parallel lines engraved perpendicularly attributable to the end of the Bronze age (XI – IX sec. a.C.) or the early iron age (Picene Phase I – IX sec.).
  2. Fibula with arch with two lateral buttons and upper centre bezel..
  3. Fibula with triple bezel arch, due lateral and one upper.
  4. Fibula with navicula decorated with parallel lines engraved in parallel and long staff with profiled button end.
Fibulas 2, 3 and 4 are attributable to the IVA Picene phase (VI sec. B.C.).

These is a fragment of  Poculum from Col d’Agello made of handworked paste; it conserves a piece of the edge and the wall, with a semicircular handle.

The small bronze sculptures

  1. Guerriero con elmo di tipo NegauIn 2001, in the course of the works for laying underground service pipes at the foot of the Tower of Comatrano, Mr. Mauro Radicchi found a bronze figurine of a warrior with a Negau type helmet which can be dated to about 480 B.C. It is the upper part of a nude male figure (17 cm high) that most certainly had a votive function. The place it was found is probably a secondary position since the article was intentionally cut in ancient times with a scalpel or a small axe. Even in lack of an archaeological context, the sculpture has characteristics which make it significantly important. In fact, this is one of the largest of the solid cast articles, common to the Marche territory. Several of the formal aspects are particularly unusual, like the helmet, absent in the depictions found in Etruria and Marche, and instead frequent in the Po valley and in the Veneto context. Also in contrast are the refined, but mannerist ionicism of the face and the veristic, calligraphic rendition of the helmet with schematic, heavy muscular masses of the body and the arms. The sculpture can probably be attributed to the local handcraft arts, evidently tied to the numerous piedmont and highland sanctuaries in the Apennine area, eclectic and “cultured”, open to the Umbrian, Etruscan and Po-Veneto experiences.
  2. Ercole con la clava impugnataBronze figurine of Hercules holding a bludgeon in his right hand, from Mt. Catria (second half of the II - beginning of the I century B.C.)
  3. Bronze figurine of Hercules holding a bludgeon in his right hand, from the St. Ubaldo fortress (second half of the II – beginning of the I centuary b. C.).
The bronze figurines 2 and 3 are part of the local production, already widespread during the Romanisation of the territory, of inferior quality, since it ignores the classic models which had inspired the previous production. This impoverishment seems linked to the troubled events of the Hannibalic War (219 – 202 B.C.)