AS-2 potsherd

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Object
Classification:	vessel
Material:	pottery
Condition:	unknown
Date:	4th–2nd centuries BC
Date derived from:	archaeological context
Site:	Rotzo (Vicenza, Veneto, Italy)
Field name:	Bostel
Archaeological context:	settlement (Objects: AS-1 potsherd, AS-2 potsherd, AS-3 potsherd, AS-4 potsherd, AS-12 needle, AS-15 beaker, AS-16 beaker, AS-17 potsherd, AS-18 potsherd, AS-19 beaker, AS-20 potsherd, AS-21 beaker, AS-22 beaker, AS-23 beaker)
Coordinates (approx.):	45° 51' 43.20" N, 11° 23' 49.20" E [from site]
Find date:	before 1881
Find circumstances:	stray find
Current location:	unknown (lost)
Inscription:	AS-2 (? iθθi)
Sources:	Fiorelli 1881: 154–155 Nalli 1895: 258 [No. 1] PID: 31–32 [No. 217]

Commentary

Fragment of a ceramic vessel. According to Nalli the foot of a ceramic vessel (cp. Nalli 1895: 258: "base di vaso di terra cotta").
Due to the fact that the potsherd can be considered to be lost, a detailed description, a classification of the ceramic type or further information related to the ceramic fragment must be left open.
On the fragment characters (cp. Fiorelli 1881: 154; Nalli 1895: 258). Fiorelli as well as Nalli publish the potsherd with particular focus on the inscription, but they give only a transcription of the inscription. However Fiorelli presents the transcription effected by Molon (cp. Fiorelli 1881: 154: "secondo la trascrizione mandatami dal predetto ispettore Molon"). Concerning the position of the characters Fiorelli indicates: "(...) con segni graffiti nell'orlatura della base" (cp. Fiorelli 1881: 154), Nalli states: "base (...) con segni grafiti [sic!] attorno la medesima (...)" (cp. Nalli 1895: 258).
Nalli mentions that the potsherd was found by himself together with a bone needle (cp. AS-13 needle) and the bottom of another ceramic vessel also with characters in the area of Bostel. An attribution of the latter with an object of the Raetic corpus is not possible anymore. Nalli gives no further information about find date or find context. Cp. Nalli 1895: 258: "Raccolta dell'Autore la quale trovasi nelle vetrine del Museo geologico e preistorico di Asiago, istituito dallo stesso Autore. 1. Base di vaso di terra cotta (...). 2. (...) altro vaso. 3. (...) spilla in osso (...)".
According to Leonardi and Ruta Serafini the analysis of the excavations and the material yields the following timeframe: related to the entire material and the residential structure discovered during the excavations of 1912 and 1969 only few facts date to the III periodo atestino. The major part dates to the 4th–2nd centuries BC (cp. Leonardi & Ruta Serafini 1981: 66). Therefore, due to the fact that the ceramic fragment comes also from Bostel, a dating to the 4th–2nd centuries BC -analogous to the other findings from Bostel- is to be favoured.
Formerly the ceramic fragment was preserved in the small museum Museo (Alpino) di Asiago which was directed by Giuseppe Nalli (cp. Nalli 1895: 258). The entire material kept in the museum got lost during the bombardements of the war years 1915–1918 (cp. Leonardi & Ruta Serafini 1981: 10). In consequence the museum was not reconstructed. Therefore Whatmough's statement that the object is lost and the inscription only documented in form of the transcription given by Molon and Nalli, is comprehensible (cp. PID: 30; for Molon cp. Fiorelli 1881: 154; for Nalli cp. Nalli 1895: 258). Also Pellegrini regrets the loss of the object and mentions the insufficient quality of Molon's and Nalli's transcription (cp. Pellegrini 1915: 122).
Concerning the findspot Bostel Fiorelli indicates the study of Molon "Popoli antichi e moderni dei sette comuni del Vicentino" from 1880 (in extended version: "Sui popoli antichi e moderni dei sette comuni del Vicentino" from 1881). In his study Molon refers to the discoveries made by Agostino del Pozzo 1739. In this year Agostino del Pozzo discovered on his own land ("nella sua patria") the remains of the antique Raetic settlement ("le traccie di molte antiche costruzioni") in Bostel ("in comune di Rotzo (uno dei sette comuni), e precisamente in contrada del Bostel"). In this regard Molon mentions that "in questa medesima località furono raccolti (...) altri frammenti fittili, uno dei quali con segni (...)" (Molon cited by Fiorelli, cp. Fiorelli 1881: 154) which represents the present potsherd. I.e. Fiorelli presents in his summary from 1881 an object with inscription which was reported to him by Molon. Molon himself, as excavator in Bostel at this time ("ispettore degli scavi", cp. Fiorelli 1881: 154), was informed by Nalli who found the object in any case before 1881 and who was the director of the museum in which the object was kept.
Because of the fact that the object is lost, no autopsy by the Thesaurus Inscriptionum Raeticarum is possible. For this reason the indications follow the information given in literature (cp. below the bibliography).

S.K.

Bibliography

Fiorelli 1881	Giuseppe Fiorelli, "VII. Rotzo", Notizie degli Scavi di Antichità (1881), 154–155.
Leonardi & Ruta Serafini 1981	Giovanni Leonardi, Angela Ruta Serafini, "L'abitato protostorico di Rotzo (Altipiano di Asiago)", Preistoria Alpina 17 (1981), 7–75.