PU-1 girdle plate

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Object
Proper name:	Gürtelblech von Lothen
Classification:	belt plaque
Material:	bronze
Size:	length 35 cm, width 12 cm, thickness 0.07 cm
Condition:	complete
Date:	beginning of the 5th century BC
Date derived from:	typology
Site:	Lothen / Campolino (fraction of: St. Lorenzen / San Lorenzo di Sebato, Bozen / Bolzano, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy)
Field name:	Burgkofel
Coordinates (approx.):	46° 47' 34.80" N, 11° 53' 13.20" E [from site]
Find date:	1940
Find circumstances:	construction works
Current location:	Museum Mansio Sebatum (on exhibition)
Inscription:	PU-1 (χa?φelzurieskalahepruśiahil(?)/klu?θurus)
Sources:	Lunz 1981b: 201, fig. 86 Dal Rì 1987: 177–178 (No. 730), fig. 304 Morandi 1999: 49-51 (No. 7)

Images

Object PU-1 girdle plate - front side.

Object PU-1 girdle plate with inscription PU-1 - rear side.

Commentary

Bronze belt plaque, complete, with figural decorations.
The central scene composed by two deers. The deer on the right end with large antlers looks downwards, probably browsing. Around the central scene a frame made of fine grooves.
On the back side an inscription.
Due to the figural decoration working which is adapted to the typology of the Situlae the belt plaque of Lothen dates to the 5th century BC.
Schumacher indicates the Stadtmuseum Bozen / Museo Civico di Bolzano as depository (with inventory nr. 2168; cp. Schumacher 2004: 186). However, the study and autopsy of the objects preserved in the museum by the team of the Thesaurus Inscriptionum Raeticarum have shown that the belt plaque is not kept there anymore. Probably the belt plaque is now preserved in the Amt für Bodendenkmäler Bozen / Ufficio Beni archeologici Bolzano. However, since the opening of the museum Museum Mansio Sebatum the belt plaque from Lothen is preserved and shown at the local permanent exhibition. See the official page of the museum (as at 30. October 2014). According to the information given by the official museum page the belt plaque was found in 1940, during construction works, below the Burgkofel.
So far not autopsied by the Thesaurus Inscriptionum Raeticarum. The indications follow the information given in literature (cp. below the bibliography).
S.K.

Bibliography

Dal Rì 1987	Lorenzo Dal Rì, "Influssi etrusco-italici nella regione retico-alpina", in: Raffaele De Marinis (Ed.), Gli Etruschi a nord del Po, Mantova: Regione Lombardia - Provincia e Comune di Mantova 1987, 160–179.
Lunz 1973b	Reimo Lunz, Ur- und Frühgeschichte Südtirols. Rätsel und Deutung, Bozen: Verlagsanstalt Athesia 1973.
Lunz 1981	Reimo Lunz, Archäologie Südtirols. Von den Jägern des Mesolithikums (um 7000 v. Chr.) bis zum Ende des Weströmischen Reiches (476 n. Chr.) [= Archäologische Forschungen in Tirol 7], Calliano (Trento): 1981.