Langobard Lords in Central-Emilia: the cemetery of Spilamberto (Modena - Northern Italy)

The cemetery of Spilamberto (Modena), excavated by the Emilia-Romagna Department of Archaeological Heritage in 2003, chronicles the history of a small Langobard community that lived on the banks of the Panaro River from the end of the 6th to the early 7th century. A cemetery consisting of thirty graves containing men, women and children is all that remains of this noble clan that controlled the border dividing the land occupied by the Langobards from the areas still under Byzantine military control (which lasted no more than one generation). The funerary rites and burial artefacts, some of exceptional artistic quality and symbolic value, have provided important insight into their culture and lifestyle, as well as their relationships with the Roman populace. Warriors were buried with individual weapons which, in the Germanic tradition, signifed a free and fighting man. The female grave goods, that include bronze ware, an iron sella plicatilis with bronze damascened decorations, a disc brooch in silver gilt and a glass drinking horn, suggest an extensive commercial and cultural relationship with the Byzantine world. The family and social status of the female members is also emphasised by the burial, next to the graves, of three Nordic ponies, perhaps descendents of the same mounts that six centuries earlier accompanied the Winnili-Langobards during their first migration from southern Scandinavia to continental Europe.