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Wolf teeth found in ancient Venetii cremation burial
Four wolf teeth have been found in a pre-Roman cremation burial of the Venetii people in Padova, northern Italy. The deceased was almost certainly female, based on the traditionally female grave goods (a needle, a short knife used to work textiles rather than for hunting or combat, an awl), and the four canine teeth had been drilled, likely for use as pendants. Archaeologists believe the wolf teeth may have had symbolic meaning beyond just adornment and were worn as amulets.
The eastern necropolis was discovered in 1990 before a new student residence of the University of Padua was built at the location. The site was enormous, more than an acre in area, and archaeologists had to cover a lot of ground in a very short time. More than 320 tombs, most of them cremation burials, from the 9th century B.C. to the 3rd century A.D. were found in the necropolis, including the earliest graves of the Venetian people who founded what would become the city of Padua.
The importance of the site would not stop the construction (today it’s a residence and a subterranean parking garage), so in 1991 archaeologists had to pack up hundreds of burials up to 3,000 years old to rescue them from the bulldozer. The Venetii buried their dead in family groups, so burials were tightly packed and overlapping. They were removed in enormous soil blocks (much larger than the usually en bloc excavation), encased in wooden boxes, some reinforced with cement, and transported to a warehouse of the Archaeological Superintendency for the region of Veneto.
The first of the enormous “loaves of earth,” as they are called, were excavated in 1999. After a gap, excavations resumed in 2007 and 2009, but after that there was an even longer hiatus. until 2017. Since then, the necropolis boxes have been excavated on an annual basis, spearheaded by archaeologists from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.
So far the archaeologists have found two types of cremation context: a wooden box of which the imprints of the corners are all that remains, and a dolium, a massive earthenware pot used in antiquity as storage vessels. The dolia contain the cremated remains of the deceased and grave goods (ornaments of bronze, iron, bone and amber, ceramic pots, bowls, cups, glasses), many of them very rich.
Because decades have passed since they were originally removed, the silty clay of the soil blocks has become so compact and hard it is almost impermeable to water. It must therefore be excavated dry with only small jets of water directed to the soil alone, avoiding any contact with the ceramics. The ceramics are highly fragmented, and the dry scraping required to excavate the boxes often causes micro-cracks to expand. To ensure the finds stay in place for the meticulously documentation process, very thin Japanese paper is adhered to the fractured points with acrylic resin.
Today, Wednesday, September 25th, the excavation laboratory opens to the public for a one-time-only event to share the extraordinary excavation process and the discoveries with the general public.
You can see the wolf teeth emerge from the giant soil block in this Italian language video at 2:00 and 6:10. You can see the small knife and awl with one of the excavated wolf teeth at 7:35.
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