Barberino memorial stone

Description

Gravestone number 8 was recovered around the mid-1960s at Il Piano, where the Stura and Lora streams flow into the Sieve. It is a 58-centimeter diameter spheroidal cippus made of light-gray sandstone. Unfortunately, there is extensive surface corrosion due to lying in a creek bed, and it is broken at the bottom. However, we can still notice the bas-relief decoration with overlapping horizontal friezes. In addition, we can recognize, from bottom to top: band with chain of rings, sandwiched between two horizontal laths; main register with choros, probably composed of only women represented in profile and in the act of holding hands; another band with chain of rings identical to the previous one; band with phytomorphic motif composed of a single chain of alternating lotus flowers. A reminder is then preserved of a cylindrical support at the bottom, perhaps the interlocking for embedding in a base. This cippus constitutes one of the oldest and most problematic specimens so far found. The decorative apparatus appears almost entirely foreign to the stone tradition; rather, it seems to be the prototype of later specimens widespread throughout the High Archaic period in the Chiusi area. This further strengthens the hypothesis that sees the Mugello-Florentine territory as one of the preferential routes for the trade undertaken with the Po Valley area and the northern part of the Peninsula.