Decorated Loom Weight

The loom weight has a truncated pyramidal shape and features several incised decorations. At the center of the larger face an evergreen tree (fir) is depicted, flanked on either side by two water birds shown in opposite, symmetrical positions. On the smaller face there is a cross-shaped motif composed of four stylized solar boats, drawn by water birds (probably swans).

This loom weight was found by Vincenzo Laviola on the steep slope below Rione Vecchio, in the area of Santo Cavalcatore, more precisely near the Straface stream. It probably fell there as a result of the collapse of part of the cliff of Rione Vecchio, where a settlement was located in protohistoric times (c. 1600–700 BC). The solar boat motif depicted on this loom weight belongs to the sacred and funerary sphere. During the Bronze Age, perhaps as early as around 1700–1600 BC, the cult of the Sun spread across continental Europe and the Mediterranean. The solar deity was believed to travel across the vault of the sky in a solar boat drawn by water birds (or alternatively in a chariot drawn by horses or other animals). For this reason, from at least around 1300 BC (Late Bronze Age), the decorative motif of the solar boat was represented on a wide range of objects, both ceramic and metal, distributed throughout Europe.