Identità di genere nella necropoli punica di Palermo: indicatori archeologici e dati antropologici.

Abstract

Many semantic fields should be explored when we approach the study of any necropolis context and among them certainly it deserves to be considered the issue relating to the “gender”, a term used not only from a biological point of view but in psychological and cultural sense too. A part of the whole data coming from the systematic excavation conducted in the last two decades in a part of Punic necropolis (barracks Tuköry), a small but significant portion of the vast cemetery located to the west of the ancient city, can be read according to this point of view. In addition to the analysis of grave goods and anthropological examination of the skeletal remains, some topographic features, ritual peculiarity, religious-eschatological aspects, types of burial help to overcome a partial interpretation of data based only on the number and quality of the grave goods of individual burial, a parameter that allow to distinguish between poor, less poor and rich burials, suggesting only the existence of a social community based on the economic potential of individuals.