Sacro e bottega: Riflessioni su alcuni bolli da Tarquinia

The well of the ‘monumental complex’ of Tarquinia was sealed by means of a ritual action, as shown by an enormous number of impasto and black-painted pottery. A large number of vases bear inscriptions with repeated texts, which are also stamped. This evidence provides the appropriate context for meditating on the meaning of stamped ceramics, since the same type of stamp – showing as usual the initial part of a text, which we will read as fle and fla – was found elsewhere in the same sacred area. This could provide new tools in addition to those normally used in the study of the artisanal production, which generally focuses on the assumption that stamps are exclusively used to define ateliers. Thus, this contribution follows an archaeological and contextual perspective and focuses on the same provenance of the stamps in order to touch upon the level of their possible pragmatic content in the dynamics of religious practice.