Late Archaic funerary painting in Greek and native Apulia

Painted tombs are attested in several sites across Southern Italy from the end of the sixth century BC. This paper explores the earliest development of funerary painting in Southeast Italy, where at least seven Late Archaic painted burials have been found in Greek and native contexts. It argues that in Apulia funerary painting originated as a Greek practice and was rapidly adopted and re-elaborated by some native elite groups in Messapia and Peucetia as part of a process of selective assimilation of Greek culture. Painted tombs imitated the decoration of sacred and, possibly, domestic architecture, while figural motifs reveal additional influences from vase painting. Funerary painting was used by Greek and native elites as a strategy of social and ethnic self-representation in circumstances of local and regional tension, and its development reflects the dynamics of contact and conflict between Tarentines and Japygians during the Late Archaic period. The paper also discusses the factors that led to the sudden decline of Apulian funerary painting after the 470s BC, in connection with major political and military events that radically altered power dynamics in the region.