In the Neolithic, a new stone processing technique appears, the polishing; it is practiced on the “green stone”, a generic term to indicate different rocks (eclogites and jadeites) characterized by particular strength. The best deposits are those of the western Alps, especially in the Monviso area: roughly-shaped or semi-finished pieces are already prepared near the quarries and axes made with this raw material have been found in various sites in Europe, up to 1800 kilometers. of distance.

A masculine object par excellence, the axes have a different function: those with a smooth cutting edge and spiked heel are used for deforesting or tilling the ground, those entirely polished, and sometimes obtained from the precious jadeite, are destined for the funerary objects of prominent individuals.

There are four bronze collars (whose diameter goes from 16 to 20 cm) donated in 1877 to the Museum of Antiquities by the Marquis Erminio Lalatta, who had found them in Fraore. It is likely that originally there were more (maybe 6?) And that not all of them were delivered. They undoubtedly constituted a "closet", ie a group of bronze objects intentionally hidden.

In the early Bronze Age, corresponding to the first centuries of the second millennium BC, most of the metal objects rather than carrying out a practical function constituted a status symbol for the few privileged owners. At the same time, bronze objects could, almost like today's ingots, constitute a "store of value"; hence the frequent use of concealing more or less conspicuous groups of artifacts.

In Emilia Romagna there are about ten known storerooms; they are distributed (it seems almost systematically) along the foothills of the region and most of them are made up of axes or daggers. That of Fraore is therefore an exception, being the only set of collars found south of the Po; “Treasures” of this type are in fact widespread only between Lombardy and southern Switzerland.

For a long time the storerooms were considered "reserves" of merchant-smelters, also due to their distribution along important traffic routes. Today, even without completely rejecting the hypothesis of their economic significance, we prefer to think that they were "votive deposits intended to mark the possession of a territory or to sanction pacts between two neighboring communities".

The ancients appreciated the transparency and bright color, varying from yellow to red-brown of amber pearls, one of the most appreciated valuable assets in prehistory, fossil resin formed millions of years ago and found mainly along the Baltic Sea, but they attributed it also magical properties and therapeutic virtues.

The use of amber began in the early stages of prehistory, but intensified considerably in the Bronze Age (2nd millennium BC) when, along the great rivers and Alpine passes of the Resia and Brenner, it reached southern Europe and, above all, , the Mycenaean world, in whose richest tombs thousands of pearls have been recovered. Northern Italy would have played a leading role in this trade to the Aegean.

Several amber pearls (“vaghi” is the archaeological term) have also been found in the inhabited areas and in the terramaricolous necropolises, dated between about 1600-1150 BC; intended only for high-ranking women, they were used in necklaces or as “fold-stops” for the bronze pins that closed the dresses.

Splendid disc from the terramara of Castione Marchesi (about 1650-1150 BC), obtained from the deer's antlers.

The entire surface of the disc is carefully engraved with patterns of concentric lines, wavy lines alternating with small dots and lines formed by dots. Eight small circular and shallow recesses probably contained amber plaques, while another plaque could perhaps have been inserted in the centre. It is a unique object among the thousands of horn artefacts found in the terramare and, over time, has given rise to various interpretations

Archaeologists have linked some discs in gold foil found in very distant areas to the solar cult practiced in the Bronze Age. A small bronze group was found in Denmark, consisting of a chariot pulled by a horse and surmounted by a disc covered with gold foil: it dates back to the mid-15th century BC and is considered the first representation of the sun's journey through the vault celestial well known in classical mythology.

Other embossed decorated gold foil discs have been found in the terramaricola area and in other localities, including an important Bronze Age village in southern Italy; it is thought that these plates were applied to perishable supports (perhaps wood) and used in ritual practices.

Although made of a less valuable material than gold, it is possible that the horn disk of Castione Marchesi also had a similar function; the possible presence of amber (precious material with a color between yellow and gold) could further confirm this interpretation.

Combs of the terramare: the inhabitants of the terramare (about 1650-1150 BC) reveal great skill and refined taste in the processing of the stag.

From the stage, which falls spontaneously in early spring, they obtained a wide range of objects, robust and used for example in agricultural activity, or elegant and decorated for personal adornment. The process, which involved numerous steps, was carried out with stone, bronze, bone and leather tools. Despite the evident high technical level, we archaeologists are not yet able to establish whether each family independently made the different objects or if at least a part was produced by specialized craftsmen.

The terramara mastery is evident in the variety of shapes and decorations of the many combs found in the terramara of Castione Marchesi. Unlike what we would be led to imagine, their use was not limited to the hair: the differences found in the teeth (both in terms of construction technique, and for the presence or absence of signs of wear) reveal that some were used on hair, others instead during weaving activities to tighten the weft of the fabrics, whose fibers have left unmistakable wear.

The Etruscan lady of Fraore: in 1864, along the Via Emilia and not far from crossing the Taro river, the first Etruscan site in the Parma area was found. The objects recovered and exhibited in the museum are extraordinary, but the news of the time is unfortunately sparse: they speak of a "burial mound", therefore of an imposing tomb, which goes well with the richness of the finds.

The kit included the typical symposium service, with two knives and an iron spit, bronze vases of different sizes and shapes (to mix and mix water and wine) and a gold and silver jewelery set, consisting of a ring, earrings and "fibulae" (brooches for suits). The shapes of the jewelry reveal inspiration (or origin?) From different areas. The earrings, in gold with a female head termination and applied granules, immediately appear to us Etruscan and just as typical of the Etruscan area of Felsina (today Bologna) are also the two simpler silver fibulae. The other large silver fibula and the two gold fibulae are much more elaborate: the "meandering" arch and the "crease stop" disc were in vogue among women's accessories in north-western Italy, an area of non-Etruscan culture , but Celtic.

The tomb therefore belonged to a high-ranking woman who probably lived, between 450 and 400 BC, in one of the small settlements that have recently been identified in the same area.

Some aristocratic families must have resided in these inhabited areas who, in addition to having land tenure on the territory, exercised control over the main traffic routes along which exchanges between the Etruscan and Celtic worlds ran.

The funerary relief of Amenemone in painted limestone, coming from Memphis, is one of the most beautiful pieces of the Egyptian collection of the Museum: formed starting from 1826 under the good auspices of the Duchess Maria Luigia, it amounts to about 200 objects, carefully selected by the director Michele Lopez.

Amenemone is represented with a rich wig, Osirian lace, a necklace of the value with four turns; the left hand holds an ostrich feather, representative of the position of fan-holder to the right of the Pharaoh, Amenophis III (ca. scribe of the King, in charge of the work in the temple of Ra, general in chief of the army, chief of the archers and butler of the temple of Men-keper-ra. His name, which does not appear in our fragment, can be deduced from two reliefs from the same tomb, today in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.

Oltos Cup: purchased by the Museum in 1839, this magnificent Attic red-figure kylix is one of the most famous specimens in the Museum's collection of Greek ceramics; not only does it belong to the golden age of the production of these vessels (it can be dated to 520-510 BC), but it has been attributed to one of the key personalities of the first red-figure production, the painter Oltos.

This Attic pottery maker, operating approximately in the last twenty-five years of the sixth century. to. C., is one of the central personalities of the first generation of red-figure painters: the works assigned to him by the most famous scholar of Attic ceramics, JD Beazley, exceed a hundred and others have been added in recent times, even if only two they are the specimens that bear his signature. During his career, he collaborated with various potters and preferred epic themes from the Trojan cycle and Dionysian subjects, brilliantly and accurately painting rapid, vehement and very vital figures.

A dancer is represented at the center of our cup: she wears a chiton with bold transparencies, of which she holds a flap in her right hand, while in her outstretched left hand she holds a twig made in brown paint and almost disappeared; she wears a drop earring and an ornate headband in her hair. The woman represented is probably a hetaera, a highly cultured "courtesan" dedicated to music, dance and poetry, the only female figure allowed in Greek symposiums, for the pleasure of men.

The statue of Germanicus in Luni marble belongs to the sculptural cycle found in the eighteenth century in the Basilica of Veleia (PC). The subject is the only one represented in military dress, but the portrait head (perhaps to be identified with Nerva) is not pertinent and was already replaced in antiquity.

To identify the character to whom it was originally dedicated, the symbols represented on the armor can perhaps help us, in particular the animals represented on the fringes. The elephant, lion and capricorn were in fact the symbols of some legions stationed on the Rhine border, in Germany, which in 14 AD rebelled against Rome but were then pacified by Germanicus and led in a series of victorious expeditions beyond the Rhine, for which he was granted the triumph in AD 17.

Germanicus, valiant commander and designated successor to the imperial throne (but who died prematurely in 19 AD), would thus be dutifully honored in Veleia alongside the figures of Augustus, Livia (his paternal grandmother), his father Drusus Major, his uncle Tiberius and his cousin Drusus Minor.

This magnificent portrait was found in Veleia (Lugagnano Val d'Arda, PC) on April 28, 1760, near the western entrance staircase of the city's basilica, not far from the place of discovery of the famous Tabula Alimentaria: it depicts a young woman with head slightly inclined to the right and very accurate facial features; the hair is short, combed back, and originally must have been completed by a high tuft swollen on the forehead, as was the fashion at the end of the first century. B.C

The detail of the short hair, unusual for Roman women, suggests that the young woman could have had a religious role, while the completely exceptional case of the dedication of a bronze portrait to a girl has suggested that it could be Baebia Bassilla, remembered on an inscription of Veleia in marble for having given the city an entire portico on the main square.

The bronze sculpture, an indirect hollow casting with lost wax, with eyes made of chalcedony, is a production of the end of the first century. BC of local workshops.

The Trajan food tabula is a bronze inscription found near Veleia, in the Piacenza municipality of Lugagnano, and preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Parma. It is the largest inscription from the Roman era, measuring 1.38 m in height by 2.86 in width. Its discovery took place in 1747, during the work of arranging a field, dismembered and sold for fusion by the archpriest of Mucinasso (PC), the pieces were recovered, reassembled and, on behalf of Pietro De Lama, restored in 1817 by Pietro Amoretti, the discovery started the excavations which in 1760 brought to light the ruins of Veleia. A copy is present in the Antiquarium of Veleia. The institution of the Alimenta, wanted by the emperor Trajan and remembered by a relief found in the Forum of Rome and exhibited in the Roman Curia, consisted of a mortgage loan granted to landowners -obligatio praedorium- whose interest was donated to the maintenance of poor children, with the twofold aim of increasing agricultural activities and supporting poor families to counteract the depopulation of the countryside.

The bas-relief in flowered alabaster (stone of great value from western North Africa) arrived in the Museum in 1768 following the purchase of the collection of the Jesuit Luigi Canonici. Perhaps coming from Rome, it must originally have been the umbilicus of a circular basin with a diameter of about two meters.

The highly stylized antennae or crayfish legs protruding from the subject's head allow him to be identified with the god Oceanus: non-personified origin of all things in the Homeric Iliad, pater rerum and creative force of nature in Virgil, limit of human space , Ocean maintains a privileged relationship with the stars, being the element in which they set and from which they rise again; it precedes the generation of the Olympic gods and represents the fruitful force of flowing water, which uniting with Teti has generated Uranus (the sky) and Gea (the earth) and which feeds all the seas, rivers and springs. As a symbol of fecundity, rebirth and limitation of the known world, Oceanus becomes part of mystery cults of oriental origin, as an image of the vastness of the Roman empire, it falls within the political symbology of Augustus, but it is in the Severan age that the representation of the god knows its greatest diffusion.

Stylistic comparisons allow us to date our bas-relief between the end of the 2nd and the beginning of the 3rd century AD: its iconographic model comes from Egypt and is relaunched in the West by the portraits of the emperor Septimius Severus.

The elegant bronze oil lamp, datable to the 2nd century, perhaps produced in workshops in southern Italy, was found in 1953 in the area of today's Convent of the Ursuline Sisters, in Via Cavestro (PR), together with about forty other objects in bronze hidden inside a large terracotta vase and then buried as a "treasure" following the political-social and economic crisis that hit the Roman Empire in the third century. A.D

The lamp has the shape of a foot shod by a sandal with knotted bands, closed on the front by a Gorgon's head element, caught in the act of trampling on a moth, perhaps to recall the function of the object itself, whose light was able to drive away the darkness.

This magnificent disc fibula represents one of the most beautiful examples of Lombard goldsmithing from the 7th century AD, as part of the grave goods of a female burial found in Borgo della Posta in Parma in 1950.

The gold disc is decorated with garnets and almandine stones, cut and set in a golden cage with irregular edges and thin enough to make the gold shine against the background; the decoration is divided into three circular crowns distinguished by different geometric motifs; the second band houses small gold plates decorated with a burin, while the outermost and central ones were embellished with large gems, of which only the circular bezels remain, already lost at the time of the discovery.

The rich set also included two gold rings, a gilded mercury belt element, a necklace made up of two gold foil bullae and elements in various materials (amethyst, sea water, rock crystal, glass paste, bone and terracotta), five gold plates decorated in embossing and a thin gold thread (intended to decorate the dress), a cross in thin gold plate (probably sewn onto the veil of the deceased) and a large bronze basin, Coptic invoice.

The richness of this burial and the presence of the basin, connected to baptismal rites, made Giorgio Monaco (then director of the Archaeological Museum) hypothesize that the important female character could be none other than the daughter of Agilulfo, married to Godescalco of Parma and died in childbirth in AD 604; although only a suggestive hypothesis, the grave goods can actually be dated to the first quarter of the seventh century and are undoubtedly much richer than was usual in the Lombard age, such as to be attributed to a woman of high rank.

The press conference was held on 30 July 2020 to present a preview of the museum showcase with the exhibition of an "Acheulean double-sided" and Paleolithic flints, which was attended by the Director Simone Verde, the President of the Amici della Pilotta association Ombretta Sarassi, the archaeologist Flavia Giberti and the architect Claudio Bernardi, who oversaw the design. An illuminated donation from the Associazione degli Amici della Pilotta delivered to the Monumental Complex of the Pilotta the amazing flint defined by experts as "Acheulan double-sided", dated around half a million years ago, thus contributing to the expansion of the collections of the Archaeological Museum Nazionale della Nuova Pilotta, established in 1760 by Duke Filippo di Borbone. The find, placed in the center of the showcase, surrounded by several dozen Paleolithic flints from finds in the Parma area, cannot fail to capture every eye and is visible from the road, just past the portal, preceded by the marble funerary lions of the I - II sec. A.D.

The very famous "goddess" of Vicofertile (almost 20 cm high) was placed in a female tomb dated to the mid-fifth millennium BC. Interestingly, it was made using multiple manufacturing and finishing techniques. The trunk seems to have been molded, that is, by molding the clay against a wooden back; for the lower part of the legs, masses of clay were added; arms and nose are applied. The details are made with small or large removals of clay parts (hair and a triangle under the breasts), with incisions (eyes, fingers), with light grooves (clothes and ornaments?). At the end the white coloring was added. The elaborate execution contrasts with drying and cooking, carried out quickly, without respecting the time necessary to guarantee the object durability and strength.

We can therefore imagine that these last characteristics were not necessary for the statuette, destined for a burial. In various respects it is similar to Neolithic figurines from Eastern Europe: here the woman seated on a throne or stool recalls an important divine figure, referable to the regenerative forces of the Earth, while the white color on objects related to burials (white which we know to be even today the color of mourning in Eastern cultures) perhaps had the task of restoring "vitality to what death has torn away".