Confronti e spunti per i pesi da telaio romani del Ferrarese

The present study analyses a group of fictile loom weights dating back to the Roman age, recovered in the area of Bondeno (Ferrara Province). On the main face of these pyramids a series of symbols or alphabetical characters is drawn. In particular, the most interesting character is the clustering of a series of different symbols without any apparent mutual link among them. The prevailing figure is the so-called “ramo secco” (withered branch), that here is thought to be a kind of conifer characterizing the Celtic ethnicity settled in this geographic area up to the 2nd century B.C. A number of comparisons was found to be available all over the main core of the Po-river alluvial plain and from the surrounding regions, i.e. Veneto, Lombardia and Trentino Alto Adige. This kind of interpretation appears to be partly supported by onomastic elements and, above all, by a conspicuous series of iconographic elements of comparison existing in the transalpine Gaul, i.e. the original settlement area of the Celtic people. It is noteworthy, in fact, that the central area of the Po plain probably was the settling zone of the Padinates ethnical group, whose name was recalling the form of the conifer trees living all around the catchment divide of the big river, as explicitly recorded by Pliny the Elder