An exhibition in Varese on the latest discoveries on the Bronze Age pile dwelling civilization

The Municipality of Varese, in collaboration with the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the provinces of Como, Lecco, Monza e Brianza, Pavia, Sondrio and Varese, presents The Pile-Dwelling Civilization | The Virginia Islet and the Varese Lakes between 5600 and 900 B.C., a major exhibition project that will be open to the public at the Villa Mirabello Archaeological Museum, Civic Museums of Varese for more than 1 year, from July 28, 2021 to September 4, 2022. The exhibition aims to illustrate the most recent knowledge acquired in the field of pile-dwelling and to display the results of research conducted from the 1990s until today in the settlements of the Varese area.

Curated by Dr. Barbara Cermesoni and Dr. Daniela Locatelli, the exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the City of Varese and the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the provinces of Como, Lecco, Monza e Brianza, Pavia, Sondrio and Varese, under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture, the Lombardy Region and the Varese Chamber of Commerce.

The Municipality of Varese, owner ofIsolino Virginia, the oldest pile-dwelling site in the Alps, is celebrating with this exhibition the 10th anniversary of the UNESCO transnational serial site “Prehistoric pile-dwelling sites in the Alps” by presenting the above discoveries: the Isolino Virginia and Bodio Centrale in Lake Varese and the Sabbione in Lake Monate. Finds preserved in the museum’s repository and in the Superintendency’s repository, among others, will be on display; the helmet from the “Malpensa repository,” which will become part of the museum’s collections thanks to the repository granted by the Superintendency, will also be presented to the public for the first time after restoration.

Projections, interactive screens and reconstructions of dwelling interiors and a Bronze Age plow will allow visitors to “feel part” of the world of our ancestors. The exhibition is divided into seven sections: the first section, titled An environment in continuous transformation, consists of an immersive room that will illustrate to visitors the variations that characterized the environment from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age: variations due to natural changes in the climate but also to the action of man, who with the practice of agriculture began to affect the environment in an increasingly evident way. The second section In the middle of the lake rise wooden platforms fixed on top of long piles(Herodotus, Histories, V, 16) will provide a chronological framing of the pile-dwelling phenomenon, tell how the reconstruction of this type of building has changed from the nineteenth century to the present and what methods are most commonly used to carry out dating. The third section Many relics are discovered of those people who first inhabited this land of ours(Camillo Marinoni, Le abitazioni lacustriri e gli avanzi di umana industria in Lombardia) will make it clear to the visitor what the building models of the pile dwellings were, what finds help thearchaeologist in this reconstruction (wooden poles and planks, remains of clay plaster with the traces of walls built with reeds, remains of hearths) and what the tools were that enabled man to build the dwellings. Of particular importance among these is the axe: first made of greenstone, then copper and finally bronze, it is the tool that enabled man to cut plants and work with wood. Other artifacts will tell the story of daily life in the pile dwellings of the Varese area.

The fourth section The UNESCO serial site “Prehistoric pile-dwelling sites of the Alps” presents the Italian pile-dwelling sites that have been included in the UNESCO serial site. Through an interactive whiteboard the visitor will be able to select the sites and have the main information about them accompanied by pictures and films. An invitation to get to know and visit a very important cultural heritage. In the fifth section, titled Look, the heifers bring back plows suspended from the yoke(Virgil, Eclogue II, v. 66), at the center of which will be placed a reconstruction of aBronze Age plow (an instrument symbolic of an agriculture that allowed man to obtain a good part of his sustenance from the land) and the subsistence activities of the communities that lived in the Varese area will be illustrated. Room 6 will allow the visitor to enter a Bronze Age village, observing the dwellings of the men of the time, the area outside the village where metal smelting was carried out, and an area on the lakeshore where a sword was offered to a water deity. The exhibition itinerary will end in Room 7 where the “Malpensa hoard” will be displayed: a collection of heterogeneous bronze materials (skins, spearheads, sickles, axes, ornaments) found in Somma Lombardo. Either the deposit of a smelter craftsman or an offering to the deities, it constitutes one of the most significant complexes in northern Italy and also includes a helmet, preserved until now at the Superintendence and recently restored. Visitors will thus be able to admire the “hoard” in its entirety for the first time. Dated to the Final Bronze Age, the “Malpensa hoard” belongs to a world that is no longer already that of the pile dwellings but in many ways heralds the birth of a new world: that of the Golasecca Celtic culture.

There are numerous related events: guided tours, workshops for schools, demonstrations of experimental archaeology and a specialized conference dedicated to presenting the latest research in the pile-dwelling field in November.

Guided tours for schools and groups by reservation with Archeologistics, to be contacted at the following numbers: phone +39 328.8377206; email: info@archeologistics.it.

The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio for the provinces of Como, Lecco, Monza e Brianza, Pavia, Sondrio and Varese under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture, the Lombardy Region and the Varese Chamber of Commerce.

For all information you can visit the official website of the Varese Civic Museums.

Pictured: flint and rock crystal vases and tips reconstructed by Cristiano Brandolini(BranArt)

An exhibition in Varese on the latest discoveries on the Bronze Age pile dwelling civilization

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