The Daunians and opium

The castle of Manfredonia hosts the permanent exhibition of the Daunian stele (VIII – VI century BC).

The Daunian stele are so intriguing because they unveil the culture, the ordinary life of the Daunians living 2700 years ago.

The stele have been found during the ‘60ies around Manfredonia.

Silvio Ferri, archaeologist and member of Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, undertook the challenge of deciphering the stele.

He got involved thanks to Matteo Sansone, a chemist from Mattinata, who first realized the importance of such stele.

Silvio Ferri had figured out that the stele were conceived for funerary purposes.

From my point of view, one of the most original interpretation of stele is given by Maria Laura Leone, researcher and founder in 2001 of artepreistorica.com.

Some of the stele are polychrome, like the one below: red and black.

Such Stele can be divided in male and female ones.

The male ones are more simple as they describe males hunting or fighting.

The female stele are pretty sophisticated as they illustrate man sailing or fishing; women talking, or on procession, or even carrying out magic-therapeutic rituals.

A recurring element portrayed in female stele is opium, (papaver somniferum).

According to deamuseum “The earliest reference to opium growth and use is in 3.400 BC. When the opium poppy was cultivated in lower Mesopotamia. The Sumerians referred to it as Hul Gil “the joy plant”.

Opiates reports that Galen lists its medical indications, noting how opium "...resists poison and venomous bites, cures chronic headache, vertigo, deafness, epilepsy, apoplexy, dimness of sight, loss of voice, asthma, coughs of all kinds, spitting of blood, tightness of breath, colic, the lilac poison, jaundice, hardness of the spleen stone, urinary complaints, fever, dropsies, leprosies, the trouble to which women are subject, melancholy and all pestilences."

Daunians used opium for both shamanic and therapeutic purposes.

Therefore, the thesis of stele as funerary objects evaporates, if you consider that:

• just few stele have been found nearby Daunian tombs.  
• the surrounding of Daunian tombs have not returned a significant number of stele.
• the number of women stele overwhelm the male ones.

According to Maria Laura Leone, the stele reveal the Daunian pantheon.

Therefore, her thesis seems to me much more realistic.


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