Marchesini S., Migliavacca M., Numbers and letters as tools of production processes in Iron Age: the case of the weight looms in ancient Lessinia (Northern Italy), in “Bollettino del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Verona”, 40, Geologia Paleontologia Preistoria: 53-66

In the Iron Age of the Italian Peninsula almost all the civilizations have developed a proper counting/number system, partly inherited – together with the alphabet – from the Greeks, partly autonomously developed. The Authors have analysed an advanced sign system connected with a class of objects referred to the textile production in Northern Italy during the second Iron Age (end of the 5th-1st Century B.C.). In the Lessinia Mountains, to the north of Verona, they could analyse 80 stone loom weights (from 1 to 2 kg heavy) presenting a varied repertoire of inscribed signs. It was possible to recognize a group of base signs, partly alphabetic, partly naturalistic or symbolic, varied by small diacritical marks. Authors argue that a similar sign system can represent the trace of quantitative/ qualitative inputs connected with the production, not only of textile, but also of other classes of artefacts.