The symbolic shape of the tumulus in the landscape musealisation

The meaning of “cultural patrimony” includes today both the objects and the popular traditions. Territory, local architecture, daily life uses and customs have been placed side by side to “dignified” finds in the role of testimony of the past. Such testimony is firmly connected to the territory and its landscape. In fact, the sites of archaeological interest, but mostly the prehistoric sites, are recognized not only for their intrinsic value, but also for the space that they represent. Today, a greater attention is paid to natural environment and there is a greater awareness that the “archaeological patrimony” assumes a connotation more and more tied up to the territory that identifies it. The interpretation of testimonies is now moved towards new models of communication, where the narration of the territory is englobed in an ampler narration of the landscape. A narration used for clearly snatching the anthropic interventions as intimately connected to the natural peculiarities of the context, in a circular relationship of mutual conditioning. Both prehistoric and ethnographic sites are exemplary resources of cultural transmission and communication, testimony of the relationship between sites and men, instruments for the recognition of the identity of a community in relation to its territory. Examples of musealisation of the landscape will be introduced, where the rielaboration of a traditional and symbolic structure, the tumulus, allows a perfect integration with the forms of the natural and anthropic landscape.