Acknowledgements
At the end of this work, I am fortunate to have many people to thank for their valuable cooperation.
First of all, I would like to express my gratitude to the Editors of Brillâs âAncient Languages and Civilizationsâ series, Chen Zhi, Carlotta Viti, and Wang Xiang, for enthusiastically welcoming the volume proposal and for supporting and encouraging my endeavours at every stage in a highly positive spirit.
Academically, I have benefited from the vibrant intellectual environment I found at the Faculty of Civilisation and Forms of Knowledge at the University of Pisa in Italy. I am particularly grateful for the advice, comments and criticism of Professor Francesco Perono Cacciafoco, currently Associate Professor in Linguistics at Xiâan Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) at Suzhou in China.
I am also grateful to Salvatore Settis, former Director of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, for his advice. Over time, I have had the honour of receiving the comments and criticism of Paolo Ramat, Full Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pavia, Department of Cultures and Civilisations, and Paola Cotticelli-Kurras, Full Professor at the University of Verona, Department of Culture and Civilisations. I owe them our deep gratitude.
Special thanks are due to Wendy Logeman, Associate Editor for Languages and Linguistics at Brill, and Elisa Perotti for their availability and efficiency at all stages of the bookâs production; to the anonymous readers, for their very concrete suggestions, which helped us to improve the book as a whole both in form and content; to the proofreader and the editorial team at Brill for their expert work while preparing this volume for publication.
Without the many friends who encouraged and supported me, I would never have been able to complete this project, which began in 2015. In particular, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Mirella and Maurizio Barracco of the Old Calabria Foundation, Gregorio Aversa as Director of the National Archaeological Museum of Crotone, and Giuseppe Nicoletti as former Archaeologist for Crotone of the Superintendence for the Archaeological Heritage of Calabria.