The analysis of the iconographic-semantic structure of Daunian stelae with erotic scenes confirms: a) the symbolism of Daunian figurative art, b) its exclusive dependence upon Daunian mythology and c) distinctive Daunian presence in the Adriatic iconographic (artistic) koinè of 6th/5th centuries B.C. , Scenes on the first stele are based on the contrast between two themes - death (funeral vestment, procession, monster) and life (sexual act, animal, seed grinding). Scenes on the second stele are based on the same contrast; the ithyphallic character symbolizes the life, and the bird hunt alludes to higher (spiritual) states. The images of life (sex, animal, seed grinding, ithyphallic character), contrasted with the theme of death, became proper symbols of fertility and life vitality - that is, of Eros. Daunian Eros and Thanatos are the two clearly separated, and in the same time inseparably entwisted phenomena within the mythical-religious conception of the entirety (of life). Eros does not deny death. What he denies is only the finiteness of death. Death has never been denied; indeed, all the Daunian stelae persistently kept on demonstrating it. The firm evidences of death, through the episodes of the life as a whole, clearly open the way to immortality. The mythical dialectics Eros - Thanatos is not the key. for deciphering the entire Daunian figurative art, but it is the principle that pervades in Daunian eschatology (funeral ideology).
