Abstract
Abstract –. On the walls of the painted tombs of the late archaic period in Tarquinia, there are many motifs which could be thought as conventional, or even as simple filling ; other subjects on such walls might look as gratuitous, if not incongruous, without any connection with each other nor with the rest of the paintings, so that their coherence appears questionable. Analysing a few cases shows that the funerary message really takes its full meaning only through the introduction of such, apparently incoherent, details, through the way they are staged in the space of the funerary room and through the topographical and semantic relations uniting them. Therefore, the tombs of Tarquinia appear as genuine pictorial cycles, where very few motifs are superfluous and where what looks like «horror vacui » hides a meaningful overflow, a complex reality where both social and eschatological reading levels are intertwined, and where the influence of Dionysiac ideology is particularly strong in the second half of the 6th-century B. C.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: Ktèma : civilisations de l'Orient, de la Grèce et de Rome antiques
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
