Early Etruscan Research Articles

An Early Etruscan Toddler’s Grave in the Transitional Trench Tomb Cemetery of San Simone, San Giuliano (VT): Wealth, Status, and the Hopes of a Family

Abstract In this article, we report on a noteworthy early Etruscan trench tomb of a young child, most likely a girl, found intact within the cemetery of San Simone at the San Giuliano necropolis (Viterbo Province). The richly appointed grave contained the remains of a toddler aged 2–3 years, inhumed with wealth befitting an elite adult woman. Typically, the tombs of infants and young children are thought to portray status ascribed to their kin group. The objects interred in the grave reflect the high status of her kinship group, as well as her family’s aspirations for her and the social roles she was meant to have occupied if she had lived longer. Objects in the grave connect her to her ancestors and reveal her anticipated role in textile production and in facilitating and/or orchestrating politically important banquets, possibly even accompanied by sacrificial feasts. But this girl buried at San Giuliano may have been different in other ways as well. She likely looked different, probably having a cleft palate that may have led to her premature death. Some of the objects buried with her, particularly the amber pendant necklace, may have been meant to have curative or healing properties. Using an analysis of the construction of the grave, the osteological remains, and particularly the elaborate funerary assemblage, we explore this child’s expected roles in early Etruscan society and show how her family represented their connections to a broad range of communities across central Italy and beyond.

Gaming in Pre-Roman Italy: Characterization of Early Ligurian and Etruscan Small Pieces, Including Dice

An interesting assemblage of ancient ceramic materials connected or potentially connected with gaming activities has been characterized from the archaeometric point of view. The materials (washer-like pieces, small spheres, and cubic dice, with and without inscriptions) were found in the Villa del Foro excavation (Alessandria, Italy). They are related to the early Ligurian population of the site and their frequent contacts with Etruscan both in Etruria and in the Po Valley, in a period spanning the early VI century BC till the first half of the V century BC. Starting from the materials evidence, hypotheses are proposed concerning their possible use and cultural meaning. The studied cubic dice are discussed in the wider context of the pre-Roman diffusion of these objects.

An Etruscan Affair: The Impact of Early Etruscan Discoveries on European Culture

An Etruscan Affair: The Impact of Early Etruscan Discoveries on European Culture

Roman History

Identity studies live. This latest batch of publications explores what made not just the Romans but the Italians, Christians, and Etruscans who they were. We begin with both age and beauty, the fruits of a special exhibition at the Badischen Landesmuseum Karlsruhe in the first half of 2018 into the most famous of Roman predecessors, the Etruscans. Most of the exhibits on display come from Italian museums, but the interpretative essays that break up the catalogue – which are also richly illustrated – are by both Italian and German scholars. These are split between five overarching sections covering introductory affairs, the ages of the princes and of the city-states, the Etruscans’ relationship with Rome, and modern reception. The first contains essays treating Etruscan origins, history, identity, and settlement area. The second begins with the early Iron Age Villanova site, before turning to early Etruscan aristocratic culture, including banqueting, burials, language, writing, and seafaring. The third and longest section considers the heyday of Etruscan civilization and covers engineering and infrastructure, crafts and production, munitions, women's roles, daily life, dance, sport, funerary culture, wall painting, religious culture, and art. The fourth section treats both the confrontation between Etruscan and Roman culture and the persistence of the former after ‘conquest’ by the latter. The fifth section contains one essay on the modern inheritance of the Etruscan ‘myth’ and one on the history of scholarship on the Etruscans. Three aspects to this volume deserve particular praise. First, it includes not only a huge range of material artefacts but also individual essays on Etruscan production in gold, ceramic, ivory, terracotta, and bronze. Second, there is a recurring interest in the interconnections between the Etruscans and other cultures, not just Romans but Greeks, Iberians, Celts, Carthaginians, and other Italian peoples. Third, it includes the history of the reception of Etruscan culture. Amid the just-shy-of-200 objects included (almost every one with description and high-quality colour image), the reader can find everything from a mid-seventh-century pitcher made from an Egyptian ostrich egg painted with birds, flowers, and dancers (147), through the well-known third- or second-century bcTabula Cortonensis – a lengthy and only partially deciphered Etruscan inscription that documents either a legal transaction or a funerary ceremony (311) – to the 2017 kit of the Etruschi Livorno American Football team (364). Since we have no extant Etruscan literature, a volume such as this is all the more valuable in trying to get a sense of these people and their culture, and the exceptionally high production value provides quality exposure to material otherwise scattered throughout Italy.

Underworld Demons on an Early Fifth Century BCE Etruscan Black-Figure Stamnos from Vulci, now in Berlin

An Etruscan black-figure stamnos from Vulci, now in Berlin, has been overlooked since its brief description by A. Furtwängler in 1902. After establishing the vase’s affiliation with the workshop of the Group of Munich 883/Pittore dell’Ancile, which has been dated to the first quarter of the fifth century BCE and was active at Vulci, this study analyzes the iconography of the vase’s figural imagery. One side depicts a winged youth holding a fillet while the other contains a representation of a wingless figure holding a double axe and standing in front of a column. The article concludes by suggesting that these figures are early Etruscan representations of underworld demons. In addition, the axe holder may even be one of the earliest extant images of the death demon Charu(n) in Etruscan art, holding the forerunner of the hammer, his more well-known attribute.

Interpreting early Etruscan structures: the Question of Murlo

L'INTERPRETAZIONE DI STRUTTURE ETRUSCHE ARCAICHE: IL CASO DI MURLOL'analisi della datazione, l'estensione, la pianta e la posizione dell'edificio monumentale con cortile a Poggio Civitate (Murlo, provincia di Siena) indica la sua funzione di ‘centro commerciale in età pre-monetaria, in una regione non completamente urbanizzata. Essendo cosi visibile — una sorta di affermazione politico-economica — ed offrendo riparo e sicurezza ad un gran numero di persone o di merci, il ‘Murlo Upper Building’, una delle strutture più grandi dell'epoca (c. 575 a.C), caratterizzata da una progettazione innovativa e da una decorazione insolita, era stato progettato come parte di un sistema commerciale di prodotti su larga scala. La sua prossimitá ad una regione mineraria e il suo uso nella produzione di beni di lusso assortiti, cosi come il progetto di una struttura che funzionava come la ‘stanza del commercio’ dei moderni forti coloniali europei, conferma ulteriormente la sua funzione commerciale in un'era di contatti stranieri sempre più sofisticati e di cambiamenti sociali.

Servants at a Rich Man’s Feast: Early Etruscan Household Slaves and Their Procurement

Servants at a Rich Man’s Feast: Early Etruscan Household Slaves and Their Procurement

An Early Etruscan Terracotta Workshop: The Seated and Standing Statue Acroteria from Poggio Civitate (Murlo)

An Early Etruscan Terracotta Workshop: The Seated and Standing Statue Acroteria from Poggio Civitate (Murlo)

Early Etruscan Stone Sculpture

Early Etruscan Stone Sculpture

Studies in Early Etruscan Bucchero

Bucchero is a type of Etruscan pottery which is black, both on the surface and in the core. There are many different shades of grey to black which are still considered to be bucchero, but in all cases the core of the pottery must be ‘reduced.’ The process was discovered by the Etruscans, and gave rise to one of the most characteristic products of their culture.Bucchero varies enormously from period to period, from place to place. In this paper the period to be covered is approximately 650–600 B.C., during which the forms ofbucchero sottilewere established and developed in southern Etruria. The origins of these forms will also be sought in earlier periods, chiefly from the late eighth century onwards. Thebucchero pesanteof the sixth century, and later types continuing in the fifth, will not be considered here.

The Pronunciation of Latin qu and gu

When the Greeks borrowed the alphabet they took over the Semitic qoph as well as kaph, and they employed the former before back vowels (e.g. Corinthian hipolkes, Kapbv), but in the course of time p was crowded out by K. Scholars have inferred that the extra letter served no useful purpose, because there was no phonemic difference between K before back vowels and in other positions. Similarly the Etruscans borrowed both p and K from the Greeks, and on some early Etruscan inscriptions the use of q is limited in the same way as Gk. p, while k is used only before the vowel a. Etruscan, having no voiced mutes, employed c (from Gk. F) as a voiceless velar mute, and in later Etruscan this character crowded out the other two. Again we may infer that early Etruscan q, as well as k, did not represent a different phoneme from c. Early Latin inscriptions also show the three letters c, k, and q, and there is a tendency to distribute them in the early Etruscan manner. In the course of time k dropped out of standard use except in a few abbreviations, and again we infer that there was no phonemic distinction to be denoted by k. Standard Latin orthography, however, retained q in the digraph qu. We may therefore suspect that this digraph denotes something different from the sound of c plus the sound of consonantal u. Some of the Roman grammarians, to be sure, thought that q, as well as k, was a superfluous letter,' but their testimony about q is worth no more than the statement that h is a superfluous letter since it is a breathing (aspiratio); what these authors really have in mind is that the standard Greek alphabet has just one letter where the Latin alphabet has c, k, and q. Velius Longus 7.75.10 f. K suggests that qu was written instead of cu for the purpose of distinguishing words that would otherwise have been homographs:

X Represents a Sibilant in Early Etruscan

X Represents a Sibilant in Early Etruscan

Research Items

THE DOUBLE AXE IN ETRURIA.—In Man for November, Mr. J. A. Spranger has noted eximp1es of the ooeurrence of the double axe in Etruria in vase paintings merrary, urn reliefs, on bronze mirrors, as votive erings, on coins, in tombs, and on a grave stole with the view of their throwing light upon the Ægean or Asiatic origin of the Etrucans. It has, however, to be borne in mind that the occurrence of the cult does not necessarily mean that they brought it with them ab initio; it may have been introduced later in the course of their wide conimercial relations. The evidence is by no means extensive, and, further, any conclusion must be tentative and liable to be upset by further discoveries. It would appear that the double axe was known from early Etruscan times, as is shown by the unique grave stele in the Florence Museum,—the oldest inscribed Etruscan monument known, and the only one bearing an unmistakable double axe, Further, the later Etruscans were aware of its value as a symbol of Dionysus, and a weapon connected with sacrificial rites, It is, however, at Vetulonia that the best evidence is found of its symbolic value, where it occurs as an emblem of power with the iron fasces in “the Tomb of the Lictor.” Yet nowhere does it occur as a cult in the Cretan sense. It is rather evidence of ‘Mycenaan’ culture affecting the ancestors of the Etruscans.

The Form of the Early Etruscan and Roman House

The Form of the Early Etruscan and Roman House

Some Archaic Gold Ornaments with representations of Sphinxes and Sirens

1. In a recent description of an archaic Etruscan fibula here reproduced in natural size (Fig. 1), I regret that I failed to note certain interesting details with regard to the Sphinxes. The fibula is of pale gold, of a type peculiar to early Etruscan jewellery. It consists of two parts, each composed of four tubes ending in double female heads. In one case the outer tubes are furnished with long gold pins which fit into the hollow tubes corresponding to them in the other half of the fibula. There can be no doubt that these safety-pins were used for fastening a garment on the shoulder. The two halves were locked together by means of hooks and eyes soldered to rectangular plates hinged to the main body of the fibula. The tubes were also connected together by similar plates. The present fibula, which may be dated to the seventh century B.C., is said to have been found in the Roman Campagna. Upon the four rectangular plates already mentioned are seated sixteen Sphinxes in the round, four upon each plate. The eight Sphinxes on the outer plates are composed of the figure of a seated lion, with the head of a woman substituted for a wing.