Southern Italian Peninsula Research Articles

In the summer of 1978, Mr John Hueston spent several days as a guest of our unit in Pisa. During the traditional visit to the Guarnacci Museum in Volterra, he was fascinated by an unusual anatomical deformity which was repeatedly displayed in the sculptured figures on the Etruscan cinerary urns, of which this museum has a large and famous collection. In many of the sculptured figures, the fingers of one hand, usually the left hand, had adopted the position known as “the sign of horns”, with the index finger and little fingers fully extended, the middle and ring fingers partially or completely flexed (Fig. I). The unusual position of the fingers, its repetition in so many of the sculptured Etruscan figures and the possible reasons why the museum in Volterra should house such a large collection were the main topics of conversation and argument on our way back to Pisa. Mr Hueston made us promise to investigate this enigma: this paper is an attempt to offer a possible explanation. The Etruscans inhabited a large part of the Central and Southern Italian peninsula, long before the Romans. Very little indeed is known for certain about their origin and nothing much can be made of their language “which even in antiquity was said to resemble no other known speech. Their sculpture was not of marble, but mainly in bronze, FIG. I. Cinerary urn in alabaster from the Guarnacci Museum in Volterra. The left hand, with the fingers in the “horned” position is supporting the lower jaw of the reclining figure.