ETRUSCANS
A History of the Etruscan people including their cities, art, society, rulers and contributions to civilization
By: Robert Guisepi
2002
Etruscans Archaeological Evidence
The lack of Etruscan literature and the widely acknowledged bias and contradictory accounts of Greek and Roman writers create a situation in which the careful study of the visible remains of the Etruscans is fundamental for understanding them. The archaeological contexts and the remains themselves (including pottery, metalwork, sculpture, painting, architecture, animal and human bones, and the humblest objects of daily life) fall into three basic categories: funerary, urban, and sacred. (There is sometimes an overlapping of these categories.)By far the largest percentage of material is funerary; thus there is a great deal of information about Etruscan ideas on the afterlife and on their attitudes toward the deceased members of their families. But there can be no doubt that the relatively scarce information about Etruscan settlements is also of great importance. The evidence of the well-preserved Etruscan city at Marzabotto (c. 500 BC) near Bologna (probably an Etruscan colony) reveals that the Etruscans were among the first in the Mediterranean to lay out a city with a grid plan; it was oriented according to the compass, emphasizing a principal north-south street and including one or more major east-west streets. The ritual involved in thus laying out a town, complete with walls, temples, and other sacred areas, was known to the Romans as the ritus etruscus. The system was commonly used by the Romans in laying out military camps and new cities and has survived in the center of many European cities today. Such rigidly organized town plans seem to have been rare in Etruria; more often one finds an irregular pattern resulting from the coalescence of villages in Villanovan times and the adaptation to the hills normally chosen as town sites.
In a sacred context, the Etruscan temple also often revealed a careful organization, once again with a system that was passed on to the Romans. In contrast to Greek temples, those of the Etruscans frequently showed a clear differentiation of front and back, with a columniated deep front porch and a cella that was flush with the podium on which it stood. The materials were frequently perishable (timber and mud brick, on a stone foundation) except for the abundant terra-cotta sculptures that adorned the roof. Especially well-preserved are the acroteria, or roof sculptures, from the Portonaccio temple at Veii (late 6th century BC) representing Apulu (the Etruscan Apollo) and other mythological figures.
Of a different order are the spectacular finds from the site of Poggio Civitate (Murlo) near Siena, where excavations (begun in 1966) have revealed a huge building of the Archaic period with rammed earth walls, measuring about 197 feet on each side and featuring a large court in the middle. It was adorned with life-size terra-cotta figures, male and female, human and animal; some of the figures wear a huge "cowboy" hat in the regional style. Authorities still disagree over the nature of the site and are uncertain whether the building was a palace, a sanctuary, or perhaps a place of civic assembly. Ordinary Etruscan houses, known from a number of sites, include oval-shaped huts from San Giovenale and elsewhere and structures with a rectilinear plan from Veii and Acquarossa (Archaic) and Vetulonia (Hellenistic).
As for the necropolises of Etruria, these, too, occasionally show signs of a grid plan, as at the Crocefisso del Tufo at Orvieto (second half of the 6th century BC) and at Caere. More often they have an irregular, agglutinative quality that reflects the site's long history of use. Because the Etruscans took great pains to make their relatives comfortable in a "house of the dead," the tombs suggest many details of actual Etruscan houses. Thus the tombs of Caere (especially those of the 6th century and later), carved underground out of the soft volcanic tufa so widespread in Etruria, have not only windows, doors, columns, and ceiling beams but also pieces of furniture (beds, chairs, and footstools) sculptured from the living rock. At Tarquinii, another tradition for tomb decoration led to painting the walls of the chamber with frescoes of Etruscan funerary celebrations, including banqueting, games, dancing, music, and various performances in a fresh outdoor landscape. The scenes probably served to commemorate actual funerals, but they also may have alluded to the kind of afterlife that was expected for the deceased. The Elysium-like concept of the afterlife prevailed in the Archaic period, but in the ensuing centuries one finds a growing emphasis on the darker realm of the underworld. Frescoes show its ruler, Hades (Etruscan Aita), wearing a wolf-skin cap and sitting enthroned beside his wife; demons and monsters populate this sphere. They may be seen in the remarkable Tomb of the Blue Demons (c. 400 BC), discovered at Tarquinii in 1987, or in the Francois Tomb from Vulci, where the blue-skinned devil Charu (only remotely resembling the Greek ferryman Charon) waits with his hammer to strike the deceased and take him away to the underworld. He sometimes has a gentler partner, the angelic winged figure of Vanth, who helps to ease the transition from life to death.
A perennial theme in the discussion of Etruscan material culture is its relationship to Greek models. The comparison is natural, indeed essential, in light of the massive amount of Greek artifacts, especially vases, which have been excavated in Etruria and the abundant examples of Etruscan imitations, of the pottery especially. It is also certain that Greek craftsmen sometimes settled in Etruria, as in the report by Pliny the Elder (1st century AD) about a Corinthian noble named Demaratus, who moved to Tarquinii, bringing along three of his own artists. But it is no longer appropriate to dwell naively on the "inferiority" of Etruscan art nor to insist that the Etruscans were mere imitators of the Greek art they undoubtedly prized. Instead, increasing emphasis is being placed on defining the highly original elements in Etruscan culture that exist side by side with the qualities that show their great admiration of things Greek.
In addition to their distinctive modes of designing a town or of building a temple or tomb, one may note their unique native pottery, bucchero (beginning c. 680 BC), with its decorative incision in a shiny black fabric; it is radically different from standard Greek vase decoration, which regularly featured paint and a contrast of red or cream and black. In metallurgy, their bronze mirrors, sometimes described as an Etruscan "national industry," featured a convex reflecting side and a concave side adorned with engravings of themes from Greek and Etruscan mythology and daily life. Etruscan fashion also had many unique elements such as a hem-length braid down the back (7th century BC), pointed-toe shoes (c. 575-475 BC), and the mantle with the curved hem known to the Romans as the toga (6th century BC and later). Finally, the Etruscans seem to have taken an early interest in reproducing the features of their honored relatives or officials (as in the funerary canopic urns from Clusium) and thus gave a major impetus to the development of truly realistic portraiture in Italy (especially in the Hellenistic period).
