Etruscan pottery

Heroes and Demons entered the northern Mediterranean culture between 600 and 500 BCE when the culture was transforming from the magical Ancient Pagan Paradigm to a lordified Paradigm which forced deity personification making them lords in a royal pantheon instead of powers. This caused an explosion in the number of deities and other divine realm actors like the hero Heraklez (Hercules). This time of transition was when the poems of the Iliad and Odyssey were first composed so they are much later than many think. Yet the deity as a power or principle continued on in Greek philosophy. This was also the time when the new writing direction of left to right first appeared in Etruria and Greece alongside the more traditional right to left direction. The new writing direction was used as labels to describe the new artistic level images starting to appear on pottery and on the walls of tombs. This left commentary to the original writing direction. Because Akkadian was not the spoken native language of these areas, many of these Alphabetic Akkadian labels became proper deity, hero, demon, and spirit names in their native languages This is how the names of "Athena" and "Herakles" entered history. Heraklez (original spelling) was a defender of life powers against corruption by the magical motion powers. His name means "Hu's realm restrainer of lunar-energy." In contrast, the word "Athena" simply means "motion power." The original Etruscan Heraklez wore a lion skin and did not wield a club. This lion skin did not become a lion skin shield until 50 years later. Deities mentioned in these texts are Hu, Yahu. Opener (Ayu), and Shepherd (Su).

Lo scavo di una nuova tomba a casetta a Norchia ha restituito un corredo di 17 vasi di IV-III sec. a.C. L'operazione ha rappresentato un caso di felice sinergia tra pubblico e privato e ha restituito alla comunità un corredo oggi esposto al Museo Archeologico della Rocca Albornoz a Viterbo.

The present text provides an example of “metadisciplinary” approach.
Approach to what? Here’s an important point: we don’t know. It depends on the observer, like in a daydream quantum vision of fluctuating reality. Are we trying to keep dynamic kids out of trouble or are we helping them to become responsible citizens? Are we making pottery with them, or promoting an academic scoop: unveiling the original aspect of an Etruscan bucchero? Are we just having fun mocking the unbreakable certainties of the experts, or do we really mean to tell them that their whole approach to ancient arts, religions and societies should be revisited, through this one example? We don’t know what we are doing. That’s typical of any metadisciplinary activity, yet if we consider one “disciplinary field”, Etruscan pottery, our ‘lack of specialization’, or ‘holistic vision’, has brought an understanding that badly lacks in experts, unable to see, and preserve, the original aspect of a bucchero.
This text was published twenty years ago and got vast distribution in various forms in Italy, where nothing has changed in that regard, except for us: we do not use the term “interdisciplinary” anymore. It too often indicates a competition among experts. The term “metadisciplinary” promotes a paradigm shift in which the single disciplines are humble enough to disappear, just like length and width combine & disappear in a new being: the Surface. Pottery and metallurgy had to combine & disappear, in order to re-discover the original appearance of an Etruscan bucchero, just like algebra and geometry combined & disappeared in the Cartesian coordinate system (Cfr. The Metadisciplinary School Project. Excerpt available on this page of Academia.edu).

La città umbra di Orvieto – l’etrusca Velzna, in seguito Volsinii per i popoli di lingua latina – si staglia sul territorio circostante dalla cima di una scoscesa rupe tufacea dominante la valle del fiume Paglia, affluente del Tevere, a un’altezza compresa entro 280 e 325 m s.l.m. In epoca classica e tardoantica l’estrema pendenza del pianoro rendeva praticamente inaccessibile l’area urbana, fungendo egregiamente da fortificazione naturale.

Dal 2000 sono condotte, su oltre tre ettari di superficie, campagne di scavo annuali dirette da Simonetta Stopponi. È ormai opinione diffusa tra etruscologi che a Campo della Fiera vada collocato il principale santuario federale degli Etruschi, rammentato cinque volte dallo storico romano Tito Livio e menzionato con l’appellativo di «Fanum Voltumnae»; pur senza specificarne la città ospitante, indizio dell’antica notorietà del luogo, la cui localizzazione, a lungo oggetto di dispute erudite, tornò in auge tra gli umanisti quattrocenteschi.

La ceramica argentata etrusca è una tipologia vascolare che prende il nome dal rivestimento stagnato di colore grigio chiaro lucente che ricopriva la superficie dei manufatti per riprodurre l’effetto di una superficie argentata.
La produzione vascolare volsiniese, oggetto di questa trattazione, è conservata in numerose istituzioni museali nazionali ripartite tra Lazio, Umbria e Toscana. L’Università degli Studi di Firenze, in collaborazione con la Soprintendenza e il Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze, sta lavorando alla progettazione di un museo interattivo all’interno del quale riunire non soltanto la collezione di ceramica argentata volsiniese del museo fiorentino ma anche i nuclei presenti nei Musei dell’Etruria sopracitati.
La creazione di un unico «contenitore» in cui inserire virtualmente le riproduzioni tridimensionali dei manufatti consentirà agli utenti, infatti, di visionare i reperti attualmente non presenti all’interno dell’esposizione museale oppure di effettuare una serie di confronti tra produzioni vascolari provenienti da sedi museali e siti archeologici diversi o, ancora, di raggruppare i manufatti in base alla loro morfologia, al motivo decorativo oppure all’area di provenienza a seconda dell’interesse dell’utente.

Szilágyi János György-emlékkönyv 1./The life interview (and other sources) with the doyen of classical philology and archeology, etruscology and vase painting, the student of Kerényi, the member of the Stemma, the leading classical scholar of ancient art history and museologist in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, part one, with preface of Géza Komoróczy / A Szilágyi János György ókortudós, klasszika-archeológus emlékének szentelt összeállítás első kötete, Litván György és Molnár Adrienne életút-interjújának első részével, Örkény István, Sz.J.Gy. és Vajna János levélváltásával, Örkény Sz.J.Gy-ről írott novelláival, Ács Pál nekrológjával és Komoróczy Géza bevezető tanulmányával.

Keywords: Rjabchikov, archaeoastronomy, writing, solar eclipses, Pythagoras, Greek, Etruscan, Etruria, Egypt, Italy

This paper was first read by the author on the scientific session of the Sergei Rjabchikov Foundation – Research Centre for Studies of Ancient Civilisations and Cultures, January 13, 2014, Krasnodar, Russia.

Funde, Eigennamen und Schriftzeichen beweisen Roms lange Zugehörigkeit zur etruskischen Kultur. Die historisch faßbaren Anfänge des Etruskertums in Italien fallen mit der mythischen  Gründungzeit Roms (datiert auf 753 v. Chr.) zusammen. Die Sage berichtet vom korinthisch-etruskischen Ursprung der letzten römische Könige und von Einfällen der Etrusker unter dem König von Clusium Lars Porsenna nach dem Sturz der Tarquinier.  Die zwei römischen Gründungsmythen, die Äneas- und die Romulus-Sage, bezeugen die enge Verbindung Roms mit den etruskischen Nachbarn. Von den sieben sagenhaften Königen Roms, von Romulus bis Tarquinius Superbus, waren vier etruskischer Herkunft. Romulus ist der mythische Ahnherr der *Ruma, eines aus lat. Roma erschlossenen Geschlechternamens. Die erschlossene etruskische Form von Romulus lautet *Rumle. Von ihm leiten sich auch die Gentilizien Romulius bzw. Romilius ab. Auf die Romulii oder Romilii ist auch die erste der  sechzehn ältesten römischen Landtribus, die Romulia zurückzuführen. Remus gilt als der Ahnherr der Remmii, eines Geschlechts, das es wohl im ältesten Rom gegeben haben muß. Dem Gentilnamen liegt der etruskische Name  Rem-ne oder Rem-ni zugrunde. Von diesem Gentilizium leiten sich in und um Rom die Toponyme Rem-ona und Rem-oria her. Tyrrhener  und Römer wurden von den Griechen häufig synonym benutzt: Tyrrhenoì  è Rhomaîoi („Tyrrhener oder Römer“), ebenso wie Tyrrhenía è Italía. Einige Sprachelemente seien zusätzlich genannt: Im Etruskischen lauten die Namensbezeichnungen für Rom Ruma, für Römer Rumach, für Troja Truia, für Trojaner Truial. In der Frühzeit herrschte ein Priesterkönig (lauchme oder lochume, lat. lucumo) in jeder etruskischen Stadt, ein Titel, der möglicherweise auf die Heilskönige und Richter der nordostgeorgischen Bergstämme verweist, die häufig den Namen Luchumi trugen.

Das etruskische Erbe Roms gelangte erst Jahrhunderte später, während des Humanismus und in der Renaissance wieder zum Vorschein. Bei der Hinwendung zur Antike in der Rinascita spielte in der Toskana und in Latium, vor allem in Florenz und Viterbo, die Etruscheria, die Begeisterung für die Etrusker, eine besondere Rolle. Das Etruskertum diente als Modell gesellschaftlicher Erneuerung und fand Eingang in die kulturellen Programme der Renaissancefürsten, nicht zuletzt  der Medici. Der römische Baumeister Vitruv hatte  in seinem Augustus gewidmeten Werk De architectura  die tuskische Säulenordnung beschrieben. Diese Schrift regte die Renaissancearchitekten Andrea Palladio und Giorgio Vasari an. Der Palladianismus bildet zwei Jahrhunderte später eine der wichtigsten Stilrichtungen des Klassizismus. Durch die Lektüre von Palladio inspiriert, errichtete Thomas Jefferson sein Haus „Monticello“ mit toskanischem Portikus – die  erste toskanische Villa in der Neuen Welt.  Den Etruskern verdankt das  abendländischen Denken  schließlich  eine zentrale Kategorie – die Person.

In the excavations at vigna Marini-Vitalini a considerable amount of impasto and geometric pottery was found, expecially from the iayers in the area of the orientalizingbuiiding. There are red impasto and brown impasto, in which the attention is drawn to a skyphos with dotted heron. The class of italo-geometric pottery includes several shapes and most probably four-handled cups also. There are furthermore some imports from Greece, a fragment of r,rpc tall-koryle, a fragment of euboic skyphos with meander and a rype of late geometric euboic cup, rarely found in the West.

Imprinting-Roma-www.imprintingweb.com Stampa Stabilimento Tipografico Quintily s.p.a. L'Editore si dichiara pienamente disponibile a soddisfare eventuali oneri derivanti da diritti di riproduzione. È vietata la riproduzione, con qualsiasi procedimento, della presente opera o di parti di essa.

Una sintesi del"fenomeno sociale" della città di Nola, in Campania, attraverso l'analisi dei suoi contesti di necropoli tra l'VIII e il VI sec. a.C., nel catalogo di una mostra dal titolo "Pompei e gli Etruschi" tenutasi a Pompei, nella Palestra Grande dal 12.12.2018 al 02.05.2019

L'individuazione delle identità culturali e il problema della definizione di concetto di "frontiera", com'è noto, sono divenuti di recente dei fenomeni "alla moda" ed hanno ottenuto un posto di primo piano negli studi sull'antichità, soprattutto in Europa, probabilmente a causa dei massicci fenomeni migratori dovuti alla fuga da situazioni di conflitto o di disagio sociale, o alla ricerca di migliori opportunità di vita. Sappiamo bene che da movimenti, scontri, convivenze e integrazioni fra gruppi etnici diversi è nata l'identità di fondo delle singole nazioni che compongono oggi l'Europa. L'arrivo dunque di persone portatrici di una cultura "altra" ha spinto vari studiosi ad interrogarsi sull'identità culturale anche delle popolazioni dell'Italia antica. Come ha evidenziato Stéphane Bourdin, spesso questo tema è stato trattato in modo troppo teorico e concettuale senza analizzare le realtà concrete dell'esistenza dei popoli, a livello territoriale 31 Reg. Tribunale Roma

La collezione archeologica dell'avvocato Conticelli è composta da 29 reperti, tutti fittili, i quali formano un insieme eterogeneo per provenienza e datazione.
Nel presente catalogo si sono voluti raggruppare, a seconda delle classi ceramiche di appartenenza, tutti quei vasi che sono tra loro legati da una simile corrente artistico-artigianale di produzione.

Thanks to the increasing multidisciplinary approach to the analysis of votive contexts, a meaningful amount of information about both archaeological finds and associated faunal remains is available, giving way to interpretations about cults and sacrificial practices. This paper deals with the filling of different categories of “cavities” included in Etruscan sacred areas: the deep ones providing a connection with the underworld (mainly holding a primary hydraulic function); the wide ditches and the artificially delimited hollow spaces. In spite of the uneven quality of published data, this paper attempts to discuss and highlight their possible meaning and common distinctive features, taking into account their stratification, the sequence of operations involved and the evidence of specific rituals performed during the definitive land filling.

Excavations carried out in the Ager Faliscus in the last twenty years of the 19th century during the survey for the Carta Archeologica d’Italia, were hampered by severe difficulties which are reflected in the incomplete publication of the necropolises, also due to the systematic sack of the tombs by illegal diggings. This did not allow those who approach the study of the funerary contexts of this territory to offer precise data on the composition of the grave goods and on the aspects of the ritual. Moreover, in many cases it was impossible to get information about the composition of the grave goods, considering the long use of the chambers, which host many generations between the 6th and the first half of 3rd century BC.
Nevertheless, in some cases it is possible to reconstruct the presence of child burials thanks to the reduced dimensions of the loculi or for the use of special sarcophagi. It is also sometimes possible to recognize objects suggesting the young age of the deceased. This paper aims at presenting these cases from Falerii and the smaller centers of its territory, in an attempt to identify any recurring characteristics that respond to specific requests of a ritual nature, highlighting on the other hand the poor
visibility of the burials of children in the Faliscan area.

The traditional view of a clear break after the Roman conquest of Veii in 396 BC. has been around for some time questioned by re-evaluating the passage of Livy (6. 4. 4) and on the basis of a careful reading of the
archaeological data.
The research conducted by Sapienza University of Rome in the urban area within the framework of the Veii Project and the data emerging from the recent excavations conducted by the Superintendency in the southern sector of the territory allow to reflect again and with more up-to-date tools on the problem of continuity / discontinuity of the life of the great Etruscan city in the phase of “Romanization”.

Between the fifth and fourth centuries BC the Etruscan city of Spina, founded at the mouth of the Po on the Adriatic, weaves such a close relationship with the Greek people that it established a thesauros in Delphi and became a privileged partner of Athens. Ancient literary sources remember it as polis hellenis. Its cemeteries have been officially excavated since 1922. Several thousand burials have been discovered. In many of them there are vases with Attic red-figured pottery. The present work aims to understand if the Etruscans of Spina are able to understand the iconographic lexicon used by Athenian potters and if they assign it the same semantic value. In particular, the work focuses on an Attic red-figured kylix from tomb 503 in Valle Trebbra, depicting the mythical episode of Danaë abandoned with her son Perseus in a chest on the sea by the will of her father Acrisio, king of Argon. The study of the other vases with the same scene shows that the myth of Danaë and
Perseus was widespread in the Italian peninsula where it could be a reference to the idea that no man can escape his fate.

Updated attached exel file only, 3.09.2024. Updated to include corrections of mirrors. One mirror carries the name TIRANAII (Tyrhenni).  It is the oldest extant document containing the name Herodotus referred to and may predate Herodotus' "Histories." The Etruscan Glossary A spreadsheet presents 2,800 individual words from the major extant Etruscan texts. The texts contain a total word count of 6,000+ words, about 4,000 of which are repetitious. The Etruscan Glossary also sheds light on Etruscan declension and conjugation patterns that are similar to Latin, French & Italian. The glossary accounts for all of the 6,000+ words in the texts, including  the Zagreb Mummy wrapping and important grammatical and mythological data contained in Etruscan mirrors. Each word in the glossary has alphanumeric locators showing exactly where they are used in the cited texts.

The vital link between the site of Pyrgi and the town of Caere is highlighted by the many measures taken by the Etruscan town in order to turn the complex system of the settlement, the sanctuary and the harbour into the outpost of its political power and its enterprises in the Mediterranean Sea. The harbour of Pyrgi played a fundamental role in Caere’s political and military organization. The track of the road connecting Caere and Pyrgi demonstrates that the overall organization of its territory mainly aimed at connecting the town to its most
important harbour according to a model which is also attested in the Greek world (Athens, Corinth). As recorded by ancient authors, the archaeological system of Pyrgi is based on the
strict relation between the harbour and the sanctuary, as they had the same role in the international political context. The building and restoration projects of the central power regarding
the Northern Monumental Sanctuary clearly mirror the ideology of the metropolis through cultic aspects and decorative systems. According to the archaeological data, a crucial
stage for the reorganization of the littoral zone took place in the second half of the 6th century, soon after the battle of Alalia (540 BC). This operation implied progressive interventions
which are documented by recent excavations of the public complex north of the sacred area and culminated in the monumentalization of the Northern Sanctuary at the end
of the 6th century BC. By this time the sanctuary was surrounded by a precinct wall and included Temple B and other infrastructures such as a row of twenty small rooms (so called
“edificio delle venti celle”) and an open-air cult area (Area C). This ambitious urbanistic project was promoted and publicized by the tyrant Thefarie Velianas by means of the extraordinary
inscriptions of the golden tablets, thus conveying the image of his power to the Mediterranean world and those who attended the harbour. South of the Monumental Sanctuary
there was a minor sacred area that differs in its urbanistic features but shares the same building phases. The two sanctuaries were divided by a river course collecting the water
from a plentiful spring and possibly endowed with a cultic meaning. The political interference of the metropolis in the sanctuary of Pyrgi is surely expressed by the intentional
choice of diversifying the two areas and their divinities. The latter sacred area features small buildings and altars but also consecrated spaces where cults were performed, including
bothroi and votive deposits. As the many dedications point out, the Etruscan goddess Cavatha together with her chthonic male mate Suri was worshipped here. Such a couple of local deities, which is attested by a great number of Etruscan inscriptions, does not conflict with the Greek features of the manifestations of the cult, for example the offering of huge Attic (“jumbo”) vases. Such manifestations testify the intended openness towards Greek worshippers who have also dedicated some votive gifts in their own language to goddesses such as Demeter and maybe Kore.

In Caeretan red-figured pottery, fish plates produced during the last third of the 4 th century B. C. can be found. They are Etruscan imitations of the better-known fish plates of southern Italian red-figured vase painters who were active during the second half of the 4 th century B. C. It is a type of plate found in Attica, but also in Sicily, Apulia and Campania. The adoption of this shape in Etruria was influenced by the pottery from Magna Graecia. In Etruscan pottery, this type is rare: so far, only five Etruscan specimens have been discovered, four made by the Caeretan Fish Plate Painter and one by the Hoffmann-Erbrecht Caeretan Painter (similar to Campanian Torpedo and Bremen Painters). Later, a fragment of a red-figured fish plate from Tarquinia was attributed by Susanna Businaro to the Caeretan Fish Plate Painter. A torpedo, a cuttlefish, and a pair of identical fish (sea perch or wrasse) are depicted around the central depression (which contained fish juices, sauce, or both); a pair of breams is depicted only on one fish plate, the one created by the Hoffmann-Erbrecht Caeretan Painter. The adoption of the fish plate (accompanied by typical food traditions) in the pottery production of Caere is important. This is probably the reason why marine themes also appear on the Genucilia plates produced in nearby Ager Faliscus. However, it could also be due to the fact that Caere possessed at least three ports. The marine life represented on Etruscan fish plates reflects the variety of sea life found in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Etruscan coast.

The Pyrgi Gold Tablets are one of the most popular Etruscan texts, principally because they include two tablets written in Etruscan and a third tablet written in Punic. Thus, the tablets are the only known Etruscan texts that offer an opportunity for a bi-lingual translation.  We know from the Punic translation that the document involves a dedication to Astarte/Ishtar, and thus we would expect a like dedication in the Etruscan texts.  The Etruscan texts offer more than a discussion on Astarte or her Etruscan equivalent, Uni.  The dedication refers to the month of May and the Heraean Games instituted in Olympia, Greece about the 6th century B.C.  Because the Pyrgi event and dedication of a "tower" was in May, there may be a connection to the feast of Bona Dea. The earliest feast (or May Day) was instituted by Rome in the Republican era.  This document may thus record the earliest occurrence of the feast of Bona Dea and Heraean Games outside of Olympia, both events being open to women only.

The Etruscan language is noteworthy, since it is a dead language (reflecting a period 1100- 200 B.C.) and thus frozen in time.  Since it relates to the Latin language and declines very close to Latin, it gives us a window into the development and spread of Indo-European languages.  If the Etruscans migrated from Lydia/Phrygia, according to Herodotus, as a result of a drought after the Trojan War (~1180 B.C.) the Pyrgi/Etruscan corpus becomes more even significant, linking an Italic language to Anatolia.  The Pyrgi texts are important to proving the corpus of Etruscan texts.

This paper presents an unpublished clay plate with painted decoration found during field surveys conducted in 1994 inside the area of a new Etruscan settlement discovered in the district of “Acquatraversa”, nearby the ancient route of via Veientana (Rome). The
analytical study of this important and typical object, besides comparison with related pottery, makes it possible to assign its date exactly to the beginning of the last quarter of seventh century BC, as well as to suggest that it was manufactured in the territory of ancient Capena.

The aim of the present communication is to offer a new study of potters’ signatures during the Orientalising and Archaic periods. Most signatures are attested on ceramics (with only a few exceptions on stone). The point is to reconsider the problem of artwork in a period about which we have just a little information, and where the initial problem is the very identification of the inscriptions that should be considered as signatures