Etruscan pottery

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Le seguenti riflessioni riguardano il significato dei fregi etruschi con teorie animali nelle quali è inserita una singola figura antropomorfa. Il motivo, estraneo all’arte greca, è invece attestato soprattutto in Etruria meridionale, tra il tardo VII e la prima metà del VI sec. a.C. Sulla base di un catalogo delle attestazioni, verrà svolta un’analisi di questa iconografia e quindi ne verrà decodificato il probabile significato sulla scorta di contesti certi, della specificità delle produzioni e delle indicazioni fornite dalle associazioni del motivo in iconografie complesse. La distribuzione e la cronologia del motivo danno
indicazioni riguardo alla sua provenienza, ai motivi che lo hanno originato e all’influsso che esso ebbe sulle più tarde rappresentazioni nel corso del VI sec. a.C.

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.

Mario Cesarano, «Nola polis degli Ausoni» nella Periegesi di Ecateo alla luce della documentazione dalle necropoli [143-168]
When Hekataios of Miletos speaks of Nola, a town of Campania near Naples, uses an apparent contradiction in terms: while he defines Nola as a polis belonging to the ‘Ausones’, some ancient writers considered the Ausones an indigenous people without poleis. We can assume that in the VI century BC Nola reached such a high level of ‘urban’ organization so as to share a cultural Mediterranean koine. The Greeks were the main intermediaries of this common culture, but not the only ones: through the grave goods some burials document the development of a Nolan community between VIII and VI century BC and the contacts between indigenous people, Greeks inhabiting the gulf of Cuma and some Etruscan groups settled in Campania. The result of this analysis allows us to put up for discussion the old concepts of hellenization and colonization, and to reflect carefully as to new notions of hibridity and creolization.
Nola – Ausones – Corinthian pottery – symposium – krater

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).

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 study of the urban alignment of the settlement of Pyrgi and of the arrangement of the sacred areas was favoured by its abandonment after the phase of Romanization and by the possibility of performing large-scale research over its territory. The harbour and the sanctuary of Pyrgi were a fundamental pole of attraction for foreign haunters as the outpost of the metropolis of Caere. Their development was strictly linked to Pyrgi’s favourable geographical position along the Tyrrhenian maritime routes and to the presence of a water spring. The settlement
was founded at the end of the 7th century BC, and was connected to Caere by means of a large road. The excavations conducted since 1957 by the Sapienza University of Rome next to the terminal section of the Caere-Pyrgi road brought to light a large sacred district.
The new excavation area (2009-2016) is located in the district between the sanctuary and the settlement. It includes different buildings datable to 600 BC-4th century BC erected along a pebbled road that departs from Caere-Pyrgi and leads towards the harbour. The buildings, together with votive deposits and a fire-altar, outline a residential quarter that was perhaps attended by a priesthood, where ceremonial practices were also performed. The new evidence can be related to the sanctuary itself and sheds light on its overall organisation. The results of recent fieldwork have also contributed to a better understanding of Pyrgi’s urban alignment, possible defensive systems (suggested by the Greek name Pyrgoi) and the topographic relationship with the later Roman maritime colony. Thanks to the involvement of scholars from different disciplinary fields, wide-range research is being carried out to reconstruct the original
landscape and the evolution of the coastline, with an aim to determining the morphology of the coast and the harbour in the Etruscan period.

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

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 collaboration with the Department of Sciences of Antiquities, Sapienza Università di Roma, made possible the analysis of an extremely rich context discovered in 1998 in the western sector of the Civita
Castellana plateau.
This analysis enabled us to reconsider the ways in which craftsmen operated, especially in connection with the production of red-figure vases and black-gloss pottery, which are, as generally known, two of the major pottery productions within the Faliscan area.
In particular, the discovery of more than 200 firing supports has led us to undertaking a typological study of this kind of object and to develop some considerations concerning its use.
Finally, the presence of a good number of testers and potters’ painting tests allowed us to observe the processes connected to the chaîne operatoire from the inside.

"The complex events that affected the findings from the large Early Iron Age cemeteries of Vetulonia account for the scarcity of publications concerning these finds to date, in spite of the high number of excavated graves. The fieldwork was carried out mainly by Isidoro Falchi in the late 19th century and the grave goods were deposited at the Archaeological Museum of Florence, where the serious flood of 1966 damaged the objects and led to uncertainties about the original associations. These events stress the importance of adding to the available documentation the finds from the large Villanovan necropolis of Colle Baroncio forming the Guidi Collection, which were stored at the Archaeological Museum of Grosseto. Although constituted by out-of-context items, this group of finds can increase knowledge of Early Iron Age Vetulonia and allow observations to be made concerning the connections with different centres in its early stages. In anticipation of an overall publication of the finds, three decorated cinerary urns are discussed here, and the role played by artisans in the circulation of pottery and metal types is considered. Furthermore, the data can provide evidence of the links between Vetulonia and Vulci during the Early Iron Age, with particular reference to the Tomb of the Sardinian Bronzes."

La ripresa degli scavi nella necropoli di Monterenzio Vecchio, nel cuore dell'Appennino bolognese, sullo spartiacque dei torrenti Idice e Sillaro ha consentito di incrementare in modo significativo il già notevole dossier di tombe di età celtica del territorio dei Boii d'Italia, che, con gli scavi ottocenteschi di Bologna e quelli più recenti di Monte Bibele e di Casalecchio zona "A", ammonta ormai a circa 500 unità.

Decorative and applied art is born in the interaction of traditions and the constant search for new forms. The enormous potential of the knowledge gained over the past decades in the study of objects from archaeological excavations, ethnographic observations of the results often remain out of sight of contemporary artists. On the other hand, many scientific reconstructions remain speculative, and discoveries are unclaimed. Synthesis of theoretical and practical knowledge will allow to solve this problem. Conference aim is interaction of science and practice, the study of decorative and applied arts in archeology, ethnography, art history and the synthesis of traditions and innovations in contemporary art In the key topic of the theme "From Crafts to Art", it is planned to hold annual conferences within the framework of the cycle: — ceramics and glass; — textiles and other fabrics; — metalwork; — arts and crafts: traditions and innovations 2018 meeting topic is " CERAMICS: TECHNOLOGY, DECOR, STYLE " The following questions will be under discussion: — technology and technique of manufacturing and ornamentation of pottery; — interaction of technology, decor and form in ceramic products; — figurative and abstract shapes in pottery. A common theme for all conferences: — synthesis of technology and forms in various kinds of arts and crafts We invite practitioners, theoreticians, teachers, graduate students and undergraduates to participate in the conference. Proceedings of the conference will be issued in electronic and printed form.

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.

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.

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.