Volume 21, Issue 1-2

Comprehensive analysis of faunal remains from the Etruscan settlement of Poggio Civitate was initiated in 2011. During the analysis of zoological materials collected in past and ongoing excavations, several human skeletal specimens were identified. Stratigraphically these bones are tied to the site’s Orientalizing period of architectural development. Analysis of the human assemblage, which to date includes 47 specimens, shows that the bones represent perinates who died around the time of birth. Furthermore, none of the remains come from archaeological contexts reflective of formal, ritualized disposition. Instead, the bones all derive from large deposits of animal and cultural debris, and most come from refuse deposits that are concentrated around areas of non-elite domestic and industrial activities. This emerging pattern suggests that during the seventh century B. C. E. mortuary behaviors surrounding perinatal death at Poggio Civitate were markedly different from those associated with older individuals. Rather than the easily observable, formal cemetery interment that was accorded to mature members of the community, perinates were disposed of in a private, informal manner that is archaeologically far less visible.

Recently an article appeared raising some issues about the interpretation of grape pips that were excavated at Cetamura del Chianti by the present writer (2012-14). This commentary makes suggestions concerning the arguments in that article with reference to 1) stratigraphy at the site; 2) literary sources on Etruscan viticulture; and 3) the use of the pruning hook by the Etruscans. The present article makes a contribution to the study of Etruscan viticulture by assembling an appendix on actual pruning hooks that have been discovered in Italy dating from the Late Bronze Age down to the second century B. C. E., as well as an appendix on representations of a youth holding the pruning hook in Etruscan art, mainly from the fourth and third centuries B. C. E.

The Etruscan goddess Catha has long been regarded as a solar deity. G. Thulin (1906) was one of the first to characterize Catha as a solar deity based on inscriptions referencing Catha on a mirror from Orbetello and on the Piacenza Liver. Although Thulin’s interpretations of these inscriptions have been challenged, the goddess Catha is still perceived to be a solar deity. Evidence from the goddess’s cult site at Pyrgi, where she was known as Kautha, inscriptions on artifacts that bear her name, and bucchero vessels that appear to display the goddess as a potnia theron suggest that the idea of Catha/Kautha as a solar deity should be set aside. Instead, the Etruscan goddess Catha/Kautha should be viewed as a chthonic fertility deity, of particular importance to elites in Orientalizing Etruria, who appealed to her to guide the spirits of the dead into the afterlife and to protect young mothers and infants, who would ensure the hereditary succession of their class.

Forty-eight helmets were discovered in the Villanovan necropoleis in Verucchio (Italy). Due to this large number of finds and the typological variety of the helmets, Verucchio can be considered a privileged observatory for the study of this class of materials. Helmets were in fact typical products of metallurgical workmanship. It is known that the Villanovan aristocracy in Verucchio based its self-portrayal extensively on the exaltation of its role and the warrior ideology. For this reason, rich panoplies were placed inside male burials, including in some cases helmets as well. This work, therefore, seeks to illustrate the main features of helmet production in Verucchio by examining the technical characteristics of the helmets in detail, identifying the craftsmanship and recognizing both original traits and those externally inspired.

This study focuses on an Attic red-figure kylix excavated in a North Etruscan ritual context at a major sanctuary site in the Mugello region at Poggio Colla. Attributed to the Painter of the Paris Gigantomachy (490–460 B. C. E.), the kylix depicts youths boxing. Careful excavation of the site over 20 years allows detailed presentation here of the votive context for the kylix and thus supports a plausible hypothesis for how it was integrated into rituals marking the transition from the first monumental stone temple to its successor at the site, sometime in the late fifth-early fourth century. Placing the kylix in the oeuvre of the painter, his workshop output, and its appearance in Etruria demonstrates that the shape and subject matter were well known to Etruscan audiences; discussion of the relationship of the Attic boxers to imagery in Etruscan tomb painting, black-figure silhouette style pottery, and funerary reliefs reveals links to and differences from Etruscan renderings of similar subject matter. Conclusions confirm the role of the Attic kylix in Etruscan ritual and establish the familiarity of the iconography of the kylix to Etruscan audiences. Although one of the tinas cliniiar , Etruscan Pultuce and Greek Pollux, is identified in fourth-century Etruscan art as an outstanding boxer, this study reveals no obvious link between the imagery on the kylix and the major deity honored at the site, very likely the goddess Uni.