Volume 26, Issue 1-2

A sarcophagus found in Tarquinia at the end of the 19th century discloses an original iconography featuring infernal scenes with banqueters, Turms, Vanth, and winged snakes. One interpretation proposed in the 1990s was that this monument bears witness to esoteric doctrines of Greek origin in Etruria, in particular Orphism and Pythagoreanism. However, this proposal is not satisfactory and needs to be reconsidered. It seems more likely that this sarcophagus refers to the world of perfumes and, potentially, to the well-known anecdote of the flying snakes guarding the frankincense trees. This new interpretation sheds further light on the role of scents in Etruria, particularly in the world of the dead.

A terracotta bowl in the collection of antiquities in the J. Paul Getty Museum is the latest entry to an assemblage of Etruscan ceramics known as the “Spurinas Group.” The interior of the bowl was painted with the name calprnies , the earliest known reference to a family whose Roman branch includes several distinguished members. The paper reports on the dipinto’s paleography, the morphology, and derivational history of the Etruscan name calprnies , and its connection to its Latin counterpart, Calpurnius .

The practice of wet squeezing as a means of creating epigraphic facsimiles was widespread during the 19th and 20th centuries, but often negatively impacted the original inscriptions, particularly in cases where paint pigment was present. Depending on the precise method used, the pigment may transfer from the original to the squeeze. This article presents a case-study of four such squeezes made by Swedish Etruscologist Olof August Danielsson in 1886 of a funerary tile from Chiusi, as part of the preparatory work for Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum. This material makes it possible to study epigraphic polychromy in cases where pigment on the original has been damaged through squeezing. In addition, it illustrates how squeezes can give insight into the history of individual objects, as the squeezes, which show both the carving and the paint, cast light on the various proposed readings of the tile’s Etruscan inscription (CIE 1973/ET Cl 1.1478).

This paper examines the inclusion of Etruscan demons such as Charun and Vanth in Homeric art, using the François Tomb as a case study. The combination of Greek and Etruscan figures is often described as a “patchwork” of influences. I argue that the “patchwork” approach is anachronistic and that fourth-century viewers would not have seen such a dichotomous opposition between Etruscan demons and Greek myths. Anthropological memory theory supplies a new framework for understanding the inclusion of Greek myths in the Etruscan pantheon. I argue that the François Tomb was the end product of a centuries-long process of forgetting: the Greek origin of the Homeric myths was no longer felt as acutely in the fourth century as when the two cultures first made contact. By the fourth century, the blending was not a calculated change or an attempt to show off foreign knowledge. It was a representation of the Etruscans’ own cultural memory, adapted over three centuries of Greek contact to become a syncretic system.

Epigraphic concordances (lists which give corresponding references for two or more epigraphic corpora) are an indispensable resource for any scholar whose work relates to inscriptions. Despite their usefulness, there are inherent issues with conventional concordances of the type found at the back of epigraphic corpora. This article presents a digital concordance for Etruscan, Faliscan and early Latin inscriptions from Etruria. The concordance, which is contained in a CSV file, is downloadable from the repository Zenodo, and allows for both free-text searches and reordering according to each included corpus. The digital format allows for future revision and correction; an email address dedicated to feedback from the scholarly community has been set up. The corpora included in the concordance are chosen to make the concordance a comprehensive resource for both contemporary scholarly use and study of the history of epigraphy.

In this article, we report on a noteworthy early Etruscan trench tomb of a young child, most likely a girl, found intact within the cemetery of San Simone at the San Giuliano necropolis (Viterbo Province). The richly appointed grave contained the remains of a toddler aged 2–3 years, inhumed with wealth befitting an elite adult woman. Typically, the tombs of infants and young children are thought to portray status ascribed to their kin group. The objects interred in the grave reflect the high status of her kinship group, as well as her family’s aspirations for her and the social roles she was meant to have occupied if she had lived longer. Objects in the grave connect her to her ancestors and reveal her anticipated role in textile production and in facilitating and/or orchestrating politically important banquets, possibly even accompanied by sacrificial feasts. But this girl buried at San Giuliano may have been different in other ways as well. She likely looked different, probably having a cleft palate that may have led to her premature death. Some of the objects buried with her, particularly the amber pendant necklace, may have been meant to have curative or healing properties. Using an analysis of the construction of the grave, the osteological remains, and particularly the elaborate funerary assemblage, we explore this child’s expected roles in early Etruscan society and show how her family represented their connections to a broad range of communities across central Italy and beyond.