Dr. Schiller: AP History of Art

Etruscan Art:Italy Before the Romans

Who were the Etruscans?•people who occupied the middle of Italy (modern-day Tuscany)

•wiped out by the Romans

•influenced by, but different from, Greek art

During 8th and 7th centuries:

• Etruscans were sea-faring traders

•By 6th c., numerous Etruscan cities, but they never united, so no real Etruscan “nation” or “kingdom”

•Only semblance of unity was primarily:--Common linguistic ties--Religious beliefs and practices

• the lack of unity left them easy prey for the Romans

Etruscan sculpture, painting, and architecture:

--provided the models for early Roman art and architecture

--had an impact on the art of the Greek colonies in Italy

Etruscan Art

Started to like luxury items incorporating Eastern motifs

Same period as Greek Orientalizing period

Followed by the Archaic Period

Early Etruscan art: Orientalizing ArtGreat mineral wealth of Etruria transformed Etruscan society during 7th c. BCEHad iron, tin, copper, and silverCities with rich mines (like Cerveteri) could import foreign goods

[Gardner plate 9-1]Fibula with Orientalizing lions, from the Regolini-Galasi Tomb, Cerveteri, Italy, ca. 650- 640 BCE. Gold, approx. 1’ ½“ high.

• This is the most spectacular luxury item•fibula—a clasp or safety pin used to fasten a women’s gown at the shoulder•This one is a unique shape and giant size•the 5 lions that walk across the gold surface were borrowed from the Orient (Asia)•techniques also came from Asia—--repoussé--granulation

from a 7th c. BCE tomb of wealthy family at Cerveteri

tomb had bronze cauldrons and gold jewelry of Etruscan manufacture and Orientalizing style

Jewelry in the tomb also included:

a golden pectoral that covered the deceased woman’s chest, and •2 gold circlets that might be earrings, though large enough to be bracelets

Ostentatious display is frequently the hallmark of newly-acquired wealth (certainly the case in 7th c. Etruria)

Archaic Art and Architecture•even while emulating Greek architecture, always a distinctive Etruscan temperament

•most Archaic Etruscan art departs markedly from its prototypes, especially religious architecture

•Etruscan temples superficially owe much to Greece but there are more differences than similarities

•Usually only the foundations survived, because of the building materials they used

•But the foundations reveal the plans of the building; the archeological record is supplemented by the Roman architect Vitruvius’s account of Etruscan temple design in his treatise on classical architecture written near the end of the 1st c. BCE

Stokstad plate 6-3Model of a typical. Etruscan temple of the 6th c. BCE, as described by Vitruvius.

Typical Archaic Etruscan temple•resembles Greek gable-roofed temples

•but constructed not of stone but of wood and sun-dried brick with terracotta decoration

•only one narrow staircase at the center of the temple

•temple sat on a high podium

•wide roof overhead

• columns were only in the front, creating a deep porch that took up about ½ of the podium•clear which is the front•Greek temples’ front and rear were indistinguishable and there were steps and peripteral colonnades on all sides•Reason:

--Not meant to be seen as a sculptural mass from outside and all directions--Instead, meant to

function primarily as an ornate home for

grand statues of Etruscan gods

Columns resembled Doric but-•were made of wood•unfluted•had basesBecause the superstructure was so light, Etruscan columns were much more widely spaced than Greek columns

Other temple differences:

• Etruscan temples had 3 cellas—one for each of their chief gods:--Tinia (Zeus/Jupiter)--Uni (Hera/Juno)--Menvra (Athena/Minerva)

• rare to find pedimental statuary

•but narrative statuary (terracotta instead of stone) was placed on the peaks of Etruscan temple roofs

Stokstad plate 6-5Sculptor: maybe Vulca of Veii, Apulu (Apollo), from the roof of the Portonaccio Temple, Veii, Italy, ca. 510-500 BCE.Painted terracotta, approx. 5’ 11” high

Life-size image of Apulu (Apollo)

•One of the finest surviving rooftop statues

•brilliant example of the energy and excitement that characterizes Archaic Etruscan art in general

•statue came from a temple at Veii

•just one of a group of at least four painted terracotta figures that adorned the roof of the temple

•story—the god confronts Hercle (Herakles or Hercules) for possession of a hind (female deer) who was a wondrous beast with golden horns that was sacred to Apulu’s sister Artumes (Artemis/Diana)

[Gardner plate 5-12]Kore, from the Acropolis, Athens, Greece, ca.510 BCE marble, approx. 1’ 9 ½ “ high

Gardner plate 9-3Sculptor: maybe Vulca of Veii, Apulu (Apollo), from the roof of the Portonaccio Temple, Veii, Italy, ca. 510-500 BCE.Painted terracotta, approx. 5’ 11” high

The bright paint and the rippling folds of

Apulu’s garment call to mind the Greek

korai

but this Apulu is distinctively Etruscan:•a vital figure with extraordinary force•huge swelling contours•plunging motion•gesticulating arms•fan-like calf muscles•animated facesculptor may have been Vulca of Veii, the most famous Etruscan sculptor of the time

the statue’s discovery in 1916 was instrumental in prompting a reevaluation of the

originality of Etruscan art!

Etruscan Artists in Rome

•Tarquinius Superbus (the Arrogant”) was Rome’s last king, driven out in 509 BCE

•but before his expulsion, TS started a most ambitious undertaking—erecting a magnificent temple on the Capitoline Hill for joint worship of the 3 main Etruscan gods

•he summoned architects, sculptors, and workers from all over Etruria

•so Rome’s 1st great religious shrine was Etruscan in patronage, manufacture, and form

We know the following from several sources, including Pliny the Elder:

•Vulca of Veii sculpted the statue of Jupiter in a 4-horse chariot

•placed at the highest point of the roof, directly over the façade’s center

•His red-faced (painted terracotta) Jupiter was so great that Roman generals would paint their faces red in emulation of his Jupiter when they paraded in triumph through Rome after a battlefield victory

A story about Vulca’s chariot group underscored both its tremendous size and the reverent awe later generations held for it:

--Normally, terracotta statuary condenses and contracts in the furnace as the clay’s moisture evaporates in the heating process

--But Vulca’s statue swelled instead and could only be removed form the furnace by dismantling the furnace!

Sculptor: Novios Plautios, “Ficoroni Cista” from Palestrina, Italy, late 4th c. BCE. Bronze, approx. 2’6” high

Vulca is the only Etruscan artist named by any ancient writer, but we have signatures of other Etruscan artists on surviving artworks

E.g. Novios Plautios-worked in Rome, a few centuries later, like this cista (cylindrical container for a woman’s toilet articles)

Stokstad plate 6-8Sarcophagus with reclining couples, from Cerveteri, Italy, ca. 520 BCE.Painted terracotta, approx. 3’ 9 ½ “ high

•life-size terracotta statuary was known in Greece but especially favored in Etruria

•This is a magnificent example of Archaic Etruscan terracotta sculpture

•Sarcophagus in the form of a husband and wife reclining on a banqueting couch, from a tomb in the Cerveteri necropolis

•It was cast in 4 sections, then joined

•No parallel in Greece—at this date, Greece had no monumental tombs to house such sarcophagi, because the Greeks buried their dead in simple graves marked by a stele or a statue

•Though banquets were commonly depicted on Greek vases, only men dined at Greek meals

The image of a husband and wife sharing the same banqueting couch is uniquely Etruscan

These figures are animated like the Apulu of Veii, even though they are at rest

They are the antithesis of the stiff and formal figured encountered in Egyptian tomb sculpture

Statue of Menkaure and KhamerernebtyStokstad plate 3-12

Kroisos, from Anavysos, Greece, ca. 530 BCE.Marble, approx. 6’ 4” high.Stokstaad plate 5-18

Peplos Kore, from the Acropolis, Athens, Greece, ca. 530 BCE, Marble, approx.4’ high.Stokstad plate 5-20.

They are also in striking contrast to contemporary Greek statues with their emphasis on proportion and balance

•notice how the Cerveteri sculptor rendered the upper and lower parts of each body: --the legs are only summarily modeled --the transition to the torso at the waist is unnatural --this artist’s interest is focused on the upper half of the figures, especially the vibrant faces and gesticulating arms•The Greek statues have closed contours and calm demeanor

Gestures are still an important ingredient of

Italian conversation today

The “Audacity” of Etruscan Women•at the end of the 1st c. BCE, Emperor Augustus had Livy write a history of Rome from its legendary founding in 753 BCE to his own day

•in the first book, Livy recounted the tale of Tullia, daughter of Servius Tullius, an Etruscan king of Rome in the 6th c.:

--the princess had married the less ambitious of 2 brothers of the royal Tarquinius family, while her sister had married the bolder one

--together, Tullia and her brother-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus, arranged for the murder of their spouses

--then they married each other and plotted the overthrow and death of Tullia’s father

Ostentatiously, Tullia drove her carriage over her father’s corpse, spraying herself with his blood

that street is still called the “Street of Infamy’!

•Livy placed Tullia’s actions in the context of the famous “audacity” of Etruscan women

•Independent spirit and relative freedom women enjoyed in Etruscan society also horrified and threatened other Greco-Roman male authors

•4th c. BCE Greek historian Theopompus heard about the debauchery of Etruscan women; but much of what he reported is untrue. They did not exercise naked alongside Etruscan men

•Aristotle also remarked on Etruscan women attending banquets and reclining with their husbands

•This custom (of Etruscan women attending banquets) shocked and frightened the Greeks, because only men, boys, slave girls, and prostitute attended Greek symposia (a convivial meeting, usually following a dinner, for drinking and intellectual conversation)

•In Greece, women remained at home, excluded from most of public life, but in Etruria, women also regularly attended sporting events with men

•Etruscan inscriptions also reflect the higher status of women in Etruria than in Greece: they often list both father and mother of the person commemorated (unheard of in Greece—e.g. “Hegeso, daughter of Proxenos”)

Etruscan women retained their own names and could legally own property independent of their husbands

The frequent inscriptions on Etruscan mirrors and such buried with women seem to attest to a high degree of female literacy as well.

Aerial view of Banditaccia necropolis, Cerveteri, Italy.7th-2nd c.Stokstad plate 6-6

Houses for the Dead: typical Etruscan tomb took the form of a mound (tumulus)

somewhat similar to Mycenaean Treasury of Atreus

Etruscan

Mycenaean

•but instead of being constructed of masonry blocks and then covered by an earthen mound, each Etruscan tumulus covered one or more subterranean multi-chambered tombs cut of the dark local limestone called tufa•very large tumuli--diameters sometimes reached over 130 feet•arranged in cemeteries in an orderly manner along a network of streets•produced the effect of cities of the dead•always located some distance from the cities of the living

Plan of the Tomb of the Shields and Chairs, Cerveteri, Italy, 2nd half of 6th c. BCE.[Gardner plate 9-6]

•the underground tomb chambers cut into the rock resembled the houses of the living

•e.g. the central entrance and smaller chambers open into a large central spacethese mirror the axial sequence of rooms in actual

Etruscan houses of the time (similar to that of early Roman houses)

Plan of a Roman House.Gardner p.255

Plan of an Etruscan tomb

Tomb of Shields and Chairs, interior of the central room

this “house look” was enhanced by cutting out of the rock a series of beds and grand armchairs with curved backs and footstools, ceiling beams, framed doorways, even windows

Interior of the Tomb of the Reliefs, Cerveteri, Italy, 3rd c. BCE.Stokstad plate 6-7

this “house look” was enhanced by cutting out of the rock a series of beds and grand armchairs with curved backs and footstools, ceiling beams, framed doorways, even windows

Interior of the Tomb of the Reliefs, Cerveteri, Italy, 3rd c. BCE.

Stokstad plate 3-19Interior hall of the rock-cut tomb of Amenemhet,Beni Hasan, Egypt, Dynasty XII, ca. 1950-1900 BCE

The Etruscan tomb houses are reminiscent of much earlier Egyptian rock-cut tombs

notice other different values of Etruscans—--Etruscans built houses to live in of wood and mud brick which didn’t last but Greeks built houses out of stone--Etruscans built stone huge monumental burial chambers, not Greeks

Tomb of Shields and chairs Tomb of the Reliefs

•Tomb of the Reliefs is the most elaborately decorated tomb• like previous Tomb of Shields and Chairs, it accommodated several generations of single family•brightly painted stucco reliefs covered the stone•pictures of knives, mirrors, drinking cups, pitchers all suggest a domestic context

Banqueters and Musicians, detail of mural paintings in the Tomb of the Leopards, Tarquinia, Italy, ca. 480-470 BCE.[Gardner plate 9-8]

This comes from a tomb in Tarquinia

Rome

Cerverteri

Tarquinia

•Tarquinian tombs different from Cerveteri:--tumuli don't cover the Tarquinian tombs--the interiors do not have carvings imitating the appearance of Etruscan houses•but some paintings decorate the tomb chamber walls

Rome

Cerverteri

Tarquinia

•painted tombs seem to have been only for the wealthiest Etruscan families•We know a lot about tombs here because archeologists began to use periscopes to explore tomb contents from the surface before excavation.

Guardian Leopards

•Tomb of the Leopards is characteristic tomb here

•Named for the beasts that guard the painted chamber’s interior form their perch within the real wall pediment

West pediment from the Temple of Artemis, Corfu, Greece, ca. 600-580 BCE.Limestone, greatest height approx. 9’ 4” .Stokstad plate 5-12

Reminiscent of the panthers on each side of Medusa in the pediment of the Archaic Greek temple of Artemis at Corfu

Banqueters

however, mythological figures are uncommon in Tarquinian murals

instead, this tomb has banqueting couples (notice men with dark skin, women with light) adorn the walls.

served by pitcher and cupbearers

Musicians

•musicians entertain them playing double pipes and the 7-stringed lyre•banquet is in open air or perhaps in tent•notice the exaggerated gestures with unnaturally large hands—typically Etruscan•There is a man on a couch in the far right on the rear wall who holds up an egg—the symbol of regeneration•Tone is joyful, a celebration of life, food, wine, music, and dance, rather than a somber contemplation of death.

Diving and fishing, detail of mural paintings in the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing, Tarquinia, Italy, ca. 530-52 BCE.Gardner plate 9-9

Etruscan landscapes•stylistically, Etruscan landscapes are comparable to 6th c. Greek vases before the Later Archaic painters got into foreshortening•but more interested in rendering nature than Greeks•e.g. in Tomb of hunting and Fishing at Tarquinia

Here we sees scenes of Etruscan enjoying the pleasures of nature

in this detail, a youth dives off a rocky promontory while others fish from a boat

hunter withslingshot

Another wall has youthful hunters aiming slingshots at birds

Ti watching a hippopotamus hunt, relief in the mastaba of Ti, Saqqara, Egypt, Dynasty V [Old Kingdom], ca. 2450-2350 BCE. Painted limestone, hunting scene approx. 4’ high.Stokstad plate 3-15

These recall painted reliefs in the Old Kingdom Egyptian Tomb of Ti….

Fowling scene from the tomb of Nebamun, Thebes, 18th Dynasty [New Kingdom], ca. 1400-1350, fresco on dry plaster, about 2’8” high[Gardner plate 3-30]

….and also mural paintings from the New Kingdom Tomb of Nebamun.

The Etruscan painted reliefs may indicate knowledge of this Egyptian funerary tradition….

Landscape with swallows (Spring Fresco), fromRoom Delta 2, Akrotiri, Thera (Cyclades), Greece,ca. 1650 BCE, approx. 7’ 6” highStokstad plate 4-14

…although the multicolored rocks look like the Aegean Spring Fresco, we don’t know of anything similar in contemporary Greek art.

Later Etruscan Artalthough 5th c. as golden age in Greece, it wasn’t in Etruria!

In 509 BCE, Romans expelled the last of the Etruscan kings, Tarquinius Superbus, and became a republic

in 474 BCE, the Etruscan fleet was defeated and ended Etruscan dominance of the sea and also ended its prosperity!

these events had important art and architecture consequences:•number of Etruscan tombs decreased sharply and so did the quality•no more golden jewelry and imported Greek vases in the tumuli

but Etruscan art didn’t cease—they continued especially in casting of bronze and terracotta statures (though fewer in number)

Capitoline Wolf, from Rome, Italy, ca. 500-480 BCE, bronze. approx. 2’ 7 ½ ” highStokstad plate 6-1

Capitoline Wolf:•Best known of the later Etruscan statues•One of the most memorable portrayals of an animal in the history of world art•somewhat larger than life•hollow-cast

Portrayal of she-wolf in the legend: •she nursed Romulus and Remus after they were abandoned as infants•as adults, they quarreled and Romulus killed Remus•he founded Rome on April 21, 753 BCE on the Palatine Hill•became the city’s first king

•but the statue seems to have been made for the new Roman Republic after they kicked out Tarquinius Superbus•became the new state’s totem—appropriately defiant image•remains the emblem of Rome to this day

But it’s an Etruscan work, not Roman!The kids were added in the Renaissance and probably the work of Antonio Pollaiuilo

Chimera of Arezzo, from Arezzo, Italy, 1st ½ of 500s BCE, bronze. approx. 2’ 7 ½ ” high[Gardner plate 9-11]

another masterpiece of Etruscan animal sculpturefound in 1553 and greatly admired during the RenaissanceCreated about 100 years after the Capitoline WolfChimera is a monster of Greek invention with

* a lion’s head and body* a serpent’s tail* a goat head from out of the lion’s side

•this one is from a myth—Greek hero Bellerophon hunted and slew the beast and here it is injured and bleeding but not defeated yet•It is tense:

* muscles are stretched tightly over its rib cage* prepares to attack

•ferocious cry emanates from its open jaws•menacing gaze upward toward an unseen adversary

some scholars think it might have been part of a group that originally included Bellerophon

it seems in the tradition of the guardian nurse of Romulus and Remus

Rome Overwhelms Etruria•over the 300s and 200s BCE, Rome conquered the various parts of Etruria

•Etruscan artists produced cistae—* cylindrical containers for a woman’ toilet articles* made of sheet bronze with cast handles and feet and elaborately engraved bodies

•in large numbers from the 4th c. BCE onward

•they were popular gifts for both the living and dead (along with engraved bronze mirrors)

•the Etruscan bronze cista industry centered in Palestrina

Novios Plautios, Ficoroni Cista, from Palestrina, Italy, late 4th c. BCE, bronze. approx. 2’ 6” high[Gardner plate 9-12]

The Ficoroni Cista:•inscription on the handle states that India Laconia, a local noblewoman, deposited the bronze container in her daughter’s tomb and that the artist was Novios Plautios•according to the inscription, his workshop was in Rome-by this date becoming an important Italian cultural and political center\•the engraved frieze shows an episode from the Argonauts in search of he Golden Fleece•the composition is an adaptation of a lost Greek panel painting•this is another testimony to the burgeoning wealth and prestige of the formerly-Etruscan city•Greek source for the engraving is evident in:* the figures seen entirely from behind or in ¾ view* the placement of the protagonists on several levels * in the Polygnotan manner

What is the “Polygnotan manner”?

Classical Greek Painter, Polygnotos of Thasos

Leading painter of the 1st half of the 5th c. BCE (“late Classical period”)

His work adorned important buildings both in Athens and DelphiE.g. the pinakotheke of Mnesikles’ Propylaia

He was a red-figured vase painter

Classical Greek Painter, Polygnotos of Thasos

He introduced a revolutionary compositional style, rejecting the scheme used on all Greek vases examined thus far

His style:* Before him, figures were situated on a common ground line at the bottom of the picture plane, either in horizontal bands or single panels

* But Polygnotos placed his figures on different levels, staggered in tiers in the manner of Ashurbanipal’s lion hunt relief of 2 centuries before

Ashurbanipal hunting lions, relief from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal, Nineveh, Iraq, ca. 645-640 BCE. Gypsum, approx. 5’ high[Gardner plate 2-24]

The abandonment of a single ground line by Polygnotos and his followers was as momentous a break form the past as was the rejection of frontality in statuary by Early Classical Greek sculptors

City of Perugia formed an alliance with Rome and so wasn’t destroyed:

Porta Marzia, Perugia, Italy, 2nd c. BCE[Gardner plate 9-13]

in fact, portions of Perugia’s ancient walls and gates are still standing

this includes the Porta Marzia (Gate of Mars)

this was the upper part of the gate, imbedded in a later warthe arcuated (curved) opening is formed by a series of trapezoidal stones voussoirs held in place by pressing against each other

Ishtar Gate (restored), Babylon, Iraq, ca. 575 BCE. Glazed brick.Stokstad plate 2-27

such arches were built earlier in Greece as well as Mesopotamia (see gate of Ishtar)

•but Italy, first under the Etruscans and later under the Romans, is where arcuated gateways and freestanding (triumphal) arches became a major architectural type•the Porta Marzia typified Etruscan adaptation of Greek motifs by using Hellenic-inspired pilasters (columns projecting from walls) to frame the arches •This use of pilasters has a long and distinguished history in Roman and later times•in the Porta Marzia sculptured half-figures of Jupiter and his sons Castor and Pollux and their horses look out from between the fluted pilasters•Why Castor and Pollux? The divine twins had appeared miraculously on a battlefield in 484 BCE to run the tide in favor of the Romans•the presence of these 3 deities here may reflect the new Roman practice of erecting triumphal arches crowned by gilded bronze statues

Aule Metele (Arringatore, Orator) from Sanguineto, Italy, early 1st c. BCE. Bronze,

approx. 5/7” high Stokstad plate 6-12

•in contrast to Lars, the portrait of Aule Metele is a supremely self-confident image•portrayed as a magistrate raising his arm to address an assembly (that’s why the modern nickname)•life-size bronze statue was discovered in 1566 so it’s another Etruscan masterpiece known to Italian Renaissance sculptors•this shows that the Etruscan artists continued to be experts at bronze-casting long after the heyday of Etruria

•probably produced at about the time that Roman predominance (hegemony) over Etruscans became total•so-called Social War of the early 1st c. BCE ended in 89 BCE with the conferring of Roman citizenship on all Italy’s inhabitants•in fact, Aule wears the short toga and high laced boots of a Roman magistrate•head with close-cropped hair and signs of age in fact, resembles portraits produced in Rome at the time•this orator is Etruscan in name only•Etruscan art became Roman Art

Key Terms:

Etruscan Art

arcuated: of arch-column constructionchimera: A monster of Greek invention with the head and body of a lion and the tail of a

serpent. A second head, that of a goat, grows out of one side of the body.cista (plural: cistae: an Etruscan cylindrical container made of sheet bronze with case

handles and feet, often with elaborately engraved bodies, used for women’s toilet articles.

Etruscan: a native or inhabitant of ancient Etruria; the Etruscans influenced the Romans (who had suppressed them by about 200 BCE) 

fibula: A decorative pin, usually used to fasten garments.granulation: a decorative technique in which tiny metal balls, granules, are fused to a

metal surfacenecropolis: a large burial area or cemetery; literally, a city of the deadpectoral: an ornament worn on the chestpodium: the masonry supporting a classical temple or other buildingstucco: fine plaster or cement used as a coating for walls or for decorationtufa: a porous rock formed from deposits of springstumulus (plural: tumuli): Burial mound; in Etruscan architecture, tumuli cover one or

more subterranean multichambered tombs cut out of the local tufa. Tuscan (Etruscan) column: also known as Etruscan column. Resembles ancient

Greek Doric column, but made of wood, unfluted, and with a base. Tuscan columns were spaced more widely than were Greek columns.

voussoirs: wedge-shaped blocks used in the construction of a true arch. The central voussoir, which set the arch, is the keystone

Vulca: Vulca was an Etruscan artist from the town of Veii. The only Etruscan artist mentioned by ancient writers, he worked for the last of the Roman kings, Tarquinius Superbus. He is responsible for creating a terracotta statue of Jupiter that was inside the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill, and possibly the Apollo of Veii. His statue of Jupiter, which being made of terracotta had a red face, was so famous that victorious Roman generals would paint their faces red during their triumphal marches through Rome. Pliny the Elder wrote that his works ere "the finest images of deities of that era...more admired than gold.

VOCABULARY ILLUSTRATIONS

Keystone and voussoirs

The thing around his neck

pectoral

fibula

What is this hill called?

tumulus

Arcuated opening (in a triumphal arch)

tufa

chimera

Tumuli in a necropolis

cista

granulated

Of or pertaining to this culture

Etruscan

• Key terms:

1. arcuated opening: To create architectural forms that could cover larger spaces without too many supports the arcuated system of building could be used. The basic unit of the arcuated system was the arch, which was semi-circular in shape. In this case, the supports did not carry monolithic lintels, but smaller units, wedge-shaped voussoirs, which were constructed over arch-shaped wooden shuttering. Once they were all in place, with the final key stone at the top of the arch, their shape meant that their own weight wedged them more and more tightly together in a dynamic structure, and the shuttering could safely be removed and used to build the next one.

• chimera: A monster of Greek invention with the head and body of a lion and the tail of a serpent. A second head, that of a goat, grows out of one side of the body.

1. cistae: plural of cista. An Etruscan cylindrical container made of sheet bronze with case handles and feet, often with elaborately engraved bodies, used for women’s grooming items.

2. Etruscan: pertaining to Etruria, its inhabitants, civilization, art, or language.3. fibula: a decorative pin, usually used to fasten garments.• granulation: A decorative technique in which tiny metal balls, granules, are fused to a metal surface.1. necropolis: A large burial area or cemetery, literally, A city of the dead2. pectoral: An ornament worn on the chest3. podium: a continuous projecting base or pedestal under a building.4. stucco:fine plaster used for coating wall surfaces or molding into architectural

decorations.5. tufa: A porous rock formed from deposits of springs• tumulus: Burial mound; in Etruscan architecture, tumuli cover one or ore subterranean multi-chambered

tombs cut out of the local tufa. Also characteristic of the Japanese Kofun period of the third and fourth centuries where they signal the rise of grand political leaders.

1. Tuscan: relating to or denoting a classical order of architecture resembling the Doric but lacking all ornamentation.

2. voussoirs: A wedge-shaped block used in the construction of a true arch. The central voissoir, which sets the arch, is the keystone.

3. Vulca: the only Etruscan artist mentioned by ancient writers