entry 2008 update,
Dec 2011, box added Mar 2018, updated May 2021, Sept
2022, Npv 2022
The
Etruscans in Campania
"Etruscan"
generally evokes the image of the great pre-Roman
civilization in central Italy, a still somewhat mysterious
people about whom we would like to know a lot more than we
ever will. You don't generally think of Etruscans this far
south, in the Campania region of Italy, near Naples; yet,
they were here. (Clearly, their ambitions stretched
southwards but were eventually thwarted.) Indeed, Parthenope (then to become Neapolis—Naples)
was somewhat of a late-comer in the area and could be
founded only when Etruscan influence had weakened
and almost disappeared, which it had by the mid-400s b.c.,
the presumptive date of the founding of Parthenope.
A few miles north of Naples is the town of Santa Maria Capua Vetere,
the modern name for the ancient city of Capua, called Campeva in ancient histories.
(The modern town of Capua is right next door, but “ancient
Capua” means modern Santa Maria Capua Vetere.) Well before
the Romans, Campeva was founded by the Etruscans in about
600 b.c. and used to be considered the southernmost
identifiably Etruscan town in Italy (but see the link to
"Pontecagnano," below); Campeva is well to the south of
"Etruria" and not one of the 12 famous towns of the
Etruscan confederation in north-central Italy, all of
which are north of Rome. (See Capua, a Short Tale of Two Cities.)
box added Mar 20, 2018
This Etruscan appliqué depicts
the Sun God Usil. It is dated to 500 - 475 B.C.
and is from Vulci (near the Tyrrhenian coast
about 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Rome
(identified with the Etruscan name, Velch, on
the map, above). It is in bronze and is 20 cm
high (7 7/8 inches). It
probably decorated an Etruscan chariot or
funeral cart. The applique represents the solar
deity Usil (the equivalent of the Greek god
Helios and Roman god Sol). There are a few other
similar examples in museums in the world, but
this one is said to be the best preserved. It is
in the collection the J. Paul Getty Museum,
Villa Collection, Malibu, California. Vulci or
Volci was a rich and important Etruscan city and
her artisans were known as master sculptors in
bronze. The city was named for the tribe, which
was one of the legendary twelve peoples of
Etruscan civilization who later formed the
Etruscan League. During the days of the
so-called Grand Tour in the 1700s and 1800s,
Vulci was held to be as signficant as the Greek
and Roman sites and was a major stopping point.
There are, of course, a great number of Roman
"additions" to Vulci from the centuries of later
Roman domination. The site may be visited and
there is a National Archaeological Museum on the
premises. (image: Getty images)
|
The Etruscans were not Indo-Europeans (as we know
from their language).
To my knowledge, there is no consensus among scholars
whether they (1) came from somewhere
else, possibly what is now southern Turkey —as stated by
Greek historian, Herodotus, or (2) are a remnant of a
pre-Indo-European people indigenous to the Italian
peninsula. (But see update
below.) They were in Italy, however, by
the tenth century b.c. They expanded into their
confederation and a number of other towns in central Italy
by the seventh century and were at the height of their
power by about 600. By that time they had also settled
their southernmost outpost in Italy, Amina (later known to
the Romans as Picentia and today as Pontecagnano) on the plain
just south of modern-day Salerno. They then started to
fade as they came into contact with the newly encroaching
immigrants of Magna Graecia,
who built towns at Cuma and
Paestum, limiting further
Etruscan expansion along the southern coast. In the 400s
BC the Etruscans of Capua also came into contact with —and
were eventually subdued by— the belligerent native Italic
people known as the Samnites
(an Oscan tribe and one of a group of tribes referred to
in the literature as “Sabellian”—from Sabine), who
were about to engage the young and not-yet-imperial Romans
in centuries of war for the domination of central Italy.
The
Etruscans were also defeated in important naval battles
with the Greeks from Siracuse (Sicily), first off of Cuma
in 474 BC and then at Elba in 453; with that, the
Etruscans lost control of the waters of the Tyrrhenian
Sea. Their “last gasp,” so to speak, was in 414 when they
went to the aid of the Athenian army that was besieging
Siracuse in what is called in the history of the Peloponnesian War, the
“Sicilian expedition.” (The two-year war was an utter
disaster for the Athenians, leading to the eventual
overthrow of the Athenian democracy.) The Etruscans were
then further pressed by invading Celts in around 400 b.c.
and thereafter simply dissolved into the fabric of
Sabellian- and then Roman-controlled Italy. Their cultural
influence is still seen even further south than Capua,
however, in such things as the well-known tomb decorations
in Paestum (photo, above).
Their presence in the area near Capua and to the south
towards Naples figures in the display at the new
archeology museum in nearby
Succivo.
references: "The Etruscans and the
Sicilian Expedition of 414-413 B.C." by M.O.B Caspari
in The Classical
Quarterly, Vol.5, No. 2 (Apr., 1911)
pp.113-115.
update on
Etruscan origins: In 2007, Professor Alberto Piazza,
from the University of Torino reported to the European
Society of Human Genetics that there is overwhelming
evidence that the Etruscans were settlers from old
Anatolia (now in southern Turkey). That conclusion was
based on comparative DNA studies. "We think that our
research provides convincing proof that Herodotus was
right", said Professor Piazza, "and that the Etruscans
did indeed arrive from ancient Lydia."
^up
MUSEUMS
[Feb 2015] there was a good
small museum of Etruscan archaeology in Naples. It was
on the premises of the Collegio Francesca Denza on via
Discesa Coroglio and was run by the Barnabite fathers.
The 800-piece collection was first assembled between
1869 and 1882 by the Barnabites. Those premises have
now been closed and the collection has come to
Naples at the National Archeological Museum.]
[August 2018] There are at least three
other prominent Etruscan Museums in Italy.
1.The National Etruscan Museum (Italian: Museo
Nazionale Etrusco), housed in the Villa Giulia
in Rome.
Website
here. Also
2.The Tarquinia National Museum
(Italian: Museo Archeologico Nazionale Tarquiniense)
in Tarquinia. The collection consists primarily of the
artifacts which were excavated from the Necropolis of
Monterozzi to the east of the city. It is housed in
the Palazzo Vitelleschi. Website
here.
3.
The Etruscan Museum and Archaeological site in
Tuscany (directly below)
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added May 2021
The Etruscan
Archaeological
Site in Tuscany
Many
museums in the world have put their works at the
on-line disposition of the world. If you have the time
the Louvre has the stuff (just checked — it's on-line. Go
nuts). Italy has a lotissimo of archaeology to
offer, and wouldn't it be nice once again if you could
really go to the place and see it and walk around it
with a knowledgeable guide. Good news: the
Archaeological Museum "“Francesco Nicosia” of Artimo
reopened on April 29. It is the best place in the
world to learn about the ancient and mysterious
Etruscans and if you are not curious about the
Etruscans, you have no soul.
Opening hours:
March-Oct. Mon-Tue-Thur-Fri-0930-1330; Sat & Sun
-0930-1330 & 1500-1800.
The Etruscan museum archaeological site is at
Poggio Colla near the town of Vicchio in Tuscany.
The Wikipedia English description
of the site is here.
Also see: (first one is in Italian)
https://www.parcoarcheologicocarmignano.it/,
and The Mugello Valley
Archaeologica Project
What's up Etruscan-wise these days? Ahhh, lots!
'Extraordinary
Find': Rare Religious Text Written in Lost
Etruscan Language
Go find out. Maybe they'll let you dig.
[Also see The Ancient Unknown City of
Amina/Picentia and The Etruscan Language]
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added: Sept. 2022
The Etruscan Cave Roads/Trails
As
popular as the region of Tuscany is, we still don't
much about the Etruscans. They thrived here from 900
BC to about 700 BC until they were absorbed into the
Roman Empire. Even modern Tuscans don't know that
much, and their eyes go into overglaze if you ask
them. Interest is picking up and there are now
official guides who are keen to tell you about those
strange vie cave (via cava is the
singular), the sunken, walled pathways used to travel
from the highlands to the riverbanks and vice versa.
The towns of Pitigliano, Sorano and Sovana are among
the oldest and most intact. The Etruscan held these
paths to be what connected the land of the living with
the land of the dead. It can spook you if you let it,
for these trails link you with gods and devils and
whatever else is on "the other side".
What we have learned through painstaking research over
the years is that the Etruscans came from what is
Turkey, the Anatolian peninsula. We still know very
little about the language. Tomb inscriptions are a
poor source, so what we want is some garrulous old
Etruscan Homer to have bored his extended family to
tears with tales of the "good old days" and then when
writing came along, fiery whippersnippers to have
written it down and buried it under what is now a
parking garage. That never was much of even a fat
chance, and it grows slimmer, concrete slab by
concrete slab.
So
enjoy the trails. The steps are usually finely cut.
The walls are not necessarily high but can be. Guides
should explain the Etruscan engineering skill, also
used in ancient Egypt —
drill a hole for a piece of wood, fill the hole with
water, the wood expands and forces the porous tuff
stone to fracture. Do this a few thousand times and
you have your stairway to the stars or whatever else
you think is over or out there. You may come across a
necropolis, a "city of the dead", usually a family
affair packed with gold, food and clothing for safe
passage into the afterlife. In spite of tomb robbers
over the many centuries, historians have found pottery
and painted frescoes that shed light on a salient
feature of Etruscan culture: they valued men and women
equally. This image of the "Bride and Groom", the
so-called "Sarcophagus of the Spouses", found in the
Etruscan necropolis in Cerveteri is one of the great
masterpieces of Etruscan art. It is almost life-size.
It clearly shows that men and women were held in equal
status. The piece is now located in the National
Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome.
sources:
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220922-tuscanys-mysterious-cave-roads
this is a superb article for the BBC by Joel
Balsam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcophagus_of_the_Spouses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Etruscan_Museum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarquinia_National_Museum
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UNESCO and the Etruscans
Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tarquinia
UNESCO has taken note of the Etruscan civilization and
published literature on why parts of Tuscany are
in their list of World Heritage Sites. For example:
These two
large Etruscan cemeteries reflect different types of
burial practices from the 9th to the 1st century BC,
and bear witness to the achievements of Etruscan
culture, which over nine centuries developed the
earliest urban civilization in the northern
Mediterranean. Some of the tombs are monumental, cut
in rock and topped by impressive tumuli (burial
mounds)... They provide the only surviving evidence
of Etruscan residential architecture. The necropolis
of Tarquinia, also known as Monterozzi, contains
6,000 graves cut in the rock... The necropolises of
Tarquinia and Cerveteri are masterpieces of creative
genius: Tarquinia's large-scale wall paintings are
exceptional both for their formal qualities and for
their content, which reveal aspects of life, death,
and religious beliefs of the ancient Etruscans.
[There is much more
at the UNESCO link, below.]
sources:
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1158/
http://www.cerveteri.beniculturali.it/index.php?en/1/home
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added Nov 2022
24 Etruscan
Statues Discovered in Tuscany

This does
make you wonder what else is down there. Last
week archaeologists found not one or two, but
24 (!) ancient Etruscan statues in a spa, a
network of 42 thermal hot springs, in San
Casciano (near Siena) in Tuscany. The statues
date back 2,300 years. Massimo Osanna of the
Italian culture ministry said the relics were
the most important discovery of their kind in
fifty years. Some of the statues have already
been identified - for example, Hygeia, the
goddess of health, with a snake wrapped around
her arm. The researchers also found thousands
of Greek and Roman coins thrown by the wealthy
patrons of the day. This was clearly a big
tourist draw for the "grand tourists" of the
day, no doubt loaded with coins and time to
travel and throw their coins in the fountain.
(Might make a nice song some day!) So the
Etruscans give up, begrudgingly, a few more
pieces of the puzzle of what lies behind our
so-called "Greco-Roman" culture. They were in
Italy before the Romans and Greeks, so they
should know. I'm still waiting for my Etruscan
epic poet, the one who summed up centuries of
oral history, wrote it all down and hid it
somewhere for us to find many centuries later.
Other items on the Etruscan are right above
you on this page (to top of page).
images: by
Jacopo Tabolli, leader of the archaeology
project at San Casciano and professor at the
Università per Stranieri
di Siena.
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added Dec 2022
The Burial of a Civilization
Italian archaeologists say the
discovery (above) is the "most exceptional" in the
last half-century, one that could rewrite the
history of the relationship between the Etruscan
and Roman civilizations. In the third century BC,
this place had a unique attraction: the ancient
Etruscans built a sanctuary at the local hot
springs that later gave the town its name. The
Etruscans thrived for 500 years in what today is
central Italy — Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio — before
the establishment of the Roman Republic in 509 BC,
after the last Etruscan king who had ruled Rome
was overthrown. Roman art and culture were highly
influenced by the Etruscan civilization, which
ultimately was assimilated into the Roman Empire.
The valley below the town has 42 sources that
provide one of the largest flows of thermal water
in Europe, says Ludovico Salerno, a member of the
local archaeological association that has taken
part in the digs. Starting in 2020, they unearthed
a large marble pool of the ancient sanctuary,
decorated with fountains and altars to the gods
Apollo, his son Asclepius and Asclepius' daughter
Hygeia — from whence our word "hygiene". The
Etruscans had adopted their religion from the
Greeks and key elements of the Etruscan religion
were later adopted by the Roman Senate.
This site, says Salerno, was
not meant for recreation. "The pool was sacred.
Only the religious custodians could bathe there.
Sick people came here in hopes of a cure and
offered gifts to the gods. It was a place of
suffering... and of hope." The first finds were
coins and small votive offerings representing body
parts in need of healing — ears, feet, torsos, and
the like. In the autumn of 2022, they found the
two dozen bronze statues. Archaeologist
Emanuele Mariotti, the fieldwork manager who
oversees the digs, says so many objects in their
original places provide historical context.
"Everything must be in the right place with the
right things around," says Mariotti. "The context
tells us the real history." There was likely a
blacksmith, where people seeking cures could have
their votive offerings forged in bronze. The have
found bronze depictions of internal organs — what
Mariotti says are "Something like X-rays but in
bronze, a picture of the [insides of the] body in
bronze [...] "... with scientific accuracy."
How might this "rewrite history? This
was a "multicultural and multilingual haven of
peace" between Etruscans
and Romans at a time when these rivals were mostly
at war...[...]...this marks the transition from
the Etruscan
civilization to the Roman one. "We can describe
their life here, day by day, through four or five
centuries, so this
is incredible." There's one big mystery: Why
didn't the Christians destroy this site — or
convert it into a church — as they did with so
many pagan temples? Around 500 AD — some two
centuries after Christianity became the official
religion of the Roman Empire, which by this time
was waning — the sanctuary was dismantled piece by
piece. The statues were laid at the bottom of the
big pool, covered and sealed with columns and
marble slabs. It was the burial of a civilization,
says Mariotti, performed with "pietas" –
Latin for respect. Excavation will resume
in the spring. The statues will eventually be
displayed in a new museum in San Casciano dei
Bagni.
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