Where the Heck is Etruscany Anyway?

26 July 2005 Based on a map from The National Geographic Magazine

Vol.173 No.6 June 1988. NormanEinstein

Ok, I know the people that lived in that central part of Italy from the 9^th to the 3^rd centuries BC were the Etruscans and their land was called Etruria not Etruscany, and part of that area is today called Tuscany (go figure).  

Anyway, if you have any interest in seeing some of the stuff they left behind, you can go to the National Geographic Society Museum in Washington DC and see "The Etruscans: An Ancient Italian Civilization" before the end of September, 2011.

The Etruscans were the West-Central Italians before the Romans got up and running. They were defeated in battle by the Romans in the 3^rd century BC and were eventually absorbed by Rome. As the exhibit points out they were heavily influenced by the Greeks who were all over the Mediterranean during their heyday.

This is not a large exhibit, NatGeo is limited by their space, but there are some 400 pieces with lots of pottery, household items, weapons, jewelry and votive figures in clay, bronze and stone. The pieces that really stand out are the funerary sculptures. These Etruscans had a rich and complex view of the afterlife, and devotion to the departed was obviously a big part of their lives.

Visitors are greeted by a three dimensional sculpted funerary urn from the 4^th century BC with a not quite the life-size husband and wife sitting together the husbands hand reaching to touch his wife’s back, the wife’s right hand raised up. His torso is bare, she is covered with a cloak coming up over the back of her hair.

You can see them here at the exhibit site.

One of the more unusual items is a clay 7^th century B.C canopa or funerary vessel to hold cremated human remains. On the bottom is a small chair or throne, on top of it sits jar with handles and then on top of the jar is the is sculpted human head, a woman they say because of the earring holes. Experts also think that the protrusion on the back of the head was to hold a wig.

There are also a couple of life-size sarcophagus covers, one in terra cotta with a woman lying prone over the lower part that has a nice dolphin design and another in volcanic stone of a portly man lying in banquet pose, with his head resting on his arm, looking up as if he is about to speak.

Brian Mosley has some nice photos of the exhibit here.

As they say Rome wasn’t built in a day, and in terms of influence, they obviously had some help from the Etruscans. The exhibit closes September 25, 2011.