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This new collection presents a rich selection of innovative scholarship on the Etruscans, a vibrant, independent people whose distinct civilization flourished in central Italy for most of the first millennium BCE and whose artistic, social and cultural traditions helped shape the ancient Mediterranean, European, and Classical worlds.
* Includes contributions from an international cast of both established and emerging scholars
* Offers fresh perspectives on Etruscan art and culture, including analysis of the most up-to-date research and archaeological discoveries
* Reassesses and evaluates traditional topics like architecture, wall painting, ceramics, and sculpture as well as new ones such as textile archaeology, while also addressing themes that have yet to be thoroughly investigated in the scholarship, such as the obesus etruscus, the function and use of jewelry at different life stages, Greek and Roman topoi about the Etruscans, the Etruscans' reception of ponderation, and more
* Counters the claim that the Etruscans were culturally inferior to the Greeks and Romans by emphasizing fields where the Etruscans were either technological or artistic pioneers and by reframing similarities in style and iconography as examples of Etruscan agency and reception rather than as a deficit of local creativity
List of contents
List of Illustrations viii
List of Tables xv
Notes on Contributors xvi
Acknowledgments xx
Map of Etruria xxi
Introduction xxii
Alexandra A. Carpino and Sinclair Bell
Part I History 1
1 Beginnings: Protovillanovan and Villanovan Etruria 3
Simon Stoddart
2 Materializing the Etruscans: The Expression and Negotiation of Identity during the Orientalizing, Archaic, and Classical Periods 15
Skylar Neil
3 The Romanization of Etruria 28
Letizia Ceccarelli
Part II Geography, Urbanization, and Space 41
4 Etruscan Italy: Physical Geography and Environment 43
Simon Stoddart
5 City and Countryside 55
Simon Stoddart
6 The Etruscans and the Mediterranean 67
Giovannangelo Camporeale
7 Urbanization and Foundation Rites: The Material Culture of Rituals at the Heart and the Margins of Etruscan Early Cities 87
Corinna Riva
8 Poggio Civitate: Community Form in Inland Etruria 105
Anthony S. Tuck
9 Southern and Inner Etruria: Benchmark Sites and Current Excavations 117
Claudio Bizzarri
10 Etruscan Domestic Architecture, Hydraulic Engineering, and Water Management Technologies: Innovations and Legacy to Rome 129
Claudio Bizzarri and David Soren
11 Rock Tombs and the World of the Etruscan Necropoleis: Recent Discoveries, Research, and Interpretations 146
Stephan Steingräber
12 Communicating with Gods: Sacred Space in Etruria 162
P. Gregory Warden
Part III Evidence in Context 179
13 Etruscan Skeletal Biology and Etruscan Origins 181
Marshall J. Becker
14 Language, Alphabet, and Linguistic Affiliation 203
Rex E. Wallace
15 Bucchero in Context 224
Philip Perkins
16 Etruscan Textiles in Context 237
Margarita Gleba
17 Etruscan Wall Painting: Insights, Innovations, and Legacy 247
Lisa C. Pieraccini
18 Votives in their Larger Religious Context 261
Helen Nagy
19 Etruscan Jewelry and Identity 275
Alexis Q. Castor
20 Luxuria prolapsa est: Etruscan Wealth and Decadence 293
Hilary Becker
21 Tanaquil: The Conception and Construction of an Etruscan Matron 305
Gretchen E. Meyers
22 The Obesus Etruscus: Can the Trope be True? 321
Jean MacIntosh Turfa
Part IV Art, Society, and Culture 337
23 The Etruscans, Greek Art, and the Near East 339
Ann C. Gunter
24 Etruscan Artists 353
Jocelyn Penny Small
25 Etruscan Bodies and Greek Ponderation: Anthropology and Artistic Form 368
Francesco de Angelis
26 Myth in Etruria 388
Ingrid Krauskopf
27 The "Taste" for Violence in Etruscan Art: Debunking the Myth 410
Alexandra A. Carpino
Part V The Etruscan Legacy and Contemporary Issues 431
28 Annius of Viterbo and the Beginning of Etruscan Studies 433
Ingrid D. Rowland
29 Tyrrhenian Sirens: The Seductive Song of Etruscan Forgeries 446
Richard Daniel De Puma
30 Looting and the Antiquities Trade 458
Gordon Lobay
Part VI Appendix 475
Appendix: Etruscan Art in North American Museums 477
Richard Daniel De Puma
Index 483
About the author
Sinclair Bell is Associate Professor of Art History at Northern Illinois University. He is the co-editor of five other books, including New Perspectives on Etruria and Early Rome (2009 with H. Nagy), and is currently the reviews editor of Etruscan Studies: Journal of the Etruscan Foundation.
Alexandra A. Carpino is Professor of Art History and Department Chair of Comparative Cultural Studies at Northern Arizona University. The author of Discs of Splendor: The Relief Mirrors of the Etruscans (2003) and several articles on Etruscan portraiture and mirror iconography, Dr. Carpino also served as editor-in-chief of Etruscan Studies: Journal of the Etruscan Foundation from 2012 to 2014.
