Ceramica etrusca

The present text provides an example of “metadisciplinary” approach.
Approach to what? Here’s an important point: we don’t know. It depends on the observer, like in a daydream quantum vision of fluctuating reality. Are we trying to keep dynamic kids out of trouble or are we helping them to become responsible citizens? Are we making pottery with them, or promoting an academic scoop: unveiling the original aspect of an Etruscan bucchero? Are we just having fun mocking the unbreakable certainties of the experts, or do we really mean to tell them that their whole approach to ancient arts, religions and societies should be revisited, through this one example? We don’t know what we are doing. That’s typical of any metadisciplinary activity, yet if we consider one “disciplinary field”, Etruscan pottery, our ‘lack of specialization’, or ‘holistic vision’, has brought an understanding that badly lacks in experts, unable to see, and preserve, the original aspect of a bucchero.
This text was published twenty years ago and got vast distribution in various forms in Italy, where nothing has changed in that regard, except for us: we do not use the term “interdisciplinary” anymore. It too often indicates a competition among experts. The term “metadisciplinary” promotes a paradigm shift in which the single disciplines are humble enough to disappear, just like length and width combine & disappear in a new being: the Surface. Pottery and metallurgy had to combine & disappear, in order to re-discover the original appearance of an Etruscan bucchero, just like algebra and geometry combined & disappeared in the Cartesian coordinate system (Cfr. The Metadisciplinary School Project. Excerpt available on this page of Academia.edu).

Thanks to the increasing multidisciplinary approach to the analysis of votive contexts, a meaningful amount of information about both archaeological finds and associated faunal remains is available, giving way to interpretations about cults and sacrificial practices. This paper deals with the filling of different categories of “cavities” included in Etruscan sacred areas: the deep ones providing a connection with the underworld (mainly holding a primary hydraulic function); the wide ditches and the artificially delimited hollow spaces. In spite of the uneven quality of published data, this paper attempts to discuss and highlight their possible meaning and common distinctive features, taking into account their stratification, the sequence of operations involved and the evidence of specific rituals performed during the definitive land filling.

This paper presents an unpublished clay plate with painted decoration found during field surveys conducted in 1994 inside the area of a new Etruscan settlement discovered in the district of “Acquatraversa”, nearby the ancient route of via Veientana (Rome). The
analytical study of this important and typical object, besides comparison with related pottery, makes it possible to assign its date exactly to the beginning of the last quarter of seventh century BC, as well as to suggest that it was manufactured in the territory of ancient Capena.

In this paper, we intend to examine some modern huts, in order to help us to understand better and to interpret the archaeological remains of huts. The tradition of building huts in the countryside has today been replaced by that of building stone houses, but huts can still be found in very restricted numbers. They are used for various purposes, for example, as structures reminiscent of the past at local festivities or for use as Storage spaces for agricultural tools. Still to be seen in the 1950s and 1960s, the huts today represent only relics of a past knowledge, which was the result of long experience. Now only a few old farmers or shepherds preserve this knowledge. We will present a couple of modern hut constructions and some archaeological discoveries in the area of Monti della Tolfa north of Rome. In restoring these huts, we take into  account the technical wisdom which has been transmitted orally.

The collaboration with the Department of Sciences of Antiquities, Sapienza Università di Roma, made possible the analysis of an extremely rich context discovered in 1998 in the western sector of the Civita
Castellana plateau.
This analysis enabled us to reconsider the ways in which craftsmen operated, especially in connection with the production of red-figure vases and black-gloss pottery, which are, as generally known, two of the major pottery productions within the Faliscan area.
In particular, the discovery of more than 200 firing supports has led us to undertaking a typological study of this kind of object and to develop some considerations concerning its use.
Finally, the presence of a good number of testers and potters’ painting tests allowed us to observe the processes connected to the chaîne operatoire from the inside.

Etruscan cities facing the sea-Caere, Tarquinia, Vulci, Populonia, and Pisa-as well as those located farther inland, such as Roselle, Vetulonia, and Volterra, rose, except for Populonia, on raised mounds or spurs at a certain distance from the sea, with which they were connected by watercourses. Along the coast of southern Etruria, harbors exploited the presence of lagoons and other natural basins connected with the sea. Rivers mouths provided good shelter for ships and boats; rivers also penetrate inland and thus are useful as navigation channels. Settlements at river mouths developed from the seventh century BCE onward, following the main stream of urbanism. Trading posts were thus located outside the biggest urban centers but dependent on them, so that a binomial relationship was created between inland "powers" and specialized places on the coast, called “ports of trade” or emporia. The concept ofharbor is denoted in Greek sources with terms like limen (harbor environment), or hormos and epineion (anchorage, inner harbor). Technical literature in Latin oflater periods, especially portolans (pilot's books including nautical maps) and Itineraria, distinguishes between portus (an artificially protected area with installations easing ships’ access; cf. Vitr. 5.12.1), and statio or positio navium (minor landing site) and refilgium (small berthing place). According to literary sources of the Roman period, along the Etruscan Tyrrhenian coast there were twenty-eight landing sites at regular distances of around four to eight kilometers from Porta to the mouth of the Fiora River. The problem of identifying the named sites is not completely solved, because of coastal variation, the dearth of archaeological evidence, and frequent errors in the transcription of distances. It is not simple to distinguish archaeologically between landing sites and constructed harbors, although we know that ancient seafaring did not need specially built berths or docks. It seems certain that harbor settlements that already existed in the sixth century BCE, such as Pyrgi, Castrum Novum, Gravisca, Regae, Orbetello, Talamone, Populonia, and Pisa, differed in importance from the sites at the mouths of rivers that were natural berthing places. One may identify some recurrent elements. First of all, the choice of site, which was almost always the mouth of a river or a lagoon in the absence of a bay. In comparison with other areas of the ancient world, major Etruscan cities did not rise on the coast, although each had its own port(s) to which it was connected by a highway. Another remarkable element is the frequent close relationship between such epineia and extra-urban sanctuaries, both of which are direct expressions of the power of the city with respect to the external world.

The stamped pottery of Caere, a regional production of pithoi and braziers, has been widely published and is generally familiar to Etruscologists. In this article, I present, however, some previously unpublished vessels, raising new questions about this ware, namely its distribution, archaeological context, decorative motifs, function, and ceramic predecessors. The Caeretan stamped Impasto can be dated to roughly 625/620–510 BC and was distributed in South Etruria and Latium. Its archaeological contexts are generally funerary. In additional to the ornamental, the motifs of the stamped impressions include apotropaic symbols, as well as those associated with the ruling aristocracy, such as hunting and banquet scenes and attributes of the warrior. Others allude to Greek mythology or have sepulchral references such as felines attacking their prey or the journey to the afterworld. In tombs, this ware could have played a central role in the funerary banquet, served the deceased in the afterlife and reflected the social status of the family during the funerary rituals. This ware, then, may be best understood within the context of the burial practices of the elites in South Etruria.