Tarquinia

""Etruscan is an Indo-European language, probably belonging to a sub-branch of Anatolian which does not include Hittite. This claim is based on the following evidence:
• only lexical items for which Etruscologists have proposed a gloss have been used in this research (no attempt has been made at proposing new glosses for currently obscure or highly controversial Etruscan terms);
• 138 of the glosses put forth by Etruscologists belong to basic lexicon, and 97% of such basic lexicon has an IE etymology;
• 19 grammar morphemes have also been assigned a value by Etruscologists: 95% of them have an IE etymology;
• all such etymologies are based on regular sound laws;
• a few notable innovations are shared by Etruscan and Anatolian languages (often excluding Hittite).""

The research on the Mound of Queen (excavations 2008-2014) showed a long stretch of the perimeter of the monument and the front of the tomb, focused on the large vestibule / entrance on which there are three funerary rooms: the
large central room, which is unexplored and the two side rooms. The mound presents a cross plan, the oldest so far documented in the architecture of Tarquinia. The works revealed the magnificence of princely burial and unexpected
pictorial and sculptural decorative peculiarities. In the back came to light a podium-altar, and remains of stone animal sculptures refer to a group of sculptures that decorated the mound. The entrance of the tomb opens to the West,
towards the sea, and had to be protected by a wooden roof of which remain on the steps large post holes. The main element of the Interior is coated with white plaster in alabaster plaster that covered the entrance and burial chambers:
chalk’s luck baked in the Middle East is due to its versatility in use. The chromatic impact offered by the vestibule paintings had to be very impressive, with issues related to the celebration of the death and the gentry identity, as you can see from the painted fragments that show geometric patterns and figures made with the colors of the oldest Tarquinian painting, red and black. We are faced with the first pictorial experiences of Tarquinia, the second half of the seventh century BC, with a monumental representation, as is the case at once in large tombs of Cerveteri.

This contribution presents a preliminary report of the results of the research unit of the University
of Milan, “Tarquinian Walls”, and an overview of the interdisciplinary undertaking of the “Tarquinia
Project”. Such background research made it possible to figure out the relationship between the city and
its territory as regards the choice of the Tarquinian ancient community to partially frame the limits of
the Civita plateau with walls. In such a framework, the evidence of the impasto olla of the Bocchoris
Tomb, dating to the very beginning of the 7th century BCE and decorated with a white-on-red technique,
could help in understanding the meaning of the pattern of the walls at Tarquinia during the
orientalising period. The olla shows the most ancient representation known so far of seven alternating
towers crowned with square battlements and soldiers with hoplite armour. The study of the whole set
of objects, including the olla, its lid and the holmos that rises to a level under the viewer’s eye, inspires
comparisons with the iconographies of the great cities of Ancient Greece and the Near East.

This paper discusses an Athenian red-figured calyx krater of ca. 440 B.C., recently looted from the Etruscan site of Tarquinia and subsequently seized by the Italian carabinieri. The krater's style, shape, and three-line fragmentary inscription -- the latter only visible under raking light -- allow an attribution to the Pantoxena Painter, a member of the prolific Polygnotan workshop. Moreover, the krater features a scene unique among surviving vases; I conclude that it provides the only known image of a rhapsode from the second half of the fifth century B.C. This vase therefore adds considerably to our knowledge of rhapsodic contests in Athens, as well as the perception of this event among contemporary Athenians at a time of great cultural change. More difficult to evaluate is the krater's meaning for its Etruscan viewer with such distinctively Athenian iconography. The unfortunate lack of documentation and physical context means that only part of the vase's biography can be uncovered.

Funde, Eigennamen und Schriftzeichen beweisen Roms lange Zugehörigkeit zur etruskischen Kultur. Die historisch faßbaren Anfänge des Etruskertums in Italien fallen mit der mythischen  Gründungzeit Roms (datiert auf 753 v. Chr.) zusammen. Die Sage berichtet vom korinthisch-etruskischen Ursprung der letzten römische Könige und von Einfällen der Etrusker unter dem König von Clusium Lars Porsenna nach dem Sturz der Tarquinier.  Die zwei römischen Gründungsmythen, die Äneas- und die Romulus-Sage, bezeugen die enge Verbindung Roms mit den etruskischen Nachbarn. Von den sieben sagenhaften Königen Roms, von Romulus bis Tarquinius Superbus, waren vier etruskischer Herkunft. Romulus ist der mythische Ahnherr der *Ruma, eines aus lat. Roma erschlossenen Geschlechternamens. Die erschlossene etruskische Form von Romulus lautet *Rumle. Von ihm leiten sich auch die Gentilizien Romulius bzw. Romilius ab. Auf die Romulii oder Romilii ist auch die erste der  sechzehn ältesten römischen Landtribus, die Romulia zurückzuführen. Remus gilt als der Ahnherr der Remmii, eines Geschlechts, das es wohl im ältesten Rom gegeben haben muß. Dem Gentilnamen liegt der etruskische Name  Rem-ne oder Rem-ni zugrunde. Von diesem Gentilizium leiten sich in und um Rom die Toponyme Rem-ona und Rem-oria her. Tyrrhener  und Römer wurden von den Griechen häufig synonym benutzt: Tyrrhenoì  è Rhomaîoi („Tyrrhener oder Römer“), ebenso wie Tyrrhenía è Italía. Einige Sprachelemente seien zusätzlich genannt: Im Etruskischen lauten die Namensbezeichnungen für Rom Ruma, für Römer Rumach, für Troja Truia, für Trojaner Truial. In der Frühzeit herrschte ein Priesterkönig (lauchme oder lochume, lat. lucumo) in jeder etruskischen Stadt, ein Titel, der möglicherweise auf die Heilskönige und Richter der nordostgeorgischen Bergstämme verweist, die häufig den Namen Luchumi trugen.

Das etruskische Erbe Roms gelangte erst Jahrhunderte später, während des Humanismus und in der Renaissance wieder zum Vorschein. Bei der Hinwendung zur Antike in der Rinascita spielte in der Toskana und in Latium, vor allem in Florenz und Viterbo, die Etruscheria, die Begeisterung für die Etrusker, eine besondere Rolle. Das Etruskertum diente als Modell gesellschaftlicher Erneuerung und fand Eingang in die kulturellen Programme der Renaissancefürsten, nicht zuletzt  der Medici. Der römische Baumeister Vitruv hatte  in seinem Augustus gewidmeten Werk De architectura  die tuskische Säulenordnung beschrieben. Diese Schrift regte die Renaissancearchitekten Andrea Palladio und Giorgio Vasari an. Der Palladianismus bildet zwei Jahrhunderte später eine der wichtigsten Stilrichtungen des Klassizismus. Durch die Lektüre von Palladio inspiriert, errichtete Thomas Jefferson sein Haus „Monticello“ mit toskanischem Portikus – die  erste toskanische Villa in der Neuen Welt.  Den Etruskern verdankt das  abendländischen Denken  schließlich  eine zentrale Kategorie – die Person.

"Since 2008 the Etruscan graves of the Doganaccia area, lying at the heart of the Monterozzi burial ground, have been subject to systematic investigation by the University of Turin in collaboration with the Soprintendenza Archeologica. The archaeological excavation, concentrated on the “Queen’s” Tumulus dating to the Orientalizing Period, has brought to light finds associated with the occupation of the area during the Early Iron Age. Excavation of the area around the tumulus has recorded the presence of Villanovan coarse ware sherds, of a type characteristic of domestic pottery, encouraging the conclusion that part of the earth used to build the tumulus was extracted from a nearby Early Iron Age settlement site. As well as the data from the Doganaccia site, this paper presents the results from fieldwork on two other known nearby burial sites (Acquetta and Fontanaccia); these new results enrich the archaeological record for the area to the north of the Monterozzi hill, encouraging a new reading of the settlement pattern of the area during the Early Iron Age."

Aim of the paper is the presentation of an important group of figurative ceramic (black-figure, red-figure, superposed colour) discovered during P. Romanelli’s excavations on the Civita of Tarquinia. The material, completely unpublished, comes from the investigations of the so-called “edificio B”, the only one that together with the Ara della Regina returned figured pottery. Together with the materials more recently discovered during the excavations of the Università Degli Studi di Milano at the “complesso monumentale” and at the Ara della Regina, these fragments represent an important documentation of figured pottery from Tarquinian non-funerary contexts. Even if it is not possible to recognise the original function of these vases, their analysis adds important data on the diffusion of groups such as the Uccelli acquatici Group or the Funnel Group. Particularly interesting in this regard is an unusually decorated fragment belonging to the Tarquinian Silhouette Workshop, recognised by M. Del Chiaro as a Tarquinian production, to which is dedicated the second part of this work.

Discovered in the middle of the XIX century, the Etrusco-Roman city of Musarna, located between Viterbo and Tuscania, in the very heart of Tarquinia’s territory, has been founded at the end of the IV century BC as a military colony, and definitively abandoned at the beginning of the VII century AD. Between 1983 and 2003, the École française de Rome made extensive archeological campaigns in and outside the city. This paper summarizes the chief results of these excavations – urban planning, public and private buildings, defensive walls, Hellenistic and Roman necropolis, landscape –, and gives a general account of the on-going publication project. It also includes new datas from the city (underground cellars), necropolis (Hellenistic terracotta masks in the Vatican Museum, localization and context of the 18 sarcophagi from Musarna kept in the United States, with a new inscription of the Thvetlie in Berkeley) and territory (Monterazzano’s “Veiovis”, two unpublished Ferento’s cippi, question of the pestarole, nenfro caves), as well as indications about the first results of the excavations at the monumental Hellenistic tomb recently rediscovered at north-east from Musarna, loc. Grotte Scalina.

In this work, I wish to discuss some of the problematic aspects of atypical death and, in particular, atypical burials in
Etruria. Contrary to the etruscan’s tradition to bury in the necropolis, they were placed in the town. I will debate about
two cases discovered in Tarquinia which seem to me of the great interest. The first is a child’s burial of the IX century
B.C. According to the paleoanthropological analyses, he was albinic, encephalopathic and epileptic and I believe that
was understood by the the community as a prodigium. The second case is an impressive burial of the VIII century B.C,
of an adult who was killed by a plow to the head. A possible hypothesis is that it was most probably a human sacrifice.
This puts on foreground various religious and social problems. Archaeology and anthropology offer the key for
interpreting the archaeological evidence.

RIASSUNTO
L’articolo esamina le olle stamnoidi a colletto, vasi realizzati in Etruria in età ellenistica. La presenza del colletto sulla
spalla, uno spazio vuoto delimitato da un cordone plastico, è
un elemento che accomuna questa forma vascolare ai potes
meleiros iberici e melopitari greci. Come questi, anche le olle
stamnoidi possono quindi essere considerate specifici contenitori
per lo stoccaggio di miele.

RESUMEN
El presente artículo analiza las ollas con forma de stamnos
a colletto, vasos contenedores realizados en Etruria durante la
época helenística. Estos vasos se caracterizan por tener un canal
circular en el hombro, por eso es posible asociar esta forma
cerámica con la de los potes meleiros ibéricos y con la de los
melopitari grecos. Por eso, las ollas tienen que considerarse
específicos contenedores para conservar la miel.

SUMMARY
This paper discusses stamnoid jars a colletto. These vases,
made in Etruria during the Hellenistic period, are characterised
by a peculiar rib that creates an empty channel around the entire
circumference of the vase. Similar features can also be found on
Iberian potes meleiros and Greek melopitari. Like these latter
two types of vases, the aforementioned Etruscan jars may also
be considered as being devoted primarily to honey storage.

Sulle affascinanti e solinghe colline brulle di fronte
la Tarquinia moderna si sviluppava, in forma splendida,
la città etrusca e poi romana di Tarquinia, celebre
per i suoi templi e per i ritrovamenti effettuati negli
ultimi anni, come quello che qui andiamo a presentare,
con la sua storia “poliziesca” e che oggi vede partecipare
i giovani studenti di archeologia guidati dal prof. Attilio
Mastrocinque dell’Università di Verona.

Abstract
After a quick overview on the biology of flamingos and on conservation issues for the specie occurring in the Mediterraneum, the Author depicts the history of the registered presence of flamingos along the “maremma” coastal zone, with a particular focus on the Tarquinia’s saltpans and to the individuals bringing identification rings. The information and elaborations given show a growing presence in the whole the investigated area, thus representing a sign of a general management improvement in the network of areas belonging to the Tyrrhenian areal of such specie, a relevant affection to the analyzed sites and a growing trend in nesting. An attempt of nesting occurred in the saline during May 2013, reported and documented by the Italian State Forest Service, is also described and analyzed.

Riassunto
Dopo una breve presentazione sulla biologia del fenicottero e delle problematiche di conservazione della specie nel Mediterraneo
l’Autore presenta la cronistoria della registrazione degli avvistamenti di fenicottero sulle zone costiere della maremma, riferendole in particolare alle saline di Tarquinia ed agli esemplari inanellati. Le informazioni ed elaborazioni fornite mostrano una crescente presenza della specie in tutta la zona interessata, sintomo di un generale miglioramento gestionale nella rete di aree che fanno parte dell’areale tirrenico della specie, una notevole affezione ai siti analizzati ed una tendenza in crescita nella nidificazione..Viene riferito ed analizzato anche il tentativo di nidificazione avvenuto alle saline nel maggio 2013, rilevato e documentato dal Corpo forestale dello Stato.