For quite some time the ancient Mediterranean has been defined by a Graeco-Roman paradigm – for history, archaeology, art history, mapping, chronologies, and stylistic comparisons, Greece and Rome have been the cultural, artistic, and historical barometers of the ancient Mediterranean world. Ancient Graeco-Roman colonization, which stretched through vast territories including three continents, left a Graeco-Roman footprint on Indigenous peoples and lands throughout the Mediterranean basin. Today we struggle not only to shed light on these cultures (before, during, and after colonial impact), but to see where such cultures interacted, exchanged, and engaged (often without Greece and Rome as facilitators or mediators). Examining the ancient Mediterranean world through a Graeco-Roman lens is how early European academia began, not to mention how seventeenth-century Europeans connected themselves to a Graeco-Roman past. Because of this, academic disciplines in ancient Mediterranean studies are far too often infused with (and conduits for) this traditional framework. The time has come, however, to “decolonize” the framework within which the peoples and cultures of the ancient Mediterranean world have long been viewed, examined, and packaged. Many cultures existed alongside or in spite of the cultural influences of Greece and Rome – Etruria and Anatolia are two places where such cultures thrived. Not only do they present their own Indigenous cultural footprint, but they demonstrate how such societies existed, engaged, and exchanged despite colonizing superpowers.
A comprehensive examination of material connections and artistic exchange between Etruria and Anatolia has never been the focus of an in-depth and heuristic study, although some conspicuous similarities have been noted (e.g., Shear Reference Shear1926: 30; Åkerström Reference Åkerström1981). Remarkable connections in Etruscan and Anatolian material culture show a growing body of fascinating evidence for various forms of contact and exchange between these two regions separated by Greece. But, until recently, Classical scholars have looked at the ancient Mediterranean world vis-à-vis outdated academic and artificial disciplinary boundaries determined by dates, regions, and strict definitions of “classical” material culture (a term that is fading in popularity). Because the field of ancient Mediterranean studies is not commonly approached within an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and transhistorical framework, scholars – not to mention subject matter – fall into categories that divide, marginalize, and exclude. The field specializations of Etruscan and Anatolian archaeology, both relatively new, have left few scholars equipped with sufficient expertise in both Etruscan and Anatolian art to make thorough comparative studies of the material evidence or to fully explore the implications of connections in Etruscan and Anatolian art and architecture (for some exceptions, see Åkerström Reference Åkerström1966, Reference Åkerström1981; Lawergren Reference Lawergren1985; Prayon Reference Prayon1995; Naso Reference Naso1996, Reference Naso1998; Gilotta Reference Gilotta1998). Surely, we can do more to broaden and diversify the standard curricula required for study in ancient Mediterranean academia.
Such traditional academic boundaries (dating back to the 1700s) have also ignored the fluctuating and shifting world of exchange between regions and cultures not part of the “classical” Graeco-Roman conversation (though here, too, there are some notable exceptions, e.g., Ridgway and Ridgway Reference Ridgway and Ridgway1979). Postcolonial approaches to studying the ancient Mediterranean would considerably enhance our knowledge base and broaden our offerings of study in universities more broadly (in fact, there are few universities that offer teaching positions in Etruscan or Anatolian studies). Furthermore, using Greek labels such as “Etrusco-Ionian” to describe non-Greeks and non-Greek works of art creates more confusion, as they become widespread umbrella terms that do little to help explain an object. In fact, this labeling is part of a larger (and often neglected) colonial rubric for the ancient Mediterranean in general. Further still, Greek chronologies have become the lingua franca and barometer for all of the Mediterranean. Terms such as “Classical” or “Hellenistic” when speaking of Etruscan or Anatolian art do not adequately define the material but rather import Greek standards of comparison (which are not only useless but also intrinsically damaging). Our labeling systems and chronologies need revisions, if not full replacement.
Moreover, impassioned debate about the origins of the so-called mysterious Etruscans – whether they were an Indigenous, Italic population or migrants from Lydia, as suggested by Herodotus in the fifth century BCE (1.94) – has discouraged many archaeologists from investigating possible Etruscan and Anatolian cultural interaction. Controversial genetic and linguistic studies on both sides of the origin debate have only intensified the problem (DNA studies: Vernesi et al. Reference Vernesi, Caramelli, Dupanloup, Bertorelle, Lari, Cappellini and Moggi-Cecchi2004; Achilli et al. Reference Achilli, Oliveri, Pala, Metspalu, Fornarino, Battaglia and Accetturo2007; Pellecchia et al. Reference Pellecchia, Negrini, Colli, Patrini, Milanesi, Achilli and Bertorelle2007; Brisighelli et al. Reference Brisighelli, Capelli, Álvarez-Iglesias, Onofri, Paoli, Tofanelli and Carracedo2009; Pardo-Seco et al. Reference Pardo-Seco, Gómez-Carballa, Amigo, Martinón-Torres and Salas2014; criticism of DNA studies: Turfa Reference Turfa2006; Perkins Reference Perkins, Perkins and Swaddling2009; Tassi et al. Reference Tassi, Ghirotto, Caramelli and Barbujani2013; linguistic studies: Adrados Reference Adrados1989, Reference Adrados1994; Woudhuizen Reference Woudhuizen1991; Beekes Reference Beekes2003; see also, Hodos, Chapter 2). Today, most Etruscologists see the development of Etruscan culture within a clearly defined archaeological progression from the Bronze and Iron Ages onward and are beginning to refer to the Iron Age in Italy simply as the Proto-Etruscan period. The most recent genetic study, published days before the final submission of this manuscript and based on diachronic skeletal analysis, finally aligns with the archaeological evidence to confirm this long-standing view, namely that the Etruscans developed from their Bronze and Iron Age predecessors and that Etruscan culture developed on Italic soil (Posth et al. Reference Posth, Valentina, Spyrou, Stefania, Gnecchi-Ruscone, Modi and Peltzer2021).
This volume moves beyond the origin question to explore the striking and fascinating connections between Anatolian and Etruscan material culture within a theoretical framework that considers all possible explanations for such engagement. It recognizes multiple modes of connectivity and explores the implications of such exchange in different media and time periods (with many chapters focused on the Archaic period). It is our hope that the present volume begins to fill the gaps left by disciplinary boundaries and controversial migration theories by providing a series of chapters dedicated to the significant material relationships between Etruria and Anatolia – two regions separated by considerable distance yet partaking in cross-cultural contact, exchange, and consumption. It goes without saying that such a volume cannot cover all aspects of Etruscan and Anatolian art and connections, but rather we have selected topics based on the research that exists now, knowing full well that in due time more and more comparative studies will flourish.
Transregional studies in the ancient world are relatively new and include broad concepts of connectivity and intermediation between regions and cultures, as well as technologies of communication. An increasing number of publications dedicated to looking at the ancient Mediterranean world within a broader network of correlations has supplied a new language with which to describe such contact (Horden and Purcell Reference Horden and Purcell2000; Meskell Reference Meskell2005; van Dommelen and Knapp Reference van Dommelen and Knapp2010; Kirkham and Jones Reference Kirkham and Jones2011; Broodbank Reference Broodbank2013; de Angelis Reference de Angelis and de Angelis2013; van Dommelen Reference van Dommelen2014; Concannon and Mazurek Reference Concannon, Mazurek, Concannon and Mazurek2016; Mac Sweeney Reference Mac Sweeney and Molloy2016). Subsequently, a series of catchwords and phrases, such as “globalization,” “glocalization,” “Mediterraneanization,” “micro-regionalism,” “material connectivity,” “mobility,” and “decolonial,” have infiltrated the discipline and shaped a new way of looking at the ancient world. As Franco de Angelis noted in the introduction to Regionalism and Globalism in Antiquity, the “micro-ecologies” and interconnectivity of the Mediterranean “created unity through diversity and continuity through time” (de Angelis Reference de Angelis and de Angelis2013: 3–4, drawing upon the work of Horden and Purcell Reference Horden and Purcell2000). Building on such work, this volume reflects the growing “scholarly appreciation of the micro-regionalism of the ancient world and the interconnectedness that it caused” and the growing interest in “cross-cultural, multicultural and interdisciplinary perspectives, so needed in the highly parceled-up landscape of ancient Mediterranean studies” (de Angelis Reference de Angelis and de Angelis2013: 4). Beyond simply invoking or applying trending phrases, this volume aims to explore their usefulness in offering new approaches to the curious relationship between Etruscan and Anatolian material culture in order to open up a variety of new discussions regarding issues of identity (common versus distinguishing elements), exchange (both material and nonmaterial, i.e., customs, ideas, technologies), and nonverbal communications, as well as semiotics. How do we go about discussing the striking parallels between Etruscan and Anatolian arts in ways that deepen our understanding of their cultures and contacts? Without strict academic boundaries and with an increased awareness of the diversity of peoples as well as ideologies and customs, we may begin to see the ancient Mediterranean in a different and much needed new light.
It is particularly important to glean what we can from the material remains of Etruria and Anatolia since in neither region have literary traditions survived – yet another similarity. The written evidence left behind by the Etruscans themselves is limited to inscriptions, mainly funerary, and the same is true for the Lydians, Phrygians, Lycians, Carians, and most other native Anatolian peoples (Bonfante and Bonfante Reference Bonfante and Bonfante2002; Melchert Reference Melchert and Cahill2010; Brixhe Reference Brixhe, Tüfekçi Sivas and Sivas2012; Tekoğlu Reference Tekoğlu, Işık and Dundar2016). This dearth of written evidence helps to explain the marginalization of the study of these cultures in modern academic scholarship, which prioritized texts (prose and poetry) and stone monuments. It also means that Greek perspectives and biases have dominated our understanding of both regions and our narratives of their ancient interactions, cultures, and art. Though Herodotus was born in Caria, he wrote from a Greek perspective and for a Greek audience, and his story of Lydian migration to Etruria (written well after Etruscan culture had experienced its zenith) may be understood as a Greek explanation for the striking similarities noted in this volume (Briquel Reference Briquel and Turfa2013: 45). Without a literary record from either Etruria or Anatolia, we must look to the material evidence to read these interactions in an unbiased way, bringing new perspectives to broaden our view.
We hope to challenge traditional approaches that cast Greece and Rome as the main protagonists of the ancient Mediterranean – the sources of stylistic and technical innovations and the mediators of interactions between East and West. While Greek sanctuaries certainly played an important role in some of the cultural exchange considered here (see Chapter 5), in other cases (see, e.g., Chapter 13) the sharing of imagery, ideas, and practices over the considerable distance between Etruria and Anatolia seems to have sidestepped Greece, with little (if any) inspiration by or involvement of Greece proper. The Phoenicians also take a “back seat” in this study since it is focused, quite literally, on Etruscan and Anatolian cultures, and since the role of the Phoenicians in Mediterraneanization continues to be thoroughly explored (e.g., Mazzarino Reference Mazzarino1947; Niemeyer Reference Niemeyer, Rollinger and Ulf2004, Reference Niemeyer and Tsetskhladze2006; Martin Reference Martin2017. While they are not to be ignored (see especially Chapters 2, 5, and 8), we are more concerned here with direct interactions between Etruscan and Anatolian peoples and with similarities of material culture that have not yet been explored (see, e.g., Chapters 1, 13, 14, 15, and 17).
This volume showcases a variety of approaches to the past – traditional as well as nontraditional – with newly established subjects, terminologies, dating, and perspectives. Readers will find that different authors here use chronologies and terminology that are not conventionally shared. Some authors, for instance, use the word “Orientalizing” for the early phase of Etruscan art (ca. 800–600 BCE) and Greek art in the seventh century BCE. This term, used since the nineteenth century (see Nowlin, Chapter 3), is now challenged for its inherent stereotyping of the Near East (see Said Reference Said1978) and its misleading description of the cultural processes at work in this important era. In the future, this period may be more appropriately termed “pre-Archaic” or a time of “accessibility and transformation” (Riva Reference Riva2010: 39–71).
Likewise, we use the term “Anatolia” instead of “Asia Minor” in order to emphasize the Indigenous and local aspects of Anatolian crafts and culture. We are well aware that this term is itself problematic, as it represents a broad geographic area that contained many distinct cultures (Phrygian, Lydian, Lycian, Carian, Ionian, Aeolian, etc.; McMahon and Steadman Reference McMahon and Steadman2011: 3–6) and has been criticized as a modern construct (e.g., Atakuman Reference Atakuman2008, Gür Reference Gür, Boytner, Dodd and Parker2010). But these diverse regions of western Asia were culturally interconnected by the sixth century BCE under Croesus of Lydia and then by the Achaemenid Persians, the Hellenistic kingdoms, and the Roman empire (Mac Sweeney Reference Mac Sweeney2011: 77–81; McMahon Reference McMahon2011: 31–32). Evidence for intra-Anatolian cultural exchange and hybridization even suggests that a concept of “Anatolian-ness” may have existed as early as the sixth century BCE (Baughan Reference Baughan2013: 262–265). The inclusion of so-called East Greek cultures in our definition of Anatolia is deliberate, recognizing the fluidity of boundaries between the eastern Aegean and western Anatolia and the strong impacts that Greek cities in this region had on their Anatolian neighbors and vice versa (Kerschner Reference Kerschner and Cahill2010; Greaves Reference Greaves2011: 509–511), as well as the important role this area seems to have played in Anatolian-Etruscan connectivity. The vast and diverse area encompassed by the term “Anatolia” also includes Urartu and southeastern Anatolia, arguably more linked with Mesopotamia and North Syria than with the cultures of western and central Anatolia. The papers that follow thus use a broad definition of Anatolia while striving to highlight the particular cultural elements present within it (Maps 1 and 3.). Likewise in Etruria (Map 2), coastal and inland sites can differ markedly with respect to trade and local styles. Authors have attempted to flesh out all the unique and common aspects of crafts and culture within Etruria while still recognizing regional variations, especially in southern Etruria.
Map 1 Mediterranean basin, showing regions and sites mentioned in the text. Key to numbered locations: 1. Ischia, 2. Basilicata, 3. Corfu, 4. Pella, 5. Akanthos, 6. Lemnos, 7. Delphi, 8. Athens, 9. Olympia, 10. Kommos, 11. Naucratis, 12. Nineveh, 13. Nimrud, 14. Persepolis
Map 2 Etruria, with key sites mentioned in the text
Map 3 Anatolia and nearby islands, with sites and regions mentioned in the text
We would like to stress that we are interested in looking broadly at the Anatolian and Etruscan fringes of the Mediterranean world, areas on the borders of larger territories and spheres of cultural influence, where dividing lines are murky or difficult to draw and hybridized cultures are likely to emerge. In both Etruria and Anatolia, there are material traces that reflect the clear concept of belonging to a wider Mediterranean world – one that also included the Near East. Often the sharing of motifs, techniques, and practices may be seen simply as evidence that cultures in both regions were participants in a much wider Mediterranean network that could be negotiated on a large or small scale (Mazzarino Reference Mazzarino1947: 273–292).
In Chapter 1, “From East to West and Beyond,” Alessandro Naso provides a comprehensive historical overview of inquiry into the relationship between Etruria and Anatolia and the reasons why few scholars have had the expertise to study these two fields in a comparative and holistic way or the encouragement (within traditional academia) to break down walls and engage with material from another culture. He then gives a detailed analysis of evidence for reciprocal connections between Etruria and Anatolia in a wide range of media (from funerary architecture and tomb painting to vase painting, pottery, specialized wine-service vessels, and jewelry), incorporating finds from recent excavations at Miletus. This chapter thus lays the groundwork for the rest of the book by contextualizing our overall inquiry, establishing the significance of correspondences in many types of material culture, and discussing broader theoretical aspects of such artistic exchange with numerous examples of sharing not just from east to west but also from west to east.
The succeeding chapters are organized not by chronology or type of material discussed but rather according to what they offer to our synthesis of thematic connectivities (general and complex): Part II, “Interpretive Frameworks” (discussions of how changing perspectives have shaped scholarly approaches and created new insights); Part III, “Technology and Mobility” (detailed studies that show how similar techniques sometimes suggest mobility of artisans); Part IV, “Shared Practices” (analyses of similar classes of material that reflect not technology transfer but shared motifs and traditions); Part V, “Shared and Distinct Iconographies” (studies of subject matter or motifs that occur in both regions but are nevertheless distinguished by particular details); and Part VI, “Shared Forms, Distinct Functions” (analyses of similar forms put to different uses, sharing a visual language but with different dialects). Rather than trying to account for the striking similarities in Etruscan and Anatolian material culture with any one overarching theory, we acknowledge multiple, simultaneous modes and implications of connectivity, and stress the distinct local identities expressed even through shared artistic and cultural traditions.
Part II, “Interpretive Frameworks,” explores a variety of approaches to how we can look at the past. Tamar Hodos’s Chapter 2 provides a fresh analysis of bridging past and present with larger issues of globalization and connectivity. It offers a template for the detailed studies that follow in Parts III–VI by calling out the importance of recognizing both “shared practices that bind and diverse practices that distinguish participants.” In Chapter 3, Jessica Nowlin explores how the modern construct of so-called Orientalization has impacted the studies of both Etruria and Anatolia and their relationships with each other. Her chapter also demonstrates how nationalistic approaches to the past in twentieth-century Italy and Turkey affected scholarship in these fields. The history of scholarly approaches to Etruria and Anatolia is also illuminated by Theresa Huntsman’s investigation of the term “bucchero” (Chapter 4). She tracks the application of this term to two very different forms of black-fired pottery (known in Etruria as “bucchero” and in Anatolia as “grey ware”) and explores how terminology can reveal assumptions of connectivity. Chapter 5 by Nassos Papalexandrou builds upon Foucault’s concept of heterotopia to explore the unique role Greek sanctuaries held in the interactions between Etruria and Anatolia. In particular, he examines how material culture found at panhellenic sanctuaries can speak to the contacts and interaction networks established in these heterotopic spaces.
In Part III, “Technology and Mobility,” Elizabeth Simpson offers (Chapter 6) a remarkable assessment of some of the rarest finds of wood to surface in the ancient Mediterranean world, with the first detailed comparison of wooden furnishings from Iron Age tombs at Verucchio and Gordion. While the styles of furniture are very different, Simpson identifies striking similarities in certain techniques of manufacture and more general correspondences in overall concept and decorative motifs, though differently achieved. Her chapter serves as an important reminder that differences are just as important to note as similarities. In the next chapter, on the other hand, technological similarities can be directly tied to the movement of artisans and direct transfer of knowledge: Nancy A. Winter (Chapter 7) provides compelling evidence for terracotta craftsmen from Anatolia working in southern Etruria. Shared details of manufacture here occur alongside vividly similar, if not identical, iconographies in both southern Etruria and western Anatolia. These sorts of analyses form one of the core objectives of the volume as a whole: providing detailed assessments of similarities and differences to reveal the extent and nature of connections among cultures in these two geographically distant regions.
Different types of connections are revealed in Part IV, “Shared Practices,” with studies of particular shared traditions and motifs. Chapter 8 by Jean MacIntosh Turfa looks at representations and remains of tridents and bidents in Etruria and the Near East (especially Urartu and Phrygia, including some unpublished material from Gordion). She highlights intriguing correspondences of form as well as symbolic significance. Annette Rathje’s Chapter 9 discusses correspondences in “elite lifestyles” as seen in funerary assemblages of Etruria and the Near East (especially Phrygia), acknowledging that some material similarities may be explained by similarities in social context rather than direct contact or emulation. Her detailed analysis of two vessels from Etruria now in Berlin and Copenhagen demonstrates both how an important part of the luxury consumption of elite imports from the East was their reception by Etruscan artisans and how the loss of context prevents deeper understanding of the significance of such objects. Etruscan reception of Anatolian luxury vessels is further explored in Fernando Gilotta’s study of “prestige pottery” (phialai and dinoi) in Etruscan funerary deposits (Chapter 10). Like Huntsman in Chapter 2, Gilotta reveals how the erroneous application of terminology may connote cultural connections that did not exist in antiquity. Stephan Steingräber’s Chapter 11, which compares rock-cut tombs and monuments in southern Etruria and various regions of Anatolia, extends the book’s chronological range to the Hellenistic period. While some details of form and decoration suggest a shared vocabulary of form, there are important regional differences even within Etruria and Anatolia that distinguish these rock-cut traditions.
The studies in Part V, “Shared and Distinct Iconographies,” show how differences can be just as important to explore as similarities. Susanne Berndt’s Chapter 12 provides the first close examination of early fifth-century wall paintings from Gordion, with a view to comparing their technological and iconographic aspects with contemporary paintings elsewhere in Anatolia and in Etruria. She finds certain similarities that suggest a shared artistic tradition alongside important differences that clearly distinguish the two regions. Lisa C. Pieraccini’s comparison of dog imagery in chariot-racing and banqueting scenes from western Anatolia and Etruria (Chapter 13) traces unusual parallels in intricate details that reveal shared knowledge of such minutia (as found on cylinder stamps, terracotta reliefs, vase painting, and wall painting). In Chapter 14, Dimitris Paleothodoros provides a useful history of scholarship on Eastern “influences” on so-called Pontic vases and explores particular details of technique, style, decorative ornament, iconography, and shape to conclude that evidence for East Greek painters working in Etruria must be understood as part of a broader story of artistic exchange (sometimes indirect) among Corinthian, Ionian, Attic, and Etruscan painters.
The chapters in the final section (Part VI, “Shared Forms, Distinct Functions”) continue to demonstrate a balance between sharing and distinction through studies of material objects either preserved in physical form or represented in visual art: tomb furniture, textile displays, dress items, and jewelry. In Chapter 15, Elizabeth P. Baughan discusses the remarkable similarities between Etruscan and Anatolian beds and couches in funerary contexts as well as in visual representations. She argues that correspondences of furniture form and style are outweighed by differences in arrangement, orientation, and use. The final three chapters all explore topics of dress and personal adornment within gender-specific constructs. In Chapter 16, Gretchen Meyers compares scenes of female assembly on cippi from Chiusi with a scene on the “Polyxena Sarcophagus” from the Troad and finds evidence for a “common visual language” between Etruria and Anatolia, while also stressing local dialects and “visual marks of cultural distinction.” In Chapter 17, Tuna Şare Ağtürk traces the inspiration of pointed shoes and other dress fashions in Etruria back to Anatolia but, like Baughan and Meyers, stresses how these styles were put to different uses in Etruria. The final chapter, by Alexis Q. Castor (Chapter 18), focuses on male jewelry – namely necklaces as markers of distinction (military and political), not just gender. Based on detailed analysis of visual representations as well as historical sources extending into the Hellenistic and Roman periods, her study highlights fascinating correspondences between jewelry given as a “royal reward” in the Achaemenid empire and necklaces worn in Anatolia and Etruria, while again noting important differences in their means of distribution and symbolic significance, with magical protection distinguishing the Etruscan bullae.
Overall, this book sets out to establish a new framework for discussing similarities in the material culture of Etruria and Anatolia, whether or not direct connections or exchange of techniques, styles, motifs, or ideas can be determined (as we continue to discover new finds in both Etruria and Anatolia). It invites new conversations about materiality, connectivity, and exchange among these two regions separated (literally) by Greece and often operating without Greece as a moderator or intermediary. It examines recurring threads of a rich and varied fabric of material connectivity emerging in various Etruscan and Anatolian narratives found in the individual chapters. It also investigates issues of identity with respect to exchange and nontangible communication. It shows that traditional ways of looking at the ancient Mediterranean, within strict disciplinary boundaries, cannot be useful when it comes to this type of cultural, artistic, and ideological query.
As the striking image on the cover of this book aptly demonstrates, there are visual and cultural similarities between Etruscans and Anatolians that cannot be denied (and that go beyond a pan-Mediterranean koine). They speak to a shared artistic vocabulary that merits further study, without assumptions of directionality as a marker for superiority. The juxtaposed banqueters from tomb paintings in Etruria and Anatolia – from the right wall of the Tomb of the Lionesses at Tarquinia (ca. 520 BCE), above, and the back wall of the Karaburun tomb in northern Lycia (ca. 475 BCE), below – are here color-enhanced to highlight significant and broad topics explored in this volume and to symbolize the diverse and forward-thinking framework we have embraced as a guiding ethos for this volume. This image also serves as a vivid reminder of the ongoing threats that looting and collecting pose to material culture and archaeological context in both Etruria and Anatolia: In 2011 the Karaburun painting was stolen, violently removed from its wall.Footnote 1
What becomes clear in these highly diverse chapters is the wide range of correspondences and connections between Etruria and Anatolia – from minor technological or iconographic details to broad themes, in a wide variety of cultural/artistic media (wall paintings, pottery, furniture, clothing, luxury objects, etc.). What also emerges from these careful studies is that there is no one explanation for connectivity that can apply to all these correspondences. And as much as these chapters discuss similarities found in Etruscan and Anatolian art and culture, they also illuminate the ways in which the cultures in these two regions were distinct. In the process of looking for material connections among them, we achieve a better understanding of the distinctiveness of each. Furthermore, we see how Etruscans and Anatolians used their own agency to connect, share, engage, and exchange. To conclude, this volume is not an historical analysis of Etruria or Anatolia as much as it is a call to explore and understand more fully material connectivity across the Mediterranean, in art forms, subject matter, styles, techniques, practices, and ideologies.
