This volume collects the papers from an international conference, organised by Baughan and Pieraccini, held in Rome at the Villa Giulia Museum in May 2016. Its focus was to ‘decolonise’ the traditional framework through which ancient Mediterranean civilisations have been studied. Established terminology is challenged both by the editors and by some contributors. The word Anatolia is preferred to Asia Minor to emphasise the indigenous and local facets of craft and culture; following C. Riva's ‘pre-Archaic’ or a time of ‘accessibility and transformation’ would be more appropriate for ‘Orientalising’, a term now considered misleading and derogatory. While I concede the need to change the terminology, I find the expression pre-Archaic too generic. Also extremely vague is the classification of time of accessibility and transformation; each period has access to something, while also experiencing transformation. Furthermore, the intent of the conference was not to discuss the vexata quaestio of the origins of the Etruscans, but rather to highlight the ‘significant material relationships between Etruria and Anatolia – two regions separated by considerable distance yet partaking in cross-cultural contact, exchange, and consumption’ (p. 3).
The volume is divided into six thematic parts. Part 1, ‘Broadening Perspectives: a Wider Mediterranean Landscape’, comprises Chapter 1 by A. Naso, an introduction to the contents of the volume. Naso admits that a general view of the contacts between Etruria and Anatolia is still lacking and that new research is needed. He also rightly recognises that contacts occurred through a bidirectional process. With regard to different categories (tumuli, painting, pottery, with particular attention to drinking vases, serving utensils such as the Etruscan bronze strainer-funnels and jewellery) the relationships between the two areas in the seventh and sixth centuries are analysed in depth, hypothesising exchange via trade, immigration of skilled workers and intermarriage. I would add, however, also via guest-friendship, involving the exchange of gifts and use of objects such as suction cups of Eastern Mediterranean origin, which could be used together by two or more drinkers. The distribution maps of bucchero and the bronze strainer-funnels in the Mediterranean are very useful.
Part 2, ‘Interpretive Frameworks’, comprises four chapters. T. Hodos (Chapter 2) provides an overview of scholarship and concludes that, while in the first half of the first millennium bce globalisation is a phenomenon certainly attested, which created ‘a sense of one-placeness across the Mediterranean’ (p. 70), local expressions to communicate status and wealth were used by individual elites. J. Nowlin's contribution (Chapter 3) focuses on archaeological theories influenced by nationalism. The text could have benefited from greater emphasis on the Etruscans as perceived as the first people of ancient Italy to begin the process of unification (see e.g. G. Sassatelli, ‘Archeologia e Risorgimento. La scoperta degli Etruschi a Bologna’, Storicamente 7 [2011], as well as G.M. Della Fina [ed.], La fortuna degli Etruschi nella costruzione dell'Italia unita [2011]). T. Huntsman (Chapter 4) explains how the term bucchero, an identifier of Etruscan culture, has been used more often to distinguish Etruscans from Lydians instead of linking them together. N. Papalexandrou (Chapter 5) analyses Greek sanctuaries as places of intermediation and intercultural contact between Etruscans and Anatolians. His lucid analysis illustrates how Greek sanctuaries, especially Panhellenic ones such as Delphi and Olympia, acted as transactional (trade) and heterotopic (wonders) places, working as later Renaissance Wunderkammern. Like Naso, Papalexandrou specifies that items reached the sanctuaries from the East as well as from the West, even though direct encounters may have been unusual.
Part 3, ‘Technology and Mobility’, concerns wood and terracotta crafts, highlighting that the similarities in the former (Chapter 6 by E. Simpson) are quite rare. N. Winter (Chapter 7) demonstrates that Ionian artisans on Etruscan land are attested in Tarquinia already between 550 and 540 bce, based on an antefix decorated with anthemion and volutes from Pian di Civita. The series of architectural terracottas called Veii-Rome-Velletri, also known in Rome and better preserved at Caprifico di Torrecchia, is a further connection to Anatolia and more specifically to Larisa, Phocaea and Sardis. These areas are referred to in the architectural decorations of Caere, where, according to Herodotus (1.166–7), after the Battle of Alalia, Phocaean prisoners were slaughtered. Because many human beings and animals passing by the area where the slaughter occurred became deformed, the oracle of Delphi was consulted by the city, which was directed to offer sacrifices to the dead along with games and horse races. The dating coincidence of the battle and the first attestations of chariot races on architectural terracottas at Caere is intriguing, although Herodotus’ narrative is a typical topos (initial wrongdoing in the relationship between the Greek and the foreign, later resolved by the intervention of a deity), which is also meant to highlight the cruelty of the Etruscans.
Part 4, ‘Shared Practices’, comprises four chapters. North Syria emerges as the genesis of many influences. J.M. Turfa's hypothesis (Chapter 8) that Etruscan lightning tridents might have prototypes in the Near East is suggestive and warrants further investigation. Chapter 9 by A. Rathje is the most detailed one in this section. Imported luxury items or items emulated among the Etruscan elites of the eighth and seventh centuries bce point to south-eastern Anatolian and north Syrian influence. The meticulous analysis of the Egyptian blue relief pyxis said to be from Vulci and the bucchero sottile stamnos said to be from Caere make us once again regret their missing exact context as well as those for other objects used as elite symbols. F. Gilotta (Chapter 10) investigates ceramic and metal phialai and dinoi, as prestige objects found in funerary contexts in the Orientalising and Archaic periods. Their shapes are modelled on Anatolian metal and ceramic vases. The supposed Milesian manufacture of the Polledrara ware is rejected, based on the Etruscan characters of the famous hydria with Theseus from the Isis Tomb. Ionian fashion is also surveyed, with special attention to the terracotta statue from Portonaccio at Veii attributed to the ‘Maestro del Dignitario con i Calcei’ and the so-called Polyxena Sarcophagus and its Etruscan flavour comparable especially to Chiusine artworks. For the former, M.P. Baglione's detailed analysis is missing from the bibliography (‘Un donario di Portonaccio e l'influenza greco insulare’, BdA Online 1 [2010], vol. spec. F7/5, 35–44). Moreover, the complete absence of images makes reading an otherwise excellent and well-organised paper somewhat difficult. S. Steingräber (Chapter 11) offers a summary and comparison of rock-cut tombs in Etruria and Anatolia, cautioning us about generalising the phenomenon of the so-called koine beginning with Alexander the Great and in the Hellenistic period.
The three chapters of Part 5, ‘Shared and Distinct Iconographies’, span wall paintings (S. Berndt, Chapter 12) and dog iconography (Pieraccini, Chapter 13) to black-figure vases (D. Paleothodoros, Chapter 14). The wall paintings of the Painted House at Gordion identify the building as a structure with a religious purpose. Berndt believes that the deity worshipped is possibly connected to unknown aspects of the Phrygian Matar. In my opinion, the deity may be the figure with the blue beard. The colour blue is associated with heroic and divine status in several cultures, such as the Greek, as Berndt notes. Nonetheless, Berndt seems more inclined to identify the figure as a ‘Persian of high rank, perhaps the highest in Gordion at the time’ (p. 230), since blue beards for the soldiers and Darius are attested at Susa and Naqsh-i Rustam, and there is the Near Eastern concept of the ‘lapis lazuli beard’ for high-ranking men such as kings. The real function of a peculiar dog lead attested in Anatolia, Egypt and Etruria, featuring a loop at each extremity, one for the collar and one for the leash, remains unknown, but, as Pieraccini points out, it indicates shared practices more than artistic borrowings.
Through a careful study of black-figure vases, Paleothodoros demonstrates that the definition of Panionism is a scholarly invention trying to circumstantiate the appearance of polychrome painted pottery at the time of the Persian conquest of Ionia with the subsequent exodus of artists. Pontic vases are not directly influenced by Ionia or other areas of the East Greek world, but are indeed modelled on the works of Attic-trained artisans ‘working under strong Corinthian influence’ (p. 262). More images would have been helpful.
Part 6, ‘Shared Forms, Distinct Functions’, comprises four chapters. Baughan (Chapter 15) further develops her study on funerary klinai to determine that apparent similarities between Anatolia and Etruria are due to sharing the same desire to build a tomb as a house and furnish it, according to a style fashionable among members of the elite of both territories. G. Meyers (Chapter 16) warns against a globalised interpretation of representations of female assembly in Anatolia, Greece and Etruria. She believes the presence of textiles on Chiusine reliefs should probably be considered as a marker of elite Chiusine identity, an interpretation that would confirm M. Gleba's assumption that the manufacture and ownership of luxury clothes was a sign of elite status for women from Etruscan aristocracy (Textile Production in Pre-Roman Italy [2008], pp. 174–5). T. Şare Ağtürk (Chapter 17) further develops the phase of Etruscan clothing classified as Ionian (550–475 bce) by L. Bonfante, examining pointed shoes in detail. Differently from West Anatolia – a classification preferred to Ionian, given the many different cultures in the territory –, where they were worn only by males, in Etruria, after being worn by both sexes when first introduced, they later became shoes only for females, either women or goddesses. The comparison with the so-called çarik of the Ottoman tradition and its colour meaning (yellow/maiden, red/married, green/widow) make us wonder if a similar language might have also existed for the Etruscans. A.Q. Castor (Chapter 18) invites us to revise the assumption that jewellery pertained only to women. Etruscan men wore necklaces and armbands, presumably related to their elite status. Bulla jewellery certainly played a ritual and ceremonial role, as Castor clearly demonstrates, a hypothesis confirmed by the deceased priest/magistrate sculpted on the lid on his marble sarcophagus from the Tomb of the Sarcophagi at Caere (fig. 18.4). The bullae, I believe, were probably decorated with painting: colour has been preserved, especially on the box.
This volume fills a gap in recent scholarship and constitutes a starting point for further research into the similarities and differences between the far-flung territories of Etruria and Anatolia.
