The word “bucchero,” most commonly used to describe the black ceramics produced in Etruria, began to be used for pottery made elsewhere in the Mediterranean that relied upon the same technology – an oxygen-reducing kiln environment to achieve a firing that is dark through the biscuit and requires no slip or glaze. This chapter questions whether the term “bucchero” was ever used for ceramics from Anatolia in order to support Herodotus’ claim that the Etruscans were immigrants from Lydia. An examination of literature from the early twentieth century through today reveals that bucchero is understood as a “national” pottery for the Etruscans but is not a defining ceramic for any other culture. Therefore, while “bucchero” is used in a variety of contexts, it is indelibly linked with Central Italy. Over time, publications gradually shifted toward using “bucchero” only for Etruscan ceramics and “grey ware” for East Greek material, at times explicitly rejecting the use of the word for anything other than Etruscan material. Instead of uniting ancient cultures or demonstrating influence through shared ceramic technology, this term became a way to separate them.

Special pottery shapes (phialai and dinoi) with polychrome or relief decoration are the focus of this study. These vessels, deposited in Etruscan graves as “prestige pottery,” reveal the central role of southern Etruria in the cultural relationships between Anatolia, the eastern Aegean, and the Italic peninsula in the Orientalizing and Archaic periods. Caere and Vulci appear to be catalysts of many of these novelties, with a gradual handover from the first center to the second over the decades at the turn of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE.