The Etruscan World (Routledge Worlds)

• chapter 59: Science as art –

Figure 59.15 View of male torso. Male torso with open abdominal cavity. Ingolstadt, Deutsches

Medizinhistorisches Museum, Inv. AB/720. Photo Matthias Recke.

Figure 59.16 Male torso with open abdominal cavity. Ingolstadt, Deutsches Medizinhistorisches

Museum, Inv. AB/720. Photo Matthias Recke.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

In connection with the emergence and spread of anatomical votives during the fourth
century bc, it is worth noting the coincidence in time with the expansion of Roman
military hegemony. This has led some researchers to consider the anatomical votives
as cultic testimonies of the appearance of Roman and Latin colonists, who were mainly
small farmers and artisans from the Roman plebs.^51 This fi ts the observation that the
votive heads are mostly represented capite velato (“with veiled head”) (see Figs. 59.1–2),