- Maurizio Sannibale –
Despite the rarity of real weapons in the tombs where we often fi nd enhanced,
decorative examples and lighter, symbolic “parade” versions, even the shields hung on the
walls, in sheet bronze or represented in relief, are already a symbol of power rather than
a direct reference to warlike enterprise, as is the war chariot, a parade vehicle devoid of
any real tactical use in the rugged terrain of the Middle Tyrrhenian (see Chapter 41). The
same goes for the axe, more sacrifi cial tool than weapon, linked to the religious function
of the sovereign and often echoed by the trident as a symbol of the beam of lightning and
of divination.
The prince’s wife, as a fundamental fi gure in the hereditary transmission of power,
shared status and wealth with her husband, while retaining that prerogative in the
house, so characteristic of the Homeric queens from Penelope to Helen: weaving, as
is represented on the tintinnabulum (“ceremonial rattle”) from the Tomba degli Ori of
Bologna. Thus, together with jewels and precious vases, in the burials of women of rank
we also fi nd spindle-whorls for the processing of wool, reproduced, however, in precious
materials.
The Etruscans are not mere collectors of imported models: in a central position,
between the Mediterranean and Europe, they will play a role as a bridge between East and
West. The pomp and ceremony of their courts will eventually seduce the Celtic princes of
the transalpine region who will collect objects of Etruscan manufacture for their rituals
and funerary offerings.
REFLECTIONS UPON ETRUSCAN ORIENTALIZINGWhen Helbig published in 1879 the Barberini Tomb of Palestrina, one of the most
representative Orientalizing complexes of Middle-Tyrrhenian Italy, he could not help
but draw on Homeric descriptions for interpreting funerary objects. In fact he unleashed
a fl ood of Homeric archaeology (one that still fl ows today) in an approach that tends
to interpret archaeological data from the Mycenaean to Archaic periods in light of the
descriptions of Homer. Following Herodotus and the Bible, even in later studies, the
German scholar did not fail to emphasize the presence of oriental objects and the role of
the Phoenicians in the production and trade of luxury goods.^7
Not very different was the approach of Italian palaeoethnologist Giovanni Pinza
when in 1915 he studied the Regolini-Galassi Tomb of Caere, another cornerstone for
the understanding of the Orientalizing phenomenon in Etruria. Although superseded
in many points, Pinza’s pan-Mediterranean study remains valid, and captures the
interrelationships between Etruria, the Near East and the Aegean world, including
Egyptian cultural infl uences.
Unfortunately, the decline of romantic nationalism and the moral and material
devastation of two world wars, stimulated by a progressive anti-Semitic imprint, highly
conditioned studies of the Orientalizing phase in Etruria. These did not fail to take
chauvinistic tones and Etrusco-centric viewpoints. Even the monograph that historian
Luigi Pareti devoted to the Regolini-Galassi Tomb in 1947 expresses an almost ideological
rejection of the role of the Phoenicians (and thus Semitic culture) in the Mediterranean
and the Tyrrhenian coast, when he says:
There was a time when the Phoenicians and Phoenician thalassocracy were used to
explain everything [...] But many archaeologists [...] have continued undeterred to