- chapter 6: Orientalizing Etruria –
the lotus carried a powerful magical and symbolic charge. In Egyptian tombs true lotus
petals have been found placed near the deceased.
In the Regolini-Galassi Tomb, twenty-eight bronze lotus fl owers decorated the fl oor of
the cultic trolley, a recurring offering in Etruscan Orientalizing princely graves (Fig. 6.17).
The trolleys/miniature carts are a class of Eastern origin (Phoenician and Aegean) between
the second and fi rst millennium bc, found in Crete, Euboea, and recently also Israel. The
Book of Kings speaks of ten bronze basins on wheels for Solomon’s temple cast by Hiram of
Tyre (do not confuse him with the king of Tyre in the same era), in his turn son of a Late
Bronze Age craftsman.^26 Containers on wheels are also described by Homer as regal and
divine attributes: a basket on silver wheels decorated with gold is given to Helen^27 and
tripods on wheels of gold made by Hephaestus for the banquets of the gods are able to reach
the assembly of gods and then return alone.^28 The cart is thus a link with the divine sphere
by virtue of the attribute of wheels, whose magical properties of connection with the world
of the immortals are implicit in the Homeric description of the tripods of Hephaestus.
In the Regolini-Galassi bracelets, the female fi gure with Hathor-locks, palm branch
and lotus fl ower also appears between two rampant lions which quote the contemporary
theme of the “Mistress of Animals” in conjunction with the masculine iconography of
the “Hero who kills the lion with the sword.” Both subjects show the inspiration of Near
Eastern models and are linked by funerary connotations.
Among the most characteristic ornamentation of Orientalizing Etruscan gold stands the
broken line or zigzag. This motif of ancient ancestry is made with the same technique as the
second-millennium granulation on an Egyptian amulet (Fig. 6.18), also seen in goldwork
from Syrian Alalakh (1460 bc). This is also not a simple decorative element but the symbolic
representation of water. As such it is already found in Susa from the fourth millennium,
combined with water birds and celestial phenomena. In the pectoral of Sheshonq I (XXII
Dynasty, 945–924 bc), the solar boat fl oats on the expanse of water, rendered by the same
broken lines as the corresponding hieroglyph. In Orientalizing, schematic representation of
water with zigzags appears in Phoenician cups imported into Italy and in assorted Etruscan
goldwork, including the cup from Palestrina in the Victoria and Albert Museum, its shape
refl ecting eastern prototypes. Prior to that it is already seen in the gold cup found at Nimrud
in the tomb of Yabâ, Queen of Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 bc).
In the great ornamental fi bula of the Regolini-Galassi Tomb (Fig. 6.19), an unsurpassed
masterpiece of goldsmithing anchored to Etruscan patronage, a symbolic apparatus seems
to follow a certain thematic syntax. It starts at the lions surrounded by interlaced arches
with palmettes on the disc, which evoke the theme of the sacred and the Lord/Lady of
Figure 6.17 Cult-trolley in bronze. Cerveteri, Regolini-Galassi Tomb. Museo Gregoriano Etrusco- Photo © Musei Vaticani.