CHAPTER NINE

THE LAST ETRUSCANS: FAMILY TOMBS

IN NORTHERN ETRURIA

Marjatta Nielsen

F

rom the last three centuries bc the Etruscans have left behind a huge amount of
sarcophagi and ash chests (or cinerary urns), with or without name inscriptions or
sculptural decoration. When decorated, the artistic level is highly varied, but the trend
went decidedly from quality to quantity.^1 That is why only a few tomb complexes and
a few fi ne examples of the late ash chests are illustrated in most books on the Etruscans.
This contributes to a gloomy idea of “the period of decline,” and the last generations of
Etruscans who followed the old burial customs are rarely mentioned at all. Further, there
is a tendency to consider everything Greek older than Etruscan, and everything Etruscan
older than Roman, as if there were not considerable overlap.
Most of the Etruscan chests were placed in chamber tombs, many of which had space
enough to remain in use for a considerable time, even for two or three centuries. When
discovered, many tomb chambers were fi lled up to the brim. It seems that the late
Etruscans preferred to be buried together in crowded tombs, rather than being buried
alone or founding new tombs.
The material is, however, very unevenly distributed. It is understandable that the
areas far from Rome, the north-Etruscan city-states and their territories, succeeded in
maintaining Etruscan traditions for a longer period than the areas closer to Rome. Yet the
Roman expansion not only in Italy, but also in the Eastern Mediterranean, has left traces
in north-Etruscan funerary art, at least by the second century bc, when yet another wave
of Hellenization reached Etruria. The traditions continued for most of the fi rst century
bc, either by following local traditions or by adopting artistic impulses from Rome.
However, expert artists were no longer attracted to seek such commissions in Etruria, and
the exciting novelties were created elsewhere or in other artistic fi elds.
In museums the “loose” late-Etruscan objects may be amusing or their number
overwhelming, but entire tombs with their contents are much more revealing about the
changing cultural and social circumstances in which they were created. There is much
material particularly for the study of the social aspects. We seldom know anything about
the persons and families in question, but we can study them through generations thanks
to their name inscriptions. We know who were buried together, since the information