- chapter 9: The last Etruscans –
chests along the walls. Apart from the central pillar, left to support the ceiling, the room
rather looks like a theatre or an arena for games. The “cross-referencing” of the idea of a
banquet hall and a scene for funerary games and theatrical performances is also refl ected
in the relief motifs on the ash-chests.
Only one lid fi gure in the Inghirami tomb belongs to the third century bc, but all the
others are from the second century onwards. Perhaps the oldest chest (“generation 0”) had
been moved from an earlier tomb, which had proved inadequate. When fi lled up with
some sixty chests, fi ve or six generations had been hosted there. As to their genealogy,
only fragments can be reconstructed – the defi nition of “generations” is rather based on
the chronological sequence of the workshops that produced the monuments.
Not only did the workshops produce ready-made chests with a variety of motifs, but
they also produced lid fi gures, which would give a general idea of the deceased – man,
woman, young or middle-aged. The supply of male “portraits” was safe, but less so as to
female fi gures (see Chapter 55). In the Inghirami tomb there is one case of a stock male
fi gure being converted into a female one (Fig. 9.3).^15 There was no original “iconographical
program” for the decoration of the tomb: generation after generation acquired chests
with subjects typical of their time.^16 The motifs may be categorized in different ways –
ornamental, funerary scenes such as farewell or journey to the Underworld, themes drawn
Figure 9.3 The Inghirami Tomb: a male fi gure reworked into a female one. The relief shows Pelops
and Hippodameia departing for their horse race. Late second century bc. Florence, the Archaeological
Museum, inv. 78495. Museum photo. (UV 1, 138; Nielsen 2007: 170).