The Etruscan World (Routledge Worlds)

• Jean Gran-Aymerich with Jean MacIntosh Turfa –

THE DISCOVERIES

The identifi cation of Etruscan objects far from Etruria dates back to the nineteenth century
ad. The dossier is composed of a large number of works and publications continually
augmented by new discoveries and restudy of past fi nds. The following survey offers the
most up-to-date introduction possible of this material, by category.

Armaments and equestrian harnesses

Etruscan warrior gear appears in Europe in the tenth through eighth centuries (see
Chapter 39). These Villanovan-type objects, either originals or imitations, are those
singular items which bestow a sense of prestige upon the local aristocrats and what might
be termed the “knightly class”: antenna swords, crested helmets and horse bits. These
pieces come from the cities of maritime and southern Etruria, such as Tarquinia, Veii
and Vetulonia. At the end of the eighth century, as was the case at Verruchio, horse bits
of Vetulonian type (or imitations based on styles typical of the Etruscan world) appeared
north of the Alps, at Alpenquai near Zurich, Vadena-Pfatten, Zolyom in Slovakia, Cluj-
Napoce in Romania, and at Olympia. These accoutrements of the mounted warrior may
also be attested in the seventh century at Stična in Slovenia amongst a funerary deposit
containing two vessels, one in bronze and the other in Etrusco-Corinthian-style ceramic.^2
Antenna swords appear in the tenth through to the eighth centuries in Adige in Este,
in Brandenburg in Austria, at Steyr, along the Rhine in the Swiss cantons, and along the
Rhône-Saône corridor up to Chandon by Amboise on the Loire.^3 These swords seem to
have Mediterranean-wide distribution, based on fi nds (unconfi rmed and thus requiring
caution) from the Iberian Peninsula, from Bétera by Saguntum and from Egypt, (Fig.
19.1).^4 The dossier of these Mediterranean discoveries, unique in their extreme age, is now
supported indirectly by the presence of contemporary objects from the Tyrrhenian littoral
in Carthage and south-eastern Iberia, such as askoid pitchers and Sardinian bronzes.^5 To
the north of the Alps, the axe from Étrembières in Haute-Savoie has a thickening of the
fl anged “wings” of a type found on Villanovan examples from Bologna and Vetulonia, and
an “Etruscan” letter or symbol engraved on the shaft.^6 For the late Archaic period and
later, one might envision an Etruscan infl uence based on the diffusion of machaira-type
swords in Iberia. This hypothesis is reinforced by the Etrusco-Italic armaments from the
Etruscan tombs of Aléria in Corsica (see Chapter 13) and the evidence from Languedoc
and the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula.^7
Villanovan-type crested helmets (Fig. 19.2, examples from Olympia) appear in western
Ukraine, in Austria at Hallstatt, and in France at Armancourt in Oise;^8 while Etrusco-
Italic skull-cap helmets appear to have served as prototypes in Slovenia.^9 Certain helmets
of local production are decorated in Etruscan style, as with the row of semicircles and
palmettes on the helmet from Novo Mesto.^10 Archaic-period Etruscan helmets are known

Figure 19.1 Antenna-hilt sword in bronze of Villanovan type probably discovered in Egypt.

Ninth–eighth century. (Bianco Peroni 1970).