- chapter 28: Etruscan religious rituals –
outstanding results for the progress of our knowledge about the ritual practices of the
Etruscans. Yet it is the documentary category of altars that is unquestionably the main
archaeological evidence of ritual activity.^7 It has received the greatest increase thanks to
the identifi cation of a discrete number of “precarious” sacred structures which have led us
to further defi ne the character of those ancient structures dating back to an era pre-dating
that of Numa, known from the literary sources as the “temporaria de caespite altaria.”^8
“Primitive” altars, raised at fi rst with sods of earth, and gradually replaced with piles
of stones, their appearance would have refl ected that provided by the image of such a
mound reproduced on the side of the sarcophagus of Torre San Severo (Orvieto) with the
sacrifi ce of Polyxena at the hands of Achilles.^9 It takes on tangible form, apart from the
“provisional” altar of cobblestones identifi ed in the sanctuary of Gravisca,^10 in the altars
of sub-circular/elliptical/rectangular plan recognized in structures “ζ” (Zeta), “ι” (Iota)
and “ν” (Nu) of the southern area at Pyrgi,^11 which, under the aspect of ideology and
cult, refer to the so-called “lenses of clay” of the “monumental complex” of La Civita at
Tarquinia,^12 and in the Hellenistic altar No. 2 of Cetamura del Chianti, which can be
compared not only to the Pyrgi altars, but also to those found in the sanctuary of Piana
del Lago (Montefi ascone) on Lake Bolsena.^13
On the other hand, like the “precarious” cult structures, from the category of permanent
altars that could be called “canonical” due to types already known with rectangular plan/
with antae and superstructure of rectilinear profi le, sometimes with crowning moldings,
or with an entirely molded profi le^14 (Fig. 28.1), an articulation with moldings that seems
to respond to an entirely Etruscan tradition,^15 the picture has been progressively enriched
with new acquisitions furnished by the excavation of Campo della Fiera near Orvieto^16
(see Chapter 31), which scholars now almost unanimously tend to recognize as the Fanum
Voltumnae celebrated by the Latin sources. In particular, the structure “with double
Figure 28.1 Painted clay plaque. Paris, Louvre, Campana Collection S 4034. From Cerveteri,
Necropoli della Banditaccia. 530 bc (after Roncalli 1965, tav. 3).