- chapter 28: Etruscan religious rituals –
decoration of the shoulder of the bronze olla from tomb 22 of the Olmo Bello necropolis of
Bisenzio (Maggiani 1997: 439; Donati 2004, II.15).
66 Rafanelli 2004, III.A.2.28.
67 Rafanelli 2004, III.A.2.32.
68 Cf., for example, the Caeretan hydria in Copenhagen in Donati 2004, III.B.1, 51.
69 Bonghi Jovino 2005: in particular, 80 ff.
70 The cult of the goddess, with strongly oriental traits of the Phoenician Ishtar, must also have
included ritual processions with music and circle dances (Johnstone 1956), perhaps recalled
in the representation of the choros of women that winds around the body of the Caeretan
alabastron in Donati 2004, III.B.1.176, where the offering to the deity is represented as a goose.
71 Cf. Colonna 2000, 251 ff.
72 Donati 2004, III.B.1.10; Bruni 2005: 23; Bonamici 2005: 7 ff.
73 The offering of sheep/goats is associated in Greece with divinities like Hermes and Apollo,
guardians of the fl ocks and herds (Donati 2004, III.B.7). In the sphere of Etruscan fi gural
representations, on votive terracottas from the Vignaccia deposit at Caere, a goat is associated
with the fi gure of Artumes (Nagy 1994; in relation to the gods venerated in the sacred area,
see also Millemaci 1998: 11–61), while, on the bronze plaques designed to cover one or
more funerary couches at Bomarzo, the recipient of an offering of a goat conducted by a
procession of satyrs seems to be Herakles, distinguished by the characteristic attribute of the
club (Donati 2004, III.B.7.129–131). (For terracotta fi gurines, see Chapter 54).
74 Colonna 1985: 88 ff., 4.10; Sassatelli 1992: 605–606; Rafanelli 2004, III.G.2.295; Colonna
2006: 140–141; Colonna 2012: 210, Fig. 11.
75 Perhaps this was also the site of a mundus reserved for the cult of Dis Pater, to whom the
epithet of papa (“grandfather”) may refer, intended as the original divinity of the sacred area
(Bonamici 2005, 7–9).
76 For the Sanctuary of the Belvedere at Orvieto, see S. Stopponi in Colonna 1986, 80–83;
Colonna 2006: 160, VIII.43; LIMC VIII Zeus/Tinia 400. Cf. also, in Volsinian territory, the
“pierced” altars evoking the form of a subterranean cult, with dedications to Tinia Tinscvil,
for which see Comella 2005: 166–169, IV.B.18 (TLE^2 205=CIE 5168): see supra note 36.
77 Cf. Donati 2004, III.B.7.105–129 bis.
78 Cf. Donati 2004, III.B.7.123–138.
79 Donati 2004, III.B.7.138.
80 Cf. The representations on the amphora in Dresden, on the Praenestine mirror in the Museo
Archeologico Nazionale of Firenze, on the mirror in Berlin with the depiction of one of the
mythological episodes belonging to the cycle of the Labors of Herakles (Donati III.B.7.128,
127, 134).
81 Donati 2004, III.B.7.128, with previous bibliography: in particular, see Colonna 1997: 195
ff.; see also Paolucci and Colonna 2005: 332 ff.; Paolucci 2007: 13, Fig. 2; Pieraccini 2011:
129, Fig. 3.
82 Martelli 1992: 342–346, pls 73, 3–4; 74. See also, especially for the fi gure of the Satyr,
occurring in the context of a probable representation of an “Etruscan Festival,” Paleothodoros
2007, 191–193.
83 Scarpi 1979: 78 ff.; Camporeale 1987: 41–42.
84 The double intent, both propitiatory and mantic, very probably also found a place in Etruria,
similar to that of the Greek thusia, among the autonomous sacrifi cial rites or those able to join
in themselves a number of valences. The exegesis of the fi gural Etruscan representations could
in effect orient the inquiry toward a correlation of the mantic intent with the propitiatory, in
a function in which it would acquire a sense also of the practice of haruspicy.
85 Donati 2004, III.B.7.126; Pieraccini 2011: 135, Fig. 14a–c.
86 As regards the altar-bomos, heart and “iconic synthesis of the sacrifi cial device” and of the
“sacrifi cial fi re,” see Durand 1991, 45 ff.