- chapter 34: The science of the Etruscans –
its value. And here, once again, empiricism, science, economics and religion are mingled,
given that Etruscan mastery in projecting a ray of fi xed boundaries into a given territory,
which is devoid of markers – the horizon and the dome of the sky – is represented by the
templum, based on the equinoctial points (Fig. 34.1).
The templum could use the reference points offered by the bronze star that we
encountered above, but also the very structure of the Tuscan temple could possibly fulfi ll
this function. Vitruvius, describing the plan in a well-known passage (4.7), adopts, only
for this purpose, a very particular frame of reference, based on proportional measurements
easily made on site with a system of ropes and stakes. Such empirical procedure allows one
to realize, without resorting to algebraic calculations, a building with two geometrical
characteristics, which I believe are of interest to this study. 1) The pars antica and pars
postica both have the dimensions of the golden rectangle, a relationship that seems
present in many Etruscan monuments, which should be a topic-specifi c interdisciplinary
study.^16 2) Whoever places himself with his back to the central cella could see the pars
antica of the templum, divided into eight segments from its plot of six visible columns,
because the sight of the two corner columns is covered by the two inner columns (Fig.
34.2).^17 This evidence is easily plotted; I do not consider this to be random, but it is
very diffi cult to pursue the idea further. On the one hand we must resign ourselves to
the absolute paucity of written sources; on the other, there should be more accurate
documentation and interdisciplinary analysis that would locate the temple in the
daytime landscape, as in that of the night: archaeology has largely neglected the world of
the constellations into which was projected much of ancient mythology, that is – as we
said earlier – the pre-scientifi c way of explaining the nature of things, de rerum natura.
The swastika, an element that appears through the millennia in the development of any
agricultural culture, from China to Etruria, might arise from the seasonal positions of
Ursa Major (Fig. 34.3), which the Greeks called helix, “spiral,” as the swastika is a spiral.^18
Figure 34.2 Plan of the Tuscan temple (templum tuscanicum) according to Vitruvius (Knell), with
indication of the golden rectangle in the pars postica and of the lines of sight of the eight sectors of the
pars antica of the templum.