- Françoise Gaultier –
as Bologna) as well as in Campania (at Sala Consilina, Pontecagnano, or Cumae) and in
Latium (at Acqua Acetosa, Castel di Decima, Praeneste, or Tivoli): the geometric and
stamped decoration that characterizes these pendants during the Villanovan period is
now enriched with plant and animal motifs, as well as astral motifs (crescent moon and
solar disc) sometimes produced in granulation.^14 Provided with a bail for suspension,
these discs become components of the necklaces worn by women and children, along
with beads of glass, amber, faïence or gold, the pendants in the form of a lotus fl ower, or
a palmette surmounted by a female bust with Hathor-locks.^15
Other ornaments are becoming more sophisticated, such as the hair-spirals that take
various forms, from a simple gold or silver wire wound in a spiral,^16 to complex models
made of a spiral tube decorated with fi ligree and granulation, the ends terminating in the
head of a snake or a lion, and on to the type made of a band obtained by the juxtaposition
and alternation of smooth and spirally twisted wires terminating in a geometric or fl oral
motif or in granulation, or even with a small plaque embossed with a head.^17
Some new types are emerging, such as diadems, pins, and brooches. The diadems are
very few in number,^18 but one recalls two sets of jewels recovered from female burials,
the ribbon-shaped diadem from the Isis Tomb (Vulci, Polledrara necropolis), today in
the British Museum, cut from a gold sheet and decorated with stamped motifs in several
registers: walking lions and chimaeras, intertwined arches supporting palmettes,^19 or
that from the peripheral Pietrera Tomb II at Vetulonia in electrum, also decorated with
stamped motifs, an exceptional piece which reproduces part of a hairstyle arranged in
bangs and side-braids (Fig. 50.1).^20
The pins are of various shapes and designs: one can recall, in addition to the pin from
the Tomb of the Lictor (Fig. 50.2) cited above, decorated with a frieze of walking animals
in silhouette achieved a pulviscolo, that of the Barberini Tomb of Praeneste on which the
head of the pin is worked in the shape of a fl ower.^21
The great brooches, characteristic of men’s clothing, belong to two types: the bar-
type, of which the Barberini and Bernardini Tombs of Praeneste, with their examples
decorated with small three-dimensional fi gures of animals and fantastic animals, detailed
in granulation, offer the most sumptuous illustrations, and the type in the form of a comb,
with stamped decoration and sometimes also enhanced with granulation, illustrated by a
statuette from the Tomb of the Five Chairs of Cerveteri and by examples from the Circolo
di Perazzetta of Marsiliana^22 and by the Bernardini Tomb of Praeneste.^23
Figure 50.1 Diadem, electrum. From the peripheral tomb II of the Pietrera at Vetulonia. Mid-seventh
century bc. Florence, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, inv. 74841.