- chapter 50: Etruscan jewelry –
Figure 50.2 Pin. From the Tomb of the Lictor, Vetulonia. Circa 630 bc. Florence, Museo Archeologico
Nazionale, inv. 77260.The most common models of brooches are inspired by Near Eastern models, most likely
Phoenician, and consist of small stamped plaques detailed in granulation and decorated
with a fi gure of the potnia therôn (“Mistress of Animals”) in a very stylized design, reduced
to a female head between fl oral volutes surmounted with a feline head. Furnished with a
series of eyelets around the edges, these plaques were also used as a simple ornament for
clothing: they are usually attributed to the workshops of Caere.^24
One of the forms of bracelet most widely distributed in the Orientalizing period consists
of three superimposed bands made of alternating smooth and decorated openwork fi ligree
in serpentine pattern strips. Relatively old and probably created in southern Etruria,
this type of bracelet is attested at Marsiliana d’Albegna, Cerveteri, Tarquinia, Populonia
and Vetulonia.^25 Some examples are decorated on the central strip with a dimple and a
crescent, presumably referring to the moon and sun, astral motifs attested very early in
Mesopotamia and related to the worship of Astarte, mistress of life and death.^26 These
motifs and that of the female head with Hathor-hairstyle can also be stamped on the
plaques that link the different strips in some examples.^27 Also relatively common are
bracelets consisting of a broad band of gold decorated with stamped designs, detailed
or not with granulation, and characteristic of the Orientalizing repertoire: Phoenician
palmettes, fantastic animals, in fi le or confronted on either side of a tree-of-life, female
fi gures wearing Hathor-locks and holding a fan, sometimes framed by geometric motifs
as in the examples from the Regolini Galassi Tomb (Fig. 6.17).^28 One notes also three
bracelets, one in the Louvre composed of three parts attached to each other by means of
hinges, and two, incomplete, in the Dallas Museum, are made of parallel strips created
by the juxtaposition of round and twisted wires, held by transverse elements of the same
type and terminated at their ends by motifs stamped in the round.^29
The jewels best represented in the Orientalizing grave goods remain fi bulae. The
fi bulae with serpentine bow and their numerous variants are frequently made in gold
or silver without additional ornamentation, but they may also present a more complex