ORIENTALIZING ART, ca. 700–600 BCE
❚During the early first millennium BCE, the Etruscans emerged as a people with a culture distinct from
those of other Italic peoples and the Greeks.
❚In the seventh century BCE, the Etruscans traded metals from their mines for foreign goods and
began to produce jewelry and other luxury objects decorated with motifs modeled on those found
on imports from the Near East.
ARCHAIC ART, ca. 600–480 BCE
❚The sixth century BCEwas the apex of Etruscan power in Italy. Etruscan kings even ruled Rome
until 509 BCE.
❚The Etruscans admired Greek art and architecture but did not copy Greek works. Etruscan temples
were made of wood and mud brick instead of stone and had columns and stairs only at the front.
Terracotta statuary decorated the roof.
❚Most surviving Etruscan artworks come from underground tomb chambers. At Cerveteri, great
earthen mounds (tumuli) covered tombs with interiors sculptured to imitate the houses of the
living.
❚At Tarquinia, painters covered the tomb walls with monumental frescoes, usually depicting funerary
banquets attended by both men and women.
CLASSICAL AND HELLENISTIC ART, ca. 480–489 BCE
❚The Greek defeat of the Etruscan fleet off Cumae in 474 BCEended Etruscan domination of the sea
and marked the beginning of Etruria’s decline. Rome destroyed Veii in 396 BCEand conquered
Cerveteri in 273 BCE. All of Italy became Romanized by 89 BCE.
❚A very different, more somber, mood pervades Etruscan art during the fifth through first centuries
BCE, as seen, for example, in the sarcophagus of Lars Pulena.
❚Later Etruscan architecture is noteworthy for the widespread use of the stone arch, often framed
with Greek pilasters or columns, as on the Porta Marzia at Perugia.
THE BIG PICTURE
THE ETRUSCANS
Regolini-Galassi fibula, Cerveteri,
ca. 650–640 BCEA typical sixth-century BCE
Etruscan templeTomb of the Leopards, Tarquinia,
ca. 480–470 BCEPorta Marzia, Perugia,
second century BCESarcophagus of Lars Pulena,
early second century BCE