CHAPTER SIX

ORIENTALIZING ETRURIA

Maurizio Sannibale

GENERAL

T

he Orientalizing phase (circa 730–580 bc) is a vast cultural phenomenon involving
the entire Mediterranean basin, with the movement of people and goods, technology
exchanges, and contacts in Etruria which were to establish signifi cant economic growth, a
truly epochal “leap.”^1 A crucial role in this phenomenon will be exercised by the renewed
wave of Phoenician expansion, induced by Assyrian pressure on the Palestinian-Syrian coast
between the reigns of Tiglath-pileser III (744–727 bc) and Esarhaddon (680–669 bc). This
must have upset the liberty and economic structures of the Levantine states hitherto ruled
by local dynasties,^2 and affected the colonial diaspora of Greeks to the west. It is in this
cultural context in Greece that the compilation of the Homeric poems occurs, narrating
much earlier events that are inevitably affected by the present conditions of those regions.
The Orientalizing is a crucial period, then, which sees Etruscan civilization at its
grand beginnings, in a phase of rapid and signifi cant changes that will leave their mark
on all of Western culture: the rise of cities, large colonial settlements, the spread of
writing. Men of different ethnicity who move and meet each other for trade and the
search for raw materials will transfer knowledge and technology, and wealth will grow.
The Etruscan aristocracy, asserting itself in its leadership role and in consolidating
riches, will look to the pomp of Eastern courts as a model. The practice of peer gift-
exchange, around which revolve commercial and diplomatic relations, causes a wide
spread of goods, creating bonds of reciprocity not only among men, but also between
men and gods as occurred in the Greek world with offerings destined for sanctuaries.
The objects found in tombs, made of bronze, but also in silver, gold, and exotic materials
such as ivory and ostrich eggs, as well as amber, glass paste, wood, and iron, illustrate
the powers and ceremony reserved for the sovereign in the course of life and in some
way guaranteed them after death. The new goods,^3 imported or produced locally by
immigrant craftsmen (see Chapter 48), are characterized by a virtuosity and eclecticism
that tend to test the full potential of the materials. Along with the prestige goods are
introduced themes, iconography and technologies from the eastern Mediterranean (Egypt,
Syria, Cyprus, Rhodes, Greece) and the Near East (as far as Urartu and Mesopotamia).