- Jean Gran-Aymerich with Jean MacIntosh Turfa –
The most interesting case is that of the bucchero and impasto bowls from Lattes, bearing
feminine forenames, which G. Colonna considered to be of possible indigenous origin.
These vases would have been inscribed in Etruria and transported by their owners, or
possibly could have been inscribed in situ. But, in any case, the inscriptions function as
status markers for women of a certain social rank: Etruscan women relocated to Lattes,
or Etruscanized indigenous women.^113 The largest number of engraved signs on Etruscan
vases discovered in Marseille, Saint-Blaise and Lattes appears to have been done by
individual Etruscans anxious to establish their status.
Several examples show peculiar characteristics. Thus the foot of an Attic cup from
Saint-Blaise (second half of the fi fth century) bears an inscription interpreted as Etruscan
language in Greek letters and consisting of a dedication to the Etruscan goddess Uni.^114
The settlement of Ensérune has furnished several graffi ti considered to be Iberian, one of
which was reinterpreted as the name of a Celt incised in Etruscan characters.^115 Finally,
for the Celtic hinterland, the graffi to of Montmorot (Jura) used Etruscan characters
for an inscription of north Italic origin which was associated with a cultural group at
Golasecca.^116
A PRELIMINARY CLASSIFICATION OF CONTEXT
TYPES AND FINAL USES OF ETRUSCAN GOODSAn inquiry into the role and signifi cance of long-range Etruscan objects, which would
examine each example in its context of discovery, still needs to be accomplished and
would resolve numerous diffi culties. The list that follows constitutes a preliminary
classifi cation, which takes into consideration the primary categories.
Offerings: war booty, votive deposits, diplomatic giftsCertain Etruscan bronzes discovered in the panhellenic sanctuaries are clearly war booty
dedicated by the Greeks. Such is the case of the well-known helmets consecrated by the
Syracusans at the temple of Zeus at Olympia after the Battle of Cumae (474 bc, Fig.
39.11).^117 However, the majority of these Etruscan objects (Villanovan crested helmets,
fi bulae, shields, thrones, horse-bits, cauldrons) are uninscribed, and thus it is not possible
to identify the donors with any certainty – they could have been Greeks just as easily as
Etruscans.^118 In many Greek harbor sanctuaries we fi nd Etruscan objects, some bearing
Etruscan inscriptions and thus evidence of Etruscan involvement. So much is so for a
bucchero kantharos and a sealstone from a ring, said to be from Perachora.^119 Likewise,
from the sanctuary at Aegina we know of an example of a Greek having incised his
inscription upon a bucchero kantharos, an act we might interpret as an offering relating
to the relations between the Greeks and Etruscans.^120 Most such offerings are Iron Age
to Archaic in date, but again, these goods are more distinctive and thus more readily
recognized in Greek deposits. Other types of offerings have perished (organic materials)
or lost recognizable form (metal melted down). Rare survivors include the cast, fi gured
decoration of a late sixth-century Vulcian tripod dedicated on the Athenian Acropolis^121
and a fi fth-century tripod/incense burner with kneeling youths astride feline paws
deposited at Olympia sometime after 450.^122
For a long time the distribution pattern of these deposits offered a clean contrast between
the eastern Mediterranean, where Etruscan objects were mainly found in sanctuaries, and