- chapter 19: Etruscan goods in the Mediterranean world –
and textiles or materia medica would be diffi cult to recognize in the archaeological record.
This may also explain why today we see so few Etruscan goods in Greece and the eastern
Mediterranean; while in the practice of cabotage, sailing along the coast making frequent
stops, a ship would have seen many ports of call between leaving Etruria and reaching
the Greek islands, Cyprus or Anatolia and the Levant. “Identity items” (isolated objects)
such as bucchero kantharoi are scattered throughout the region, and into the Black Sea
ports (Olbia), but the bulk cargoes, such as ingots or timber loaded in Populonia, for
example, may have been dispersed before the ships reached Cyprus, Tarsus or Sidon.
Etruscan art of the seventh and sixth centuries depicts deep-hulled fast-sailing merchant
vessels probably modeled on Cypro-Phoenician long-distance freighters, but apart from
paintings and models, no actual ships of this scale have yet been found.^157
But the picture was undoubtedly more complicated still: if bucchero kantharoi were
given away to participants in banquet toasts and ceremonies of friendship, they were also
part of marketplace commerce. At Corinth, a prosperous importer’s home/shop in a prime
location on the Lechaion Road that connected the sprawling center of the city with the
great port, held piles of imported ceramics that had been discarded and dumped in its
courtyard. The catalogue of fabrics found there mirrors the composition of Archaic cargoes in
shipwrecks, including Laconian and Chiote painted vases, East Greek and Corinthian wares,
and Etruscan bucchero in the form of kantharoi but also larger vessels. Bucchero kantharoi
in the Potters’ Quarter were associated with the homes/workshops of the Corinthian potters,
but may have been kept as curiosities or dedicated in household shrines.^158
Unique fi ndsCertain far-fl ung Etruscan discoveries are quite surprising and often remain inexplicable.
Without a doubt the most troubling piece is the tablet of fi red clay with a Greek inscription,
which supposedly comes from Empúries-Ampurias in Catalonia. The text makes reference
to the fi ring of black, Etruscan vases. The authenticity of this document (now dispersed
in private hands) has not been confi rmed and indeed it may be a counterfeit.^159 The
Etruscan mirror without precise context, believed to come from the sector Torre del Mar
(Morro de Mezquitilla) at Malaga, is extraordinary because of its supposed origin. Let
us recall the unexplained but real discovery of an Etruscan mirror during the excavation
of the Roman necropolis on the Boulevard of Port-Royal in Paris.^160 The mirror from
Empúries-Ampurias, although unique, appears to come from one of the tombs from this
Greek colony. These discoveries, real or counterfeit, remind us of others, such as the
Villanovan swords from Egypt and from Bétera in Spain, which raise doubts.^161 But, after
all, other Etruscan fi nds no less extravagant have been perfectly authenticated, such as the
liber linteus from the Zagreb mummy, which remains in Egypt. It is possible in the long
run that such extraordinary objects found so far from Etruria belonged – in the case of the
authenticated examples – to Etruscan travelers or expatriates.
Among the unusual fi nds it is good to remember the numismatic data. The presence
of far-fl ung Etruscan coins is shown in the didrachma of Populonia depicting a gorgon
of Aléria on its obverse. Southern France has brought to light silver obols thought to be
Etruscan or of regional production from the lower Rhône, at Sainte-Maxime de Gignac-
la-Narthe and at Arles.^162 Further south, a cut-up didrachma from Populonia with a
gorgon on the obverse would have come from the region close to Ebro at El Penedès
(Tarragona).^163