- Jean MacIntosh Turfa with Marshall J. Becker –
Figure 47.2 Poggio Colla Excavations, fragment of bucchero vase with stamped relief of childbirth
scene. By kind permission of the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project. Drawing by Morgan Burgess.Anatomical votive modelsA tradition that had begun with small metal votives in the Archaic period came into its
own with the social changes of the late fourth century bc. From about 300 bc into the
Augustan period, more than 200 sacred sites in Etruria and elsewhere in the peninsula
created deposits of a unique type of votive offering, model human bodies, heads, limbs or
organs in terracotta, given as thank-offerings for fulfi llment of vows requesting healing.
Most are hands or feet, the parts most likely to need healing; almost none depict any
sort of pathology, presumably because healing had already begun. Some models depict
a plaque-like arrangement of multiple internal organs in reasonably correct placement;
others in large numbers depict genitalia, internal and external, and a number of hearts, all
highly stylized. Only four inscribed models have been found, one donated by a freedman,
two uteri naming Vei, and a heart given by a Latin woman to Menrva. Thousands of
models have been found, but they fail to enlighten us much on Etruscan knowledge of
anatomy or physiology, since all are highly stylized; laboring uterus models may furnish
some circumstantial evidence (below).
In the votive deposit of a presumed healing cult at Vignale-Tempio Maggiore, Falerii,
some of the anatomical models of female external genitals clearly depict the physiology of
the elderly, a sign of women’s status in Etruria and the Ager Faliscus (Comella 1986: 78, pl.
42a–b). This contrasts with the much more common worry over non-maturation: many
Etruscan and Italic votive deposits include juvenile/infantile male genitalia, probably
offerings made in cases of delayed onset of puberty (see Turfa 2004: 361).
DiseasesDetecting infectious diseases that leave no marks on the skeleton is obviously diffi cult,
but some tangential or circumstantial evidence is available, in addition to comments
in the classical Greek and Latin authors. It seems reasonable to extrapolate from the