- chapter 51: Engraved gems –
number of scarab gems with no intaglio device on the fl at underside have survived, which
suggests that at least some of these stones were delivered with ready-made beetle sides and
that an engraved miniature image was added later. This seems especially plausible in the
late period of production, when the beetle typologies became gradually more standardized.
All three gem types were invariably pierced lengthways so that they could be mounted
on swivel hoops, for example, and worn either as pendants or as fi nger-rings. The gems
were most likely worn with the intaglio device facing inwards, although some scarab
gems were set in ring designs with a fi xed device facing outwards. In the later phase of
production, a fourth shape was introduced: the fl at or very slightly convex ringstone,
intended to be set, immobile, in metal fi nger-rings.
Gem-cutting requires no built structures, the basic equipment of the gem-engraver
being more or less limited to a cutting wheel, drill-heads of various shapes and sizes, and
a bow for rotating the drill.^4 A “workshop” would therefore have consisted of little more
than the craftsman himself and his set of tools. This means that the person practicing
this craft could be itinerant, carrying with him his light equipment, or at least his
artistic output, from city to city in search of new clients. Apart from the gems, no other
archaeological evidence for this craft has survived, and it is extremely diffi cult to link
the glyptic production to a specifi c city or region, unless there is a concentration of
similar works in a single fi nd location. But very few of the approximately 2,600 surviving
gems have been found during controlled excavation,^5 and the vast majority of them lack
information on fi nd location. Where the earliest archaic production is concerned, stylistic
affi nities have been noted with vase-painting and metalwork produced in the larger
artistic centers of southern Etruria such as Tarquinia, Caere (Cerveteri) and Vulci, but
also with stone reliefs produced in Volterra in the north.^6 Tarquinia is relatively rich in
fi nds throughout the period of production, and in the late period inland Chiusi may be
added to this list. But, as mentioned, both gems and engravers travel easily.
The fact that the gems were engraved by local craftsmen and not imported means that
they more or less directly refl ect the actual tastes and needs of the local customer groups
catered for. In the beginning, gems may have been made on commission for members of
the Etruscan elite, but in the late period the engravers would rather have anticipated the
general tastes of a much expanded and socially diverse group of potential customers by
producing series of gems carrying popular subject-matter, and the prospective client would
probably have had a selection of gems to choose from. Scholars disagree on the question
of whether the Etruscans ever used their engraved gems for sealing purposes or chiefl y
as personal adornment. It is true that some of the more elaborate gold settings that have
been preserved seem impractical for sealing purposes. But clay imprints of Etruscan gems
have been found in contemporary temple archives at Carthage,^7 and most metal mounts
nevertheless seem to allow the gems to be fully functional as sealstones. Either way, there is
no reason to doubt that the strong symbolic connotations of the sealstone would have been
fully understood by the Etruscans. In this context should be mentioned an unprovenanced
pendant bone seal in the form of a hare and bearing the inscription mi larthia chulnas, “I
[am the seal of] Larth Chulna,” tentatively attributed to mid-sixth-century bce Chiusi.^8
Even if later inscriptions referring to a specifi c owner are exceptional,^9 like the late fourth-
or early third-century bce scarab gem in Florence with the inscribed name appius alce
(Fig. 51.1), a device image was probably most carefully chosen, as it would be expected to
represent or refl ect its owner in some way or other. The same would be true of gems with
devices chosen mainly for their protective or “amuletic” properties. The link between the
engraved gem and its owner would in both cases have been a strong and personal one.