- Laura Ambrosini –
quadrupeds, fi sh, and occasional human beings (such the Despotes hippōn [“Master of
horses”], ritual acts like the choros or dance, military acts like horsemen in parade, acts of
worship like libation or adoration).
In the phase between 720–700 bc the production is rather limited and concentrated in
Tarquinia and Vulci (Fig. 52.2), while between 700–675 bc the axis moves signifi cantly to
Tarquinia. Around the second quarter of the seventh century bc Veii and Caere innovated
the production by introducing a very large number of new shapes of vases and then,
circa 650 bc, monopolized the production of fi ne painted ceramics, while the production
of Vulci and Tarquinia underwent a dramatic collapse. The peak of production seems
to be reached between 700 and 675 bc; it was almost certainly linked to the practices
of the symposium, the status symbol of the Hellenized aristocracy, followed by some
setbacks in 675–650 bc and in 650–625 bc and the exhaustion of the class in the late
seventh century bc, in connection with the emergence of new classes of pottery such as
Etrusco-Corinthian. Etrusco-Geometric vases are widespread in southern Etruria and the
surrounding countryside (Ager Faliscus and Capenate) (Fig. 52.3) and Latium Vetus.
The fi rst examples of painted Etrusco-Geometric vases come from Veii, the city that
receives the early Greek pottery. These vases produced in Veii at the third quarter of the
eighth century bc (750–725 bc) are so similar to those found in Greece that, without
Figure 52.1 Etrusco-geometric olla, Narce tomb 23M, early seventh century bc.
University of Pennsylvania Museum MS 1032, image no. 151475. Turfa 2005: no. 177.Figure 52.2 Etrusco-Geometric skyphos, Vulci tomb 42F, early seventh century bc. University of
Pennsylvania Museum MS 680, image no. 151423. Turfa 2005: no. 33.