Our knowledge about the Etruscan civilization is
extremely limited. Our understanding of their
language is still incomplete and most of the
information that is known comes to us through
the Romans, their one time subjects who grew to
become their masters. The Etruscans lived under
a series of autonomous city-states spread out
across northern and central Italy. By the 3rd
Century B.C., they would be absorbed into the
burgeoning Roman Empire. Made from a reddish
clay with a cream slip, this exceptionally
beautiful head from an antefix has small blue
eyes, thin black eyebrows, and thin red lips.
Black curls cover her forehead. She wears
painted blue and black button earrings, and two
necklaces, one a string of beads and the other
with pendant beads. Antefixes were placed at the
ends of cover tiles that ran along the sides of a
building's roof. These polychrome terracotta
plaques provided necessary protection from the
weather for the wooden framework of the
building. This custom was prevalent all over
Etruria (the lands of the Etruscan), Latium, and
Campania from the 7th century B.C. until the
Roman period. In Archaic and Classical times, the
Estrucan city of Caere (modern Cerveteri) seems
to have been an important center for the
production of such works and this protome may
very well come from there.
- (X.0040)
|
