Etruscan jewelry

The tomb group represents one of the richest and most impressive sets of Etruscan jewelry ever found. It comprises a splendid gold and glass pendant necklace, a pair of gold and rock-crystal disk earrings, a gold dress fastener (fibula) decorated with a sphinx, a pair of plain gold fibulae, a gold dress pin, and five finger rings. Two of the rings have engraved scarabs that revolve on a swivel bezel. One is decorated with embossed satyr heads, and the other two have decorated gold bezels.

Very little jewelry from the Villanovan Era, an Early Iron Age culture dating c. 900 BCE – 700 BCE, has been discovered in modern times. The Villanovan Etruscans seem to have left few items of luxury, and thus appear modest. Yet extant Villanovan jewelry confirms that in Etruria great effort was placed in the production of decorative arts.

Trade networks with the Greeks and the ancient Near East, particularly the Assyrians,  Phoenicians, and Egyptians, brought techniques such as granulation and filigree to the Etruscans during the Orientalizing period beginning in the late 8th century BCE. The period is characterized by a shift from the prevailing geometric style to a style with Eastern-inspired motifs filled with animals and mythological monsters.  These themes were thought to have been emphasized by migrating seers and healers who transmitted their skills in divination and purification ritual along with elements of their mythological wisdom.

The Etruscans love of color led them to decorate their work with faience, colored gemstones and glass beads as well as enameling after the 7th century BCE.

Gold was scarce to the Etruscans and this is expressed by the lightness and precision workmanship on an incredible minute scale. Much of the sheet gold used is less than 0,1 mm thick. Where thicker rods were needed, sheet gold would be rolled up to form hollow tubes. Gold wire was used in filigree, the most typical being the spiral beaded wire that was made by rolling a knife-edge over a smooth wire causing a screw-thread like decorative wire to be produced. The most famous technique of the Etruscans is their perfect granulation that was applied without any solder. - Antique Jewelry University https://www.langantiques.com/university/etruscan-jewelry/

Etruscan jewelry can be roughly divided into two periods: Early Etruscan and Late Etruscan. As Etruscan civilization declined because of attacks from the Celts in the north and the Romans in the south, their jewelry declined in workmanship.   Flimsy sheet gold pieces with simple embossing replaced the meticulously crafted jewelry from the early period. Granulation and filigree were used only rarely in the late period.  

Image: Set of jewelry, early 5th century BCE, Etruscan, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

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Alectryomancy and the sacred rooster

Since antiquity, the rooster has been, and still is, a sacred animal in some cultures and deeply embedded within various religious belief systems and religious worship. In ancient Babylon the rooster was considered the bird form of the True Shepherd of Anu and was considered the ordained herald of the gods. Nergal, a deity whose name meant "dunghill cock" or fighting cock, was worshipped by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, and Persians.  The term "Persian bird" was given to the cock by the Greeks after Persian contact "because of his great importance and his religious use among the Persians." This stems from the sacred nature of the cock, attested to in the texts of Zoroastrianism,  during the legendary Kayanian Period from about 2000 BCE to about 700 BCE. 

Perhaps because of their ancient association as a divine messenger, roosters played an important role in both Etruscan and Roman religion.  Observing a rooster's willingness to eat grain kernels as a means to divine the omens for battle, marriage, or some other important action, known as alectryomancy, was frequently practiced. The Etruscans, established an elaborate ritual of alectryomancy using a hen to find answers for life's most pressing problems. The process involved a circle, which was divided into twenty parts to represent the Etruscan alphabet and each sector was sprinkled with corn. The bird is placed at the middle and the sequence of its pecking was recorded.  Roman rituals, building upon the practices of the Etruscans, were conducted with such an extraordinary level of organization that they are considered unparalleled among ancient civilizations.  A rare form of alectryomancy practiced by the Romans included divination by a cock-stone, a crystal-colored stone found in a rooster's crop that was considered to have magical powers.

The cockerel was already of symbolic importance in Gaul at the time of the invasion of Julius Caesar and was associated with the god Lugus, a Celtic deity who the Romans believed to be equivalent to Mercury.  Of the six Celtic gods identified by Caesar as those worshipped in Gaul, Caesar thought Lugus was the most revered, describing him as patron of trade and commerce, protector of travelers, and the inventor of all the arts. Lugus' (Mercury's) importance is supported by the more than 400 inscriptions referencing him in Roman Gaul and Britain. However, Unlike the Roman Mercury, who is typically a youth, Gaulish Mercury is occasionally also represented as an old man.

Closeup of a Roman opus vermiculatum mosaic depicting two cocks who confront each other in combat before a table displaying the winner's prizes: the purse (a moneybag) flanked by a caduceus and a palm of victory at NAM Naples courtesy of Carole Raddato. 

.  A mosaic of a slave with two roosters from Pompeii 1st century BCE - 1st century CE at the NAM Naples courtesy of Wikimedia contributor Amphipolis.  

Mosaic of a cockfight from Pompeii (Casa del Labirinto, VI.11.10) in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples courtesy of Wikimedia Commons contributor Sailko. 

Children Watching A Cockfight, Greek, Amisos, Asia Minor, 2nd century - 1st century BCE, Terracotta, that I photographed at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

Terracotta statuette of a boy and a rooster, Greek, Asia Minor, Pontus 2nd century BCE that I photographed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Roman mosaic of a colorful cockerl that I photographed at the Terme di Diocleziano venue of the National Musem of Rome

Etruscan askos in the form of a rooster, 4th century BCE, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York courtesy of the museum.

Terracotta skos (flask with a spout) in the form of a cock, Italic 2nd half of the 3rd century BCE at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Askoi shaped like animals were commonly used as lamp fillers; the oil was introduced into the askos via the small inlet off to the side, and was then poured out through a tiny hole under the beak into the lamp in a smooth and controlled stream. 

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Aphrodite of the East - A warrior love goddess

The cult of Aphrodite in Greece was imported from, or at least influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia, which, in turn, was influenced by the cult of the Mesopotamian goddess known as "Ishtar" to the East Semitic peoples and as "Inanna" to the Sumerians. Pausanias states that the first to establish a cult of Aphrodite were the Assyrians, followed by the Paphians of Cyprus and then the Phoenicians at Ascalon. The Phoenicians, in turn, taught her worship to the people of Cythera.

Aphrodite took on Inanna-Ishtar's associations with sexuality and procreation. Furthermore, she was known as Ourania, which means "heavenly", a title corresponding to Inanna's role as the Queen of Heaven. Early artistic and literary portrayals of Aphrodite are extremely similar on Inanna-Ishtar. Like Inanna-Ishtar, Aphrodite was also a warrior goddess. The second-century CE Greek geographer Pausanias records that, in Sparta, Aphrodite was worshipped as Aphrodite Areia, which means "warlike". He also mentions that Aphrodite's most ancient cult statues in Sparta and on Cythera showed her bearing arms. Modern scholars note that Aphrodite's warrior-goddess aspects appear in the oldest strata of her worship and see it as an indication of her Near Eastern origins. 

Nineteenth century classical scholars had a general aversion to the idea that ancient Greek religion was at all influenced by the cultures of the Near East, but, even Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, who argued that Near Eastern influence on Greek culture was largely confined to material culture, admitted that Aphrodite was clearly of Phoenician origin. The significant influence of Near Eastern culture on early Greek religion in general, and on the cult of Aphrodite in particular, is now widely recognized as dating to a period of orientalization during the eighth century BCE, when archaic Greece was on the fringes of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Image: A sensuous bronze figurine of Aphrodite from a mirror or oil lamp thought to be from Roman Syria, 4th-6th century CE.  that I photographed at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri in 2016.

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The revolutionary Orientalizing Period in Mediterranean art

These gold plaques depicting a winged goddess flanked by lions were created on the island of Rhodes during the so-called "orientalizing period."  This reference in art history is used to describe a development in western art beginning in the latter part of the 8th century BCE when there was a heavy influence from the art of the eastern Mediterranean including Assyria, Phoenicia, and Egypt.  During this time Greek motifs began to shift from geometric designs to the depiction of deities, animals, and mythological creatures. 

Two schools of thought exist regarding the question of whether or not Geometric art itself was indebted to eastern models. In Attic pottery, the distinctive Orientalizing style known as "proto-Attic" was marked by floral and animal motifs. It was the first time discernibly Greek religious and mythological themes were represented in vase painting. The bodies of men and animals were depicted in silhouette, though their heads were drawn in outline. Women were drawn completely in outline. In Corinth, the orientalizing influence started earlier, though the tendency there was to produce smaller, highly detailed vases in the "proto-Corinthian" style that prefigured the black-figure technique.

These changes were triggered by population shifts brought about by both conquest and colonization.  During this period, the Assyrians advanced along the Mediterranean coast, accompanied by Greek and Carian mercenaries, who were also active in the armies of Psamtik I in Egypt.  Phoenicians settled in Cyprus and in western regions of Greece, Greeks established trading colonies at Al Mina, Syria, and in Ischia (Pithecusae) off the Tyrrhenian coast of Campania in southern Italy. The new groups started to compete with established Mediterranean merchants.

The period from roughly 750 to 580 BCE also saw a comparable Orientalizing phase of Etruscan art, as a rising economy encouraged Etruscan families to acquire foreign luxury products incorporating Eastern-derived motifs. Similarly, areas of Italy—such as Magna Grecia, Sicily, the Picenum, Latium vetus, Ager Faliscus, the Venetic region, the Nuragic civilization of Sardinia, and the Iberian peninsula, in particular in the city-state of Tartessos, also experienced an Orientalizing phase at this time. 

Classicist Walter Burkert described the new movement in Greek art as a revolution: "With bronze reliefs, textiles, seals, and other products, a whole world of eastern images was opened up which the Greeks were only too eager to adopt and adapt in the course of an 'orientalizing revolution."

Image: Gold plaques with winged goddesses flanked by lions and dangling pomegranates, a fruit originating within a region from Iran to northern India, Greek from Kamiros, Rhodes, Orientalizing Period 700-600 BCE probably worn as a collar around the neck of clothing, that I photographed at the British Museum in 2016.

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