Styles & Periods

Etruscan Art

Etruscan civilization, seated on the Italian peninsula around 700 B.C., borrowed much of its culture from the Greeks before it. Alphabets and populations were shared with Greece, and a flowering of writing resulted. The Etruscans were powerful people, with a territory that extended from Naples to present-day northern Italy. Bronze tombs characterize Etruscan art. The first tombs were bronze urns with heads in the shape of the deceased and great mounds covering stone rooms. Later tombs, from the height of Etruscan civilization, were virtually simultaneous in date to the art of the Aegean. During this monumental period, figurative tombs in terracotta were made. Funerary chambers held murals and beautiful tombs with couples carved on the top. The colors of these murals are glorious and show figures of musicians, fisherman, flocks of birds and schools of fish. The tombs are indeed resplendent, and show the belief of the funerary site holding both body and soul. Etruscans were not only masters of the afterlife, but also of urban planning. Romans emulated their examples and learned how to build bridges and aqueducts from the Etruscans.