THE IDENTITY OF THE INDIVIDUAL

The individual Etruscan is easily recognizable in the archaeological record, although those recognized are generally the elite. Naming of individuals is one powerful way of defining identity. Writing itself was closely associated with the marking of Etruscan identity. The discovery of a writing tablet with an alphabet in the seventh-century BC tomb in the Circolo degli Avori of Marsiliana d’Albegna is one clear example of how writing granted to an individual a special power to gain access to a range of knowledge, which in turn conferred a personal identity. Many early instances of writing attribute precious objects to individuals. Other inscriptions record transactions of giving between individuals, defining the identity of one individual with respect to another and

The Regolini Calassi tomb at Caere.

Establishing a social relationship through a gift from one to another. A group of distinctive plaques, often of ivory, sometimes depicting lions, carry the name of the owner (e. g., mi avil at Murlo and araz silqeta-nas spurinas at Sant’Omobono in Rome) and have been interpreted as matching the plaque of a partner, presumably in a distant community. This appears to permit the construction of a relationship of mutually understood identity with a second person. An intriguing instance of one of these ivory plaques has been found in the cemetery of Sainte Monique at Carthage. The inscription describes the owner as Punic, from Carthage, but is written in Etruscan. Three small holes show that it could be matched with a double presumably owned by an Etruscan. Sometimes this relationship can be plausibly established by the context in which the named object was found. The famous Mi larthia inscriptions on the silver vessels deposited in the female Regolini Galassi tomb at Caere record original possession by a male Larth, perhaps given to the woman in the tomb.

At first, a single name was sufficient for an Etruscan. However, as society became more diverse and complex, the ancestral family name was added to differentiate between the identities of individuals who would otherwise have shared a single common name. The representation of the ancestral name shows another simultaneous focus on the wider identity of the family. A further important strategy for creating identity was to develop associations with heroes from myth. For instance, the scenes from a late seventh-century BC Etrusco-Corinthian vase from Caere have been interpreted as the deliberate association of named Etruscans (Ammarce and Thesathei) with iconographical treatment broadly similar to Theseus and Ariadne (from the Greek world).

All individuals named in Etruscan inscriptions must have had significant status to be accorded recognition in writing. However, some individuals also had titles, which attributed even higher status. The term zilath, or magistrate, may have appeared as early as the late seventh century. A later (circa 500 BC), very famous example of a prominent named individual is the “royal” figure of Thefarie Velianus on the gold plaques of Pyrgi. Conversely, the appearance of the term lautni/laut-nitha with an individual’s name seems to indicate the status of freedman, conferring a full identity on the freedman that was missing for a slave. The meaning of some attributes, such as etera/eteri, are unclear, but may indicate a different identity based on age and/or status.

In the seventh century BC, emphasis was placed on adorning elite deceased individuals. The body was accompanied by perfume flasks, cosmetic boxes, gold jewelry, and panoplies of weaponry. Classic examples include the tomb of Bocchoris from Tarquinia and the Regolini-Galassi tomb from Caere. The body was made beautiful not only visually, but sensually. Treasures of smell and taste (and possibly of sound as well) accompanied the liturgical performances of death. The effect was a feast not only for the eyes, but also the nose, mouth, and ears.

The beautified Etruscan individual was regularly depicted from the sixth century onward with varying degrees of lifelikeness as a living figure on his or her tomb. Prominent early examples are from Moli-nello at Asciano in the north and Caere in the south. Recognition of the likeness of the individual was clearly key to granting that individual a personality. Mirrors are a very particular representation of identity, since they reflect the face of the owner, the personification of identity. In their iconography (domesticity and mythology), mirrors appear to be closely associated with women, and about 10 percent are identified with the name of the owner, who is usually female. The proven exceptions to female ownership raise interesting questions that deserve further investigation, much as in cases of women buried in “warrior” graves.

Precise elements of material culture ascribed identity, particularly status, to individuals. Fans were a prominent recurrent indication of status in the early period (with examples from Populonia, Veii, and Trevignano) and perhaps of female gender in the later period. A fourth-century sarcophagus of the Tetnies couple from Vulci shows the longstanding gender association of many of these material symbols. Arnth, the man, is associated with a folding seat, rods, curved staff, trumpet, and double pipes. Ramtha, the woman, is associated with an umbrella, fan, jug, situla, musical instrument, and unguent box. A folding seat, horns, and curved staff recur again in the famous fourth-century Tomba dei Relievi at Caere, among many indications of military weaponry and more mundane items of daily life.

Gender played an important role in Etruscan identity from an early stage. Male graves are generally more numerous, but in the eighth and seventh centuries there were already rich female graves at Casal del Fosso (Veii) and Olmo Bello (Bisenzio) Tomb 5 degli Ori Arsenale Militare (Bologna). Carts, an elaborate incense burner, and an elaborately decorated bronze rattle demonstrate status. Distinctive and exotic perfume became a female-identified object and contributed to the creation of the body beautiful during the course of the seventh century: for example, a mid-seventh-century female grave from Tomb IV, Monte Abetone at Caere, was accompanied by an Etruscan blue unguent bottle and a protocorinthian aryballos. A mid-sixth-century female inhumation in the Tomba dei Flabelli di Bronzo of Populonia contained a rich toiletry set of an ivory comb, wooden boxes, and alabaster unguent vessels. Female identities were more strongly represented among the Etruscans than among other contemporary communities, but it should not be suggested that female identity became dominant. In the sixth-and fifth-century Crocefisso del Tufo cemetery of Orvieto, where the founder of each tomb was recorded on the lintel, less than 5 percent of the heads of household from some 90 different families were female. In the Hellenistic period, only in one community (Tuscania) did representation of females in inscriptions reach 50 percent.

Male identity was often, but not exclusively, associated with military activity. A good late sixth-century example is the Tomba del Guerriero, Tomb 47 in the Osteria cemetery of Vulci. The finds included a helmet, greaves, round shield, sword and scabbard, and spears, but also the material culture of the feast: bronze vessels, jugs, ladles, sieve, and incense stand and Attic vases.

Dress was closely associated with individual identity, and was frequently expressed along gender as well as status lines. Most males wore a perizoma or pentagon-shaped garment covering the lower part of the torso, a belt, and a tunic. Women had a much more varied range of clothes, perhaps showing a multiplicity of identities, which we can speculate were associated with different familial roles and perhaps different regional traditions: dresses of different lengths, belted and unbelted, long sleeved and short sleeved, mantles, and various forms of cloaks. In early female hairstyles, plaits predominated.