CHAPTER 12
Communicating with Gods
Sacred Space in Etruria

P. Gregory Warden

1. Introduction: Ritual, Religion, and Space

Etruscan religiosity is by now a commonplace, and often cited is the authority of Livy attesting that the Etruscans were more dedicated to religion than anyone else in the ancient Mediterranean, and especially its practice: “… a people more than any other dedicated to religion, the more as they excelled in practicing it” (gens itaque inte omnes alias eo magis dedita religionibus quod excelleret arte colendi eas: History of Rome 5.1.6). The distinction between belief and practice is important. Livy suggests that what is notable about the Etruscans is not just that they were religious – in this they might not have been more exceptional than many other peoples – but that they excelled in its practice: what we would call ritual, the art or craft of religion. This notable predilection for ritual is mirrored much later in a Christian setting by Arnobius, who connects ritual, and presumably the vile doctrines that lay behind it, as superstition: “… the birthgiver and mother of superstitions” (genetrix et mater superstitionis Etruria: Against the Pagans 7.26). A picture emerges of a society ruled by theocratic elites who held power through ritual that was deeply embedded in the social landscape. Specifics of Etruscan ritual, especially as connected to divination, are to be found more broadly in Cicero and Pliny, and the Etruscan disciplina is broadly attested. Actual details, however, especially as they relate to Etruscans concepts of the divine ordering of space, the “reading” of that space, and thus the understanding of divine will by Etruscan elites, are, unfortunately, more explicitly described only in later sources.

The Etruscan interest in the interpretation of natural phenomena as divine portents is also well-attested in literary sources, and the fundamental difference of the Etruscan view of these signs was beautifully summarized by Seneca in his sympathetic treatise on the meaning of the natural divine: the difference between Romans and Etruscans is that they attribute everything to the agency of the gods, so that signs do not reveal the future simply because they have happened, but that signs have happened because they explicitly reveal the future (Natural Questions 2.32.2). As has been often pointed out, while we know too little about the Etruscans, we know much more about their religion, in no small part because their belief system profoundly influenced the Romans and thus is part of the historical record. This picture is supplemented and increasingly altered by modern archaeology, where material culture provides a kind of “ground truthing” (Turfa 2011) to the textual record. The combination of literary sources and archaeological evidence now allows for a broader picture of Etruscan religion. The material culture provides in some ways a finer lens through which to view and reconstruct ritual: for if ritual is the “art” or practice of religion, the physical manifestation through bodily/performative action of the broader belief system, then the material remains–be they bones, bronze, or clay–are the actual testament of those ritual actions (see further, Chapter 18). But Seneca’s reference to Etruscan belief is important; the point of Etruscan religion is the interpretation of divine will, and that interpretation is undertaken through ritual action that is performative. Ritual thus embodies belief, and the distinction between belief and ritual action becomes significant. The tendency for modern interpreters to separate belief from ritual – to consider the latter to be superstition, or at least a more virulent form of superstition than pure belief – creates an artificial distinction that probably would have been alien to the Etruscans. The intersection of belief and ritual as evidenced by the archaeological record provides insight into what would have been a continuum, the full spectrum of Etruscan religiosity that was the force shaping the social landscape.

The physical landscape of religious observance is also fundamental for understanding the Etruscans, for ritual is also an act of communication that connected humans with divinity. Although we may not know the details of all Etruscan religious observance, we do have good knowledge of Etruscan sacred spaces, the physical locus of their religiosity.

2. Sacred Space: Sanctuary, Altar, and Temple

It is the nature of archaeology to define through typology, and the study of sacred space is often divided into separate categories, such as sanctuary, altar, and temple. This approach may work better for other cultures. But in the case of the Etruscans, where we are already faced with a bewildering variety of regional approaches and the great changes that took place over almost a millennium of history, the primacy of ritual most likely superseded all other determinants. Etruscan religion in its earliest form was probably animistic, and the sacredness of place in many documented instances was connected to natural phenomena: examples include springs and other water sources (e.g., the sanctuary at the headwaters of the Arno (Figure 12.1, Plate Section) on Monte Falterona (Fortuna and Giovanotti 1975; 1989)), underground fissures and other notable environmental features, or even something as simple as a place that was struck by lightning. Or a particular combination of environmental features may have created sacredness, as, for instance, at the sanctuary of Fontanile di Legnisina near Vulci, where a water source, dramatic rock formations, and proximity to a road and a nearby settlement may have all figured in the prominence of the site (Massabò 1992: 104). We will probably never know how or why certain spaces came to be considered sacred, but the Etruscan interest in sacred space was connected to two fundamental characteristics of their belief system: the observance of natural phenomena that implicated divine order, and the interest in defining space and boundaries that once again reflected a human interpretation of divine order (Edlund-Berry 2011: 116–131). The end result of these beliefs is variability: sacred space in Etruria seems to find different arrangements in almost every case (Edlund 1987), with no rules that we can divine for its layout beyond the nature of the place and the topography of rituals performed.

Figure 12.1 The Lake of the Idols in the sanctuary at the headwaters of the Arno River on Monte Falterona.

Photo: P.G. Warden.

Sometimes, sanctuaries were part of a greater fabric, such as a city or even a necropolis (Steingräber and Menichelli 2010), as is the case of the famous Cannicella shrine at Orvieto (Della Fina 1987). In this instance, the sacred area is situated within a larger necropolis. There probably would have been a sacellum or roofed area that held the famous Cannicella nude, a female statue that may have been retrofitted from a Greek marble kouros. Surrounding areas have channels that are probably connected to sacrificial rituals, and the purpose of the area seems to have been to connect the living, through ritual, to the gods of the underworld below. The Cannicella sanctuary is a particularly elaborate example of what must have been commonplace: sacred areas near tombs that were connected to the veneration of family members or ancestors who may have even been considered divine (Damgaard Andersen 1993; Camporeale 2009; Warden 2009a). The simplest ones might have been just a flat area paved with stone, or a niche in the side of a tumulus or chamber tomb. We know little about the more ephemeral types because excavation of funerary areas has not often focused on this kind of space, but more complex examples, such as the funerary altar attached to the Tumulo del Sodo II in Cortona (Zamarchi Grassi 1992; Bruschetti and Zamarchi Grassi 1994), not only reveal that this kind of worship was important but also that the tomb itself can be considered a kind of altar (Prayon 2010). The Cortona altar (Figure 12.2) is connected to the space around the tomb through a steep set of steps attached to the actual mound of the tumulus. The symbolism seems clear: the connection of the lower human space to the higher divine space is symbolized by an artificial mountain. In this case, the mountain becomes a kind of temple, and the steep steps of the altar do not invite participants in the ritual to climb up to the platform. We might more likely imagine a priest, probably a descendant of the individual heroicized by this kind of monument, officiating and, through ritual, connecting the attendants below with the mountain and the sky. This kind of “stairway to heaven” is sometimes implied by the actual corbelled structure of Etruscan tombs, by the corbelled or stepped “arches” over the doorways of tombs, or by the altars depicted in pediments in many Etruscan tombs. In the case of the Cortona altar, the symbolism is further elaborated through the massive sculptures that decorate its antae. These show a male figure being engulfed in the maw of a lion while he drives a dagger into the side of the predator – a scene of blood-letting and predation that may be linked to Etruscan concepts of transformation and deification (Warden 2009a).

Figure 12.2 Funerary altar attached to the Tumulo del Sodo II, seventh century BCE. From Cortona.

Photo: P.G. Warden.

The tumulus itself might have functioned as a sanctuary or sacred area. An example excavated near Pisa was topped by a stone altar with an iron sacrificial knife placed next to it, as well as a stone imitation of a ship’s tiller (Bruni 1998; Floriani and Bruni 2006). The tomb chamber below was empty. The lack of burial and the tiller suggests a cenotaph, a memorial to an Etruscan aristocrat lost at sea. That the tumulus and the area around it functioned as a virtual altar and sanctuary to the memory of an illustrious ancestor is further suggested by the anthropomorphic stelae placed around the tomb, silent witnesses and celebrants of an eternal funerary ritual.

Sanctuaries might be bounded and defined spaces, but they also could define greater spaces. Sanctuaries could delineate territory, marking natural or even political boundaries, a type that Zifferero (1995) defined as a santuario di confine (e.g., one whose placement defined ethnic, political, religious, or economic boundaries). In addition, cities themselves could be considered sacred spaces, defined and articulated in some of the same ways as sanctuaries (Briquel 2008). Thus, sanctuaries in Etruria could be well-defined places that functioned as more than a place of worship, with the larger ones, in particular, functioning as important economic engines that served as centers of production, repositories of wealth, and places for elite display (Becker 2009; a useful list of the many Etruscan sanctuaries and ritual settings known to date is provided by Collins-Elliott and Edlund-Berry 2011). In the case of the Fanum Voltumnae, the sanctuary could serve as a pan-Etruscan locus that formalized political as well as religious rituals that helped define a collective ethnic identity. The Fanum Voltumnae has been tentatively identified with the recently excavated sanctuary at the Campo della Fiera in Orvieto (Stopponi 2011). Sanctuaries could thus have important political significance, as is also the case at Pyrgi, which seems to have functioned as a nexus for Phoenician and Etruscan interaction (Baglione and Belelli Marchesini 2013). Another instance of a sanctuary that had a kind of ethnic identity of its own is the sanctuary at Graviscae, clearly founded and frequented by Greeks from the emporion at the same site, and dedicated to Aphrodite and Adonis (Fiorini and Torelli 2010). This sanctuary not only served the non-Etruscan population of a Greek trading center but it also had economic impact through the extensive metalworking that took place on site (Fiorini and Torelli 2010: 31).

But a sacred space might also be a simpler setting, a place for a single shrine or altar. And if sanctuaries could vary tremendously in size, form, layout and intent, then the altars themselves were so varied in type – there was probably no such thing as a canonical altar in Etruria – as to render attempts at classification extremely difficult (good comprehensive summaries, nevertheless, are available: Colonna 2006; Collins-Elliott and Edlund-Berry 2011). Altars could range from a simple pile of stone and ash to more monumental structures that resemble types from other parts of the ancient Mediterranean (e.g., the stone structures with U-shaped plans articulated in front by podiums with prominent moldings, antae and steps). Notable examples of the latter type include the acropolis altar at Marzabotto, the beautifully preserved altar at Pieve Socana (Figure 12.3), or, in the funerary sphere, the altar attached to the Tumulo del Sodo II at Cortona (see above). These more monumental structures were presumably places for the placement of sacrificial fires, places where larger-scale animal sacrifices could have taken place, and in some cases these altars might have been associated with temples. But the axial association of altar and temple, well-documented in both Greece and Rome, was not as prevalent in Etruria. A case in point is Pyrgi, where the two sacred areas excavated so far are very different in plan (Boëthius 1970: 41, fig. 28). The northern area is monumental and axially arranged, while the southern area is laid out according to topographical and ritual exigencies, as has been recently demonstrated by Baglione and Betelli Marchesini (2013: 113–122), who discuss a mesmerizing variety of altars that are extremely varied in shape and type The variety of forms at Pyrgi brings out the difficulty of defining or identifying altars that could serve different ritual purposes, from animal sacrifice or the dedication of objects, to the demarcation of space, or even to signal the placement of a votive deposit.

Figure 12.3 Monumental altar. From Pieve Socana.

Photo: P.G. Warden.

A similar variation can be seen with respect to Etruscan temples. The many varieties, especially of the Tuscan temple, are by now well-studied (Colonna 1985; Izzet 2000; Warden 2012). By the sixth century BCE, the layout of temples becomes more standard, perhaps due to influence from Greece, and two types are found: the Greek peripteral temple set on a shallow set of steps, and the frontal Tuscan type described by Vitruvius, certainly of local derivation. In some cases both types of temples could be in the same sanctuary or even side-by-side, the house of the god surrounded by the peripteros, the forest of columns. The Tuscan temple, however, is altogether different entity, a virtual machine for the performance of ritual. Although Vitruvius (On Architecture 4.7) provides us with a handy recipe for the construction of a Tuscan temple, its form was adaptable within the constancy required by ritual practice. It is a temple that conforms to an Etrusco-Italic aesthetic. For although the term “Tuscan” is most often used, the geographical range of the evidence suggests that the safer term for this sort of structure is “Etrusco-Italic.”

What has not been much discussed is the question of why both peripteral temples and Tuscan temples are found in all parts of Etruria. The occurrence of peripteral plans cannot be ascribed to Greek influence alone, and there is no clear geographical distribution, even if the peripteral plan seems a later introduction (Mertens 1980). Peripteral temples are found in the south (e.g., at Pyrgi), and in the far north of Etruria (e.g., at Marzabotto; see Sassatelli 1992; Rameri 2005). Peripteral and Tuscan temples were also constructed side by side in sanctuaries, again at Pyrgi, or in the same city: at Marzabotto, for example, the acropolis temple is frontal in the Tuscan manner, while in the city proper, the large temple of Tinia was built in the peripteral style. The choice must result from ritual, and the Tuscan temple (as discussed below), with its high podium and scaenographic setting, was the ideal place for divinatory rites. In both cases, Etruscan architects do not follow strict formulas. That is, no two Tuscan temples are alike – no temple excavated to date even conforms exactly to the Vitruvian dictates – and peripteral temples differ remarkably from Greek prototypes in their aesthetic, with wide intercolumniations and a lack of interest in Greek order. The Tinia temple at Marzabotto, for instance, has a tetrastyle façade but is peculiarly pentastyle in back (Sassatelli 1992; Warden 2012: 91, fig. 5.5).

The Tuscan temple itself was easily recognizable. It was raised on a tall stone podium that was often articulated with characteristic Etruscan rounds at both top and bottom. The relevant formal elements are an unabashed frontality, a strict insistence on axiality, the raising of the temple on an elevated platform on which ritual action would often have taken place and have been easily viewed, and the openness of the façade with broad intercolumniations that would have allowed visual permeability (Figure 12.4). The key element is that relation between building and spatial setting, usually the sanctuary: for the temple was a place for a priest to view sacred space and interpret natural signs according to a carefully worked-out doctrine, the disciplina etrusca. The latter had been handed down through divine oracular expression, and its interpretation was the purview of the Etruscan elite, both male and female (van der Meer 1979; Turfa and Gettys 2009; see also Chapter 21). The elevated platform of the Tuscan temple allowed the performer to view and interpret the sacred space. In the case of animal sacrifice that presumably would have taken place in front of this podium, as evidenced by the Piacenza liver (van der Meer 1987) and other visual and textual sources, the topography of the entrails would have correlated to the sacred space in front of the platform, space that was segmented and whose sections reflected the influence and domain of specific divinities. The Piacenza liver, with its didactic function, is a prime example of the importance of natural phenomena, observed by the elite priest and then interpreted through textual correlation. Another prime example, recently analyzed by Turfa (2012), is the first-century Brontoscopic Calendar of Nigidius Figulus, which survives through Byzantine transmission. It is as important for its insight into the social concerns of the Etruscan elite as for the light that it sheds on ritual practice, the calendrical interpretation of natural signs such as lightning, thunder, and weather (see further, Chapters 14 and 18).

Figure 12.4 Reconstruction of the facade of a Tuscan/Italic temple. Rendering by J. Galloway.

Drawing: courtesy of Jess Galloway.

The ubiquity of sacred spaces is also made clear in the few instances of urban planning that have been documented. The Belvedere Temple at Orvieto is one of the better-preserved examples and hence one of the best known (Boëthius 1970: 45, fig. 33). It forms part of the urban fabric in a prominent position at the eastern edge of the city, oriented to the southeast, perhaps near the entrances. It is of the Tuscan type, presumably with a triple cella, although the evidence for that is slight. What is clear is the strict axiality and frontality of the planning, for in this case the outline of the sanctuary proper has been preserved. The Belvedere temple would have been just one of many temples in Orvieto (judging by the evidence of monumental footings and architectural terracottas found throughout the ancient city) in addition to the major suburban sanctuary at the Campo della Fiera (possibly the site of the Fanum Voltumnae), which would have been easily viewed from the southern edge of the ancient city.

Another Tuscan temple that is relatively well-preserved along with its surrounding area is the Portonaccio Temple at Veii, which was the focus of cult activity for a variety of divinities. It is also situated at the edge of the city, near one of the gates, and has been reconstructed with a triple cella plan (Boëthius 1970: 40, fig. 27). In this case, the sanctuary is not as axially arranged as at Orvieto, and the topography of place has a more organic feel. The sacredness of the place may have been connected to the water sources that fed a pool within the sanctuary as well as to its location near the city entrance. The structure is most remarkable for the extensive series of ridge-pole statues that decorated its roof: figures of divinities that literally walk the sky, setting up a tableau of human bodies that enact what were probably a series of divine narratives, but that would only have been understood when looked at from the sides of the temple. The statues have been preserved so well because they were eventually ritually buried near the temple (Boëthius 1970: 62, fig. 51; see also Chapter 8 for the case of Poggio Civitate).

Perhaps the best known of all Tuscan temples, the Capitolium in Rome, is also one of the most anomalous. It was built under Etruscan rule and presumably by Etruscan builders; the terracotta statues, at least, resulted from an Etruscan workshop, and it is not unreasonable to assume that the temple itself was planned by an Etruscan architect. The sheer size of the enterprise, however, as well as the many innovative features of its design, including the triple cella plan (Hopkins 2012), make it one of the most unusual examples of its type. The setting was clearly as important as the temple itself. The Capitolium dominated the urban landscape of ancient Rome; it was monumental in size but was made even grander and more of a monument by its dominant position on the Capitoline hill, so that the vast area that it overlooked became sacred.

Thus, sacred areas and sanctuaries were an integral part of the physical and ritual landscape in Etruria. A particularly interesting case among temples and sanctuaries that connected to a larger landscape setting is Lake Bolsena, where the placement of sacred spaces around the lake suggests that it might have been considered a templum with the individual sacred structures or shrines strategically located to reflect the divinely ordered segmentation of the disciplina etrusca. Orientation was clearly important. The axiality resulted from rituals of divination (Prayon 1991; Aveni and Romano 1994a and b), but it has been argued that the orientation of the temple might have varied somewhat as a result of the divinity connected to it (Stevens 2009). At sites like Satricum and Poggio Colla, the orientation of the sacred structures was changed over time, for reasons that are not easy to explain.

There are a number of features of Etruscan temples that are connected to ritual practice and seem characteristically Etruscan: an insistence on boundaries and boundedness that reflects both spatial and divine order; axiality; and human interpretation through performance in a spatial setting that was scaenographic and designed to heighten the intensity of the spectacle and thus the power of the elite performer(s). Etruscan sacred architecture, because of its close connection to ritual, often has a theatrical component, whether in its form or its setting (Camporeale 2010). The concept of sacred space in the Etruscan city, defined by ritual with careful observation of boundaries, and with interior articulation through orthogonal planning, was also clearly the result of similar ritual practice (see further, Chapter 7). The rituals are well-known from Roman sources, and the foundation of Rome is a case in point, given the close connection of the early Iron Age and Regal periods in Rome with the Etruscans. Etruscan ritual heavily influenced early Rome, and the legend of the foundation of the city by Romulus, even if just a legend, reflects actual rituals whose meaning is both real and metaphorical, the physical definition of an area that is both civic and sacred. The pomerium, the sacred area of the city, was created by plowing a furrow that defined the boundary of what would eventually become the walled city. The power of the furrow as boundary is made clear by the fact that the plow had to be raised each time (three according to Etruscan practice) that a gate or entry was needed. The furrow itself was inviolable, as strong in theory as the massive walls that were later built to defend most Etruscan cities: impassable, conceptually at least, even before strong girdling defenses were built. Thus, the Etruscan city, at least according to such legendary accounts, was a kind of sanctuary and a construct, carefully defined in its size and layout, a space that was ordered according to both the rules of human logic and divine order. And the symbolism of birth and fertility through ritual plowing is clear, with the ripping open of the earth allowing chthonic forces to emerge reminiscent of the Tages myth. The layout of the city itself, therefore, reflected a belief system that resulted from doctrine handed down to the peoples of Etruria in oracular fashion.

If the foundation of Rome is encased in the mists of legend, we have better evidence for the sacredness of urban space at Marzabotto. Here, the orientation of the temples on the acropolis, seemingly determined according to astronomical observation (Gottarelli 2005), aligns the sacred structures on that promontory with the actual center of the city, the crossing of the two main axes, marked by a pit and an incised stone. Excavations at Gonfienti, in the plain to the west of Florence, have shown that the urban layout of Marzabotto is not anomalous, but that city planning in the sixth and fifth centuries was regularized to the point that orthogonal planning with similar orientations can be found on both sides of the Apennines (Poggesi et al. 2005). The layout of the city, quartered according to the practice of the disciplina etrusca (Sassatelli 1992: 28, fig. 5), thus observes the cardinal points in the human area – a human-defined order – and the divinely inspired orientation of the temples on the acropolis. As noted above, the Tinia temple within the city proper is aligned to its grid and, even though it is peripteral, it functions much as Tuscan temple, set back on the north side of the sanctuary (now the city) just to the east of the cardo, with its dominant façade facing south. The unusually broad cardo, the main north–south axis of Marzabotto, also resembles a boulevard more than a street and may have functioned as a kind of forum area. Certainly the relationship of temple to broad esplanade suggests more of a locus than a place of passage.

The discovery at Marzabotto of a large number of statue bases, and an impressively large (30 centimeter) bronze female figure (Malnati et al. 2005: fig. 4), has also allowed for the identification of a sanctuary at the northeastern edge of the city (Malnati et al. 2005). This identification raises interesting questions of interpretation, especially in relation to Etruscan ritual practice and the question of primary and secondary depositions. The “northeast sanctuary” has produced what is clearly material of ritual import, but how did it get there? Was it deposited in a sanctuary, as the excavators argue, functioning as a series of rich deposits that include both recently excavated material and the important artifacts discovered in earlier excavations? Or was it the result of later intervention, as has been suggested by Sassatelli and Govi, who argue that the material evidence makes better sense as part of the normal paraphernalia of a large structure such as the Tinia temple? They also argue that it may have been dumped at the edge of the city’s terrace by farmers in the nineteenth century who wanted to clear agricultural land of unwanted detritus (Sassatelli and Govi 2010: 26). The problem with the latter theory is that the farmers would have been discarding prime building material (e.g., beautifully squared blocks and bases) as well as remarkable bronzes, but the point that the material is better suited to the temenos of a large temple is well-taken. A third possibility is that the deposits at the northeastern edge of the city plateau are secondary deposits. That is, after the abandonment of Marzabotto, the cult material from the Tinia sanctuary was taken and ritually deposited as part of the de-consecration of a sacred area, a ritual act well-attested in Etruria (Edlund-Berry 1994).

Above all, the recent excavations at Marzabotto point out that sacred space is mutable and defined not only by an inherent sacrality but also by human action. And for the Etruscans, for whom many kinds of spaces, or for whom, arguably, all space, was sacred, sacrality is defined on human terms that interpret a divine order that is spatial. It therefore follows that for order to be spatial, then boundaries must be defined. The Etruscan interest in boundaries – or in other words, in human order – was pervasive, and Etruscan ritual in almost every instance reveals an interest in negotiating the relationship of human order to divine will and revelation. Even the creation of Etruria itself was believed to have resulted from a divine imposition of order: “But when Jupiter claimed the land of Aetruria for himself, he established and ordered that the fields be measured and croplands delimited. Knowing the greed of men and their lust for land, he wanted everything proper concerning boundaries” (de Grummond 2006: 192). It is no wonder that the Etruscan concept of disaster is literally the end of order, as in the prophecy of Vegovia, where the (Etruscan) world comes to an end when boundaries are no longer observed. For the observation of boundaries is at the heart of Etruscan divination and its relation to the sacred spaces where ritual is affected. The spatial order is intimately tied to the social order, and the destruction of the human–divine order results in “great dissention among the people” (multae dissensiones in populo: de Grummond 2006: 192). Etruscan ritual with its public and performative expression was part of the glue that bound the social order. Ritual reflected a human interpretation of divine will that was at the heart of an Etruscan doctrine. That doctrine, in turn, supported and reinforced the power of the theocratic elite who dominated the social landscape and thus also defined the physicality of sacred space.

3. Sacred Space and the Topography of Ritual

What emerges from the preceding survey of Etruscan sanctuaries, altars, and temples is that typology is elusive and that sacred spaces could exist almost everywhere. The boundary between secular and sacred is a modern construct; in the Etruscan world, the two could not be so easily differentiated. The cities of the living and of the dead, as well as the natural landscapes that surrounded them, were all places of human–divine negotiation. A case in point is the complex in the Pian di Cività of Tarquinia, that includes a sacred structure (Building Beta) as well as a rich collection of burials, deposits, and sacrificial areas that imbue an urban area with rich religious significance that goes back to the pre-urban period (Moretti Sgubini 2001a: 21–44; Bonghi Jovino 2010; see also Chapters 7 and 18). It is thus almost impossible to generalize about Etruscan sacred space, for it seems that, in a way, all space was sacred to the Etruscans, and that some spaces were more sacred than others, or sufficiently sacred that ritual was regularly performed there. Such spaces were made sacred not only by their nature but also by the topography of ritual action, and there is a wealth of evidence, mostly from material culture, of the detritus that resulted from these activities (Glinister 2000).

Much of the evidence for Etruscan ritual is dedicatory in nature, and the material culture that has been preserved at countless sites shows that there is great regional variation in ritual practice (Turfa 2006: 90–115). This kind of evidence is usually classified as “votive,” a term that is probably overused because votive giving by definition requires a human–divine exchange, a vow that reinforces the reciprocal relationship of the human donor and the god that receives and perhaps acknowledges the gift (Warden 1992; Chapter 18 here). It is a type of gift-exchange that may mirror the gift-exchange that is often at the heart of pre-monetary economies. The wealth of material culture found at Etruscan sanctuaries is presumably votive, but we can only be sure of actual votive activity when there is an inscription (Bonfante 2006: 9–26), or when the objects (e.g., the anatomical terracottas found at southern Etruscan sanctuaries) have been produced specifically for ritual dedication. These are objects, therefore, that are votive by nature rather than by intent.

The many recent excavations of sacred contexts have produced a virtual golden age in the study of religion and ritual in Etruria (Comella 2005; Comella and Mele 2006; Turfa 2006 and 2012; van der Meer 2010 and 2011). The practice of dedicating objects, of turning things back to the earth, goes back to the early Iron Age (if not earlier) and may mirror the late Bronze and Early Iron Age practice of depositing hoards of bronze objects in the earth (Hoekstra 1996). The first challenge in dealing with votive gifts and votive deposits is to figure out why they were dedicated. There are countless possibilities: foundation, celebration, expiation, propitiation, purification, expiation, or even obliteration (Bonghi Jovino 2005: 43), in addition to personal giving. A second challenge is to connect material objects to ritual. This is particularly difficult when objects are found in secondary deposits such as in a large stips that may include things dedicated in a variety of ways and over a long period of time. Primary deposits in closed contexts (e.g., the bronzes deposited and ritually broken from the Civita in Tarquinia), are relatively rare (Bonghi Jovino and Chiaramonte Treré 1997; Bonghi Jovino 2005; see also Chapter 18). Fortunately, modern excavation methods are beginning to move us beyond materiality, allowing for better explanations about the processes of ritual. As the physicality of ritual becomes better understood, the topography of ritual – that is, the relationship of ritual action to sacred space – will become clearer. The recent discovery at the northern Etruscan sanctuary of Poggio Colla of a series of ritual contexts that run the gamut from a large stips to foundation deposits and, even more intriguing, closed ones, presents a good example about how a consideration of topography is changing our knowledge of ritual behavior.

The rich evidence for votive religion at Poggio Colla has been discussed elsewhere (Warden 2009b, 2011 and 2012) and awaits full publication. But several of the deposits provide first-hand evidence for the actual physicality – the performance of ritual – at a sanctuary where a monumental temple (Phase 1) was destroyed and parts ritually buried, with two subsequent rectangular courtyard-complexes (Phases 2–3) that had an altar at their center (Warden et al. 2005). The many ritual deposits are associated with an underground fissure and follow a strict topography: a large votive stips is, in fact, layered into cuttings in the bedrock that mirror the orientation of the earlier temple and that point toward the fissure. The fissure is clearly natural and the underground “chamber” is as yet unexcavated. Sometime after the Phase I temple was destroyed or dismantled, a large molded block of sandstone, part of the Phase I temple, was placed in front of the fissure, oriented approximately east–west (Figure 12.5). The broken block was also neatly turned upside down, and next to it were deposited a fine gold ring and long strands of gold wire that were probably part of an elite textile (see further, Chapters 16 and 21). The pattern of systematic breakage is paralleled by the broken or deliberately deformed objects found on the Civita at Tarquinia (Bonghi Jovino and Chiaramonte Treré 1997). Deposits associated with female dedications (Castor 2009) and a recently-excavated bucchero stamp with a scene of a woman, possibly a goddess, giving birth (Perkins 2012), suggest the existence of a chthonic cult connected to a female deity in the sanctuary (Chellini 2012: 260).

Figure 12.5 “Fissure Deposit,” fifth – fourth century BCE. From Poggio Colla.

Photo: P. G. Warden.

Most telling in terms of the relationship of ritual action to setting is the “inscription deposit,” excavated in 2005 and 2006 in a room at the northwestern corner of the courtyard (Warden 2012). A large sandstone cylinder, about 70 centimeters in diameter, was found carefully placed upside-down in the middle of a circular pit. Since this element most likely originally functioned as the top of a votive column or as a small circular altar, it is clear that it was dismantled before being placed in the center of the pit. To the north of this cylinder, carefully placed at right angles to one another and roughly oriented to the axes of the plateau, were two sandstone statue bases. The smaller is pentagonal, just under 13 centimeters high, and has a hole at the top for the insertion of a bronze figurine; it was oriented north–south. The larger base, 33.5 centimeters high, is pyramidal and also features a hole at the top (see Fedeli and Warden 2006: fig. 4 for an illustration of the context). The hole still has the lead fitting that would have held in place a bronze figure of significant size. One face bears an orthograde inscription that gives the name of an elite Etruscan male, Nakaśke Veśna[s] (Camporeale 2012: 187–188). Two bronze objects, perhaps ritually broken, along with strands of intertwined gold wire, were placed to the south. Especially dramatic was the discovery in 2006 on the west side of the cylinder of a small mesomphalic bronze bowl that may have been used for a libation. The bowl is very thin and it has taken two seasons of careful conservation to clean and consolidate it. The bones of two different small animals – a piglet and a ruminant – were interred within it, deliberately placed both under and inside the bowl (see further, Trentacoste 2013: 79–80 and fig. 3).

The placement of these objects, especially in light of their relationship to one another, allows the reconstruction the actual sequence of ritual actions. The altar or votive column was dismantled or destroyed in some manner: the heavy cylinder that formed its upper part was carefully placed upside-down in the center the pit. The two statue bases were arranged perpendicular to one another to the north of the cylinder, while the parts of the broken bronze implement and a textile with gold thread (all that remains is the gold wire) were placed to the south. The priest, most likely standing to the west and facing east, must then have poured a libation and placed the bronze mesomphalic bowl at his feet on the west side of the pit along with remains of a sacrificial animal. A second bowl was deliberately crumpled and stuck in the ground next to the first bowl. Was this ceremony part of the normal ritual at Poggio Colla, the interment of sacred objects of an earlier age, or did it result from a violent destruction and looting? Whatever the reason, the objects are aligned with the axis of the sanctuary’s architecture, making it clear that the sacred space and the ritual actions functioned along the same lines.

4. Conclusion

Ritual is by its nature performative and spatial, and Etruscan sacred spaces were the setting for its performance. These spaces could be carefully planned and articulated scaenographic settings, as the Tuscan temple and the funerary altar attached to the Tumulo del Sodo II in Cortona demonstrate. They could also be more organic and less archaeologically visible settings where ritual was performed by a simple ash altar or a natural feature such as a fissure, a spring, or even a river where a single object might be given to the gods (e.g., the Villanovan helmet deposited in the sands of the Tanaro River (Mandolesi and Sannibale 2012: 38)). Form and meaning cannot be separated (Izzet 2000; 2001). Ritual defined and articulated sacred space, and the topography of those spaces and the buildings within them was ritually performed and determined. Thus, in Etruria, ritual defined space and space informed ritual. Both served to reinforce the hierarchies of a social landscape that, in Etruria at least, was controlled and dominated by the theocratic elite (Warden 2012: 93–7, 100–101).

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GUIDE TO FURTHER READING

Etruscan sacred space needs to be situated in the broader context of the built environment, for which see Boëthius 1970: 32–102. The most extensive general summaries of the typology of sacred architecture will be found in Colonna 1985 and 2006. De Grummond and Edlund-Berry 2011 provide discussion of broader contexts, including material culture. For the larger considerations of location and place, see Edlund 1987 and Izzet 2001. Recent detailed discussions of the Tuscan/Italic temple can be found in Izzet 2000 and Warden 2012, and, for the Capitolium in Rome, Hopkins 2012.