Art and Magic: Etruscan Art

Goals for the day: 

• Gameify 
• Art and Magic: the Etruscans
• Final claymaking
• votive object
• amultet/protective object
• grave good
• or, if you prefer, design a tomb, temple, or necropolis (city of the dead)  inspired by one we've considered

Image source

image source-- 6th century, Greek colonies in south of italy, Roman's in Rome but ruled by Etruscan kings, in the north, about 12 Etruscan city states. 

Region of Tuscany, today

The Etruscan town Civita di Bagnoregio. image source

What do you know of ancient Rome and the Romans?

It's possible that they learned all of these from the Etruscans: 

• gladiatorial combat, 
• hydraulic engineering, 
• temple design, 
• bronze casting (which the Etruscans seemed to have learned from the Chinese
• and religious ritual

key work: Apollo from Veii (5-16), c. 500 bce, 5'10", painted terra cotta

Apollo from Veii (5-16), detail, c. 500 bce, 5'10", painted terra cotta

Appolo of Veii, profile

Etruscan Temple Design

Apollo confronting Herakles with the golden Hind

 Etruscan She-Wolf (5-19), (also known as Capitoline Wolf) likely: 500 bce, infants added in 15th century by Antonio Pollaiolo

Chimera of Arezzo, about 400 bce, image source

Lion of Venice.... not really of Venice

Hut urn, Etruscan, 8th century B.C.E., ceramics, 22 x 23 x 28 cm

Sarcophagus with Reclining Couple,  ~5500 bce, Caere, Italy. Etruscan Sarcophagus from Banditacchia, Cerviteri (5-18), Now in Rome, at Villa Julia. 
you might check out this Museum of Fine Arts post about the conservation of two other Etruscan sarcophagi. 

Sarcophagus with Reclining Couple, Now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. c. 550 bce believed to be by same artist.

images by Steven Zucker. 

Temple reconstruction at the Villa Giulia

Death Leaning into the Face of an Old Man, 2nd B.C. photo Death Leaning into the Face of an Old Marncredit here. 

Tomb of the Reliefs, Etruscan, 4th century BCE

Tombs at Banditaccia necropolis

The Etruscans, though preceding the Romans in enormous power and productivity on the Italian peninsula, and subsequent living inside the Greek and then Roman Empires, lived differently and looked a bit different from their Greek and Roman Neighbors. Their work demonstrates their riches in both goods and experience; the Etruscans traveled too and traded with the Near East, Egypt, Greece and elsewhere, borrowing both technologies and styles from those they met. Much of their history remains shrouded in mystery, as they were always considered a 'people apart' by their neighbors, though they traded and worked among the Greeks and Romans, and because their language has not been comprehensively translated. 

The art of the Etruscans shares as many traits with the art of Asia as with that of their own neighbors. 

source of above four images, a great resource on the Etruscans
from Oklahoma University. A different kind of source.

Image Source, The Getty Museum, a good resource.

We don't know the origins of the Etruscan people; some evidence suggests they emerged from the Near East (Lydia and Anatolia), but none suggests that they were connected to China-- I'm simply indicating that there are startling visual and technical similarities which makes it interesting to study them together. It is possible that trade along the routes of the future Silk Road would have brought Etruscans and Chinese into contact, but that's about as close as it seems to get!

The Beginnings of Chinese Empire
Only with Qin Shi Huang, in the 3rd century bce, did independent states become China. Exactly who Qin Shi Huang, first emperor of China, was continues to baffle historians. 

from wikipedia.

Perhaps because of the multiple assassination attempts, and according, remember, to biased historians, Qin became rather paranoid, as well as obsessed with immortality. He spent enormous energy searching for an elixer of life that would extend his life forever. 

""The great ships full of boys and girls sent in search of the immortal medicine (Hôraizan) by the Chinese Emperor Shih Huang Ti (Shikôtei), c. 219 BCE". A 19th century ukiyo-e by Kuniyoshi depicting the ships of the great sea expedition sent around 219 BC by the first Chinese Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, to find the legendary home of the immortals, the Mount Penglai, and retrieve the elixir of immortality." Image and caption from wikipedia

He also built one of the most extraordinary tombs in all of history, for which he again needed hundreds of thousands of men for his other major architecture project, the project which he hoped would help him live forever, but only after he died (ie live forever in the afterlife.). 

Rows of Highly realistic soldiers guard the Emperor in the afterlife. A fantastic color reconstruction here.

Tomb of Emperor Qin (3-1)

Terra Cotta Soldiers from the tomb of Emperor Qin, ~210 bce Source

Lothar Ledderose describes the discovery thus:

Of the many sensational archaeological excavations made since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the most sensational of all was the discovery of the terra-cotta army near the tomb of China's First Emperor. The First Emperor was one of the most powerful men in Chinese history and, indeed, in world history Originally the king of the state of Qin, he ruthlessly obliterated the other states of his day and unified the realm in 221 B.C., thereupon calling himself Qin Shihuangdi, the First August Emperor of Qin. The pattern of empire he established lasted for more than two millennia into the present century, and the name of his dynasty, Qin, is said to have given its name to China." ("A Magic Army for the Emperor", citation below)

In 1974, Farmers digging a well east of Xi-an found the head of a clay soldier. Since, authorities have excavated thousands of figures in what might be the world's largest jigsaw puzzle, and they now stand repaired and in battle ranks on display for thousands of visitors a day. This flood of admirers has not caused the harm we saw in our study of Lascaux cave, in part because those parts of the excavation beyond our current technical understanding have remained buried, hopefully safe, and beyond our gaze.  

The Jigsaw

The sheer scale of the monument boggles the mind. Estimates indicate that upwards of 12,000 clay soldiers may exist; remarkably, each of them has an individual face, hair, and other details. Just over life sized, the soldiers are slightly smaller than their commanders, and they are divided into infantry, cavalry-- with their steeds, charioteers, archers, as well as dancers and musicians to entertain the leaders. Each clay soldier once held a weapon or weapons; legend suggests that these weapons were stolen before the emperor's body was cold, and the clay army's weapons turned against Emperor Qin's suppressive men. 

Once the men, in their leather armor and detailed uniforms, had bright paint on every surface. The pigment still appears as the excavation takes place, but archeologists have not yet discovered a way to remove the soldiers with the pigment attached, it most often stays in the surrounding soil, or peels off within seconds of exposure to the dry air of Xi'an. 

Archeologists continue to develop better techniques for removing the soldiers, that took several hundred thousand men to cast, assemble, paint, and then bury in their fighting ranks. What workers now excavate tediously is, in a way, more visible than it has ever been, for the forced laborers and prisoners of war who built the soldiers buried them as they went, so no one ever saw the army assembled in all its glory.

Even today, no one has seen the actual mausoleum of the emperor. Except that anyone can see it, for if it exists at all, it is under this mound of dirt at the center of the military ranks. Legend tells that the 700,000 workers on site when the Emperor died were tasked with burying the mausoleum, the wonders of which are only known through writing. The same legends say that the mound originally rose to some 350 feet, but it has eroded to a mere 225 or so. The chinese government has decided not to excavate the tomb, because they do not believe the knowledge exists to sufficiently protect a tomb buried for millennia from the ravages of modern life. Until they do, they will continue to carefully excavate soldiers, and learn, and wait. 

In a famous passage, the ancient historian Sima Qian tells us of the tomb's content:

"As soon as the First Emperor became King of Qin, excavations and building had been started at Mount Li, while after he won the empire more than seven hundred thousand conscripts from all parts of the country worked there. They dug through three subterranean streams and poured molten copper for the outer coffin, and the tomb was filled with models of palaces, pavilions and offices, as well as fine vessels, precious stones and rarities. Artisans were ordered to fix up crossbows so that any thief breaking in would be shot. All the country's streams, the Yellow River and the Yangzi were reproduced in quicksilver and by some mechanical means made to flow into a miniature ocean. The heavenly constellations were shown above and the regions of the earth below. The candles were made of whale oil to ensure their burning for the longest possible time.

The Second Emperor decreed, 'It is not right to send away those of my father's ladies who had no sons.' Accordingly all these were ordered to follow the First Emperor to the grave. After the interment someone pointed out that the artisans who had made the mechanical contrivances might disclose all the treasure that was in the tomb; therefore after the burial and sealing up of the treasures, the middle gate was shut and the outer gate closed to imprison all the artisans and laborers, so that not one came out. Trees and grass were planted over the mausoleum to make it seem like a hill. "(Ledderose 12)

Of course, one of my favorite elements of the tomb is the 'zoological gardens,' There, archeologists have found skeletons of rare animals buried in clay coffins, complete with feeding dishes. Ceramic zookeepers watch over them. 

Beyond and slightly to the south of the western gate of the inner wall, burials of thirty-one rare birds and animals in
The zoo animals are not the only living things buried in the pits. 300 horse skeletons with ceramic grooms, 17 graves of high status citizens with their jewels and possessions, and at least 100 skeletons of what archeologists believe were workers sentenced to death also inhabit the vast necropolis, or city for the dead. 

Prune Nourry, Terracotta Daughters, with Wen Xianfeng, 2014 source. More info at Prune Nourry's site. 

If you'd like more info on the terra cotta army of Emperor Qin, here's one great source: "A Magic Army for the Emperor"

Lothar Ledderose, Ten Thousand Things. Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1998, pp. 51 - 73.