DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0086
lxxxvi WERE THE VASES OF ETRURIA [introduction.
precious metals, the vases have been thrown down, the sarco-
phagi and urns overturned, and everything left in confusion, as
though no corner had been unransacked. In the middle ages,
traditions of subterranean treasures were rife in this land, and
sorcerers were applied to for their discovery,1 but it does not
appear that any systematic researches were carried forward, as
in earlier times, and again in our own day.
In the consideration of these vases the question naturally
arises—if they are mostly of so foreign a character, either
oriental or Greek, how came they in Etruscan tombs ? This is
a question which has puzzled many a learned man of our age.
At the first view of the matter, when the purely Hellenic
nature of the design and subjects, and especially the inscriptions
in the Greek characters and language, are regarded, the natural
response is that they must have been imported; a view which
receives confirmation from the recorded fact of an extensive
commerce in pottery in ancient times.2 Yet when, on the
other hand, the enormous quantities of these vases that have
been found in the Etruscan soil, are borne in mind—when
it is remembered that these spoils of the dead that within the
last twenty years only have been reaped by the excavator, may
be reckoned, not by hundreds, or even thousands, but by
myriads, and that what have hitherto been found on a few sites
only, can bear but a very small proportion to the multitudes
still intombed,—when the peculiarities of style attaching to
particular localities are considered, the pottery of each site
having its distinguishing characteristics, so that an experienced
eye is seldom at a loss to pronounce in what cemetery any
given vase was found—it must be admitted that there are
strong grounds for regarding them as of native manufacture.3
1 Micali, Mon. Ined. p. 362. 3 There are, morever, facts which
2 Flin. XXXV. 46.—Hsec per maria confirm this view. The inscriptions,
terrasque ultro citroque portantur, in- though in Greek characters, are not
signibus rotas officinis. The pottery of unfrequently utterly unintelligible—such
Athens was carried by the Phoenician collocations of letters as are foreign to
traders to the far western coast of every dialect of Greek. Half a dozen
Africa, and bartered for leopard-skins consonants, for instance, occur in juxta-
and elephant-teeth. See Grote's Greece, position. Ann. Inst. 1831, pp. 72, 122,
III. p. 364. 171, etseq. This unknown tongue, which
precious metals, the vases have been thrown down, the sarco-
phagi and urns overturned, and everything left in confusion, as
though no corner had been unransacked. In the middle ages,
traditions of subterranean treasures were rife in this land, and
sorcerers were applied to for their discovery,1 but it does not
appear that any systematic researches were carried forward, as
in earlier times, and again in our own day.
In the consideration of these vases the question naturally
arises—if they are mostly of so foreign a character, either
oriental or Greek, how came they in Etruscan tombs ? This is
a question which has puzzled many a learned man of our age.
At the first view of the matter, when the purely Hellenic
nature of the design and subjects, and especially the inscriptions
in the Greek characters and language, are regarded, the natural
response is that they must have been imported; a view which
receives confirmation from the recorded fact of an extensive
commerce in pottery in ancient times.2 Yet when, on the
other hand, the enormous quantities of these vases that have
been found in the Etruscan soil, are borne in mind—when
it is remembered that these spoils of the dead that within the
last twenty years only have been reaped by the excavator, may
be reckoned, not by hundreds, or even thousands, but by
myriads, and that what have hitherto been found on a few sites
only, can bear but a very small proportion to the multitudes
still intombed,—when the peculiarities of style attaching to
particular localities are considered, the pottery of each site
having its distinguishing characteristics, so that an experienced
eye is seldom at a loss to pronounce in what cemetery any
given vase was found—it must be admitted that there are
strong grounds for regarding them as of native manufacture.3
1 Micali, Mon. Ined. p. 362. 3 There are, morever, facts which
2 Flin. XXXV. 46.—Hsec per maria confirm this view. The inscriptions,
terrasque ultro citroque portantur, in- though in Greek characters, are not
signibus rotas officinis. The pottery of unfrequently utterly unintelligible—such
Athens was carried by the Phoenician collocations of letters as are foreign to
traders to the far western coast of every dialect of Greek. Half a dozen
Africa, and bartered for leopard-skins consonants, for instance, occur in juxta-
and elephant-teeth. See Grote's Greece, position. Ann. Inst. 1831, pp. 72, 122,
III. p. 364. 171, etseq. This unknown tongue, which