DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0157
CHAP. II.]
GREAT ANTIQUITY OF THIS TOMB.
55
far as I can learn, now to be seen in Europe, and that few
other tombs in Italy, though unpainted, have any claim to
be considered anterior to it.7 Its great antiquity is con-
firmed by the rest of its contents, all of which are of the
most archaic character. Cav. Campana is of opinion that
if it did not much precede the foundation of Rome it was
at least coeval with, and in no way posterior to that event.
I am inclined to assign to it by no means an inferior anti-
quity. The wall within the doorway is built up with
masonry of very rude character, uncemented, belonging
to an age prior to the invention of the arch; for the
door is formed of blocks gradually converging towards the
top, as in the oldest European architecture extant—in the
style of the Cyclopean gateways of Greece and Italy—
those mysteries of unknown antiquity. On one side of the
door indeed there is some approximation to the arch—cunei-
form blocks like voussoirs, and one also in the place of a
key-stone ; but if this be not mere accident, as might be
supposed from the blocks not holding together as in a true
7 Even Mieali, who tries to assign as
recent a date as possible to every relic of
antiquity, admits that the paintings in
this tomb are the earliest works yet
known of the Etruscan pencil on walls.
He does not however attempt to fix
their date, but leaves it undecided in
the three centuries and a half between
the foundation of Rome and the fall of
Veii! (Mon. Ined. p. 395). He re-
marks that there is here no imitation
of the Egyptian, but all is genuinely
national, and characteristic of the pri-
mitive Etruscan school.
The only painted tomb yet discovered
in Greece is in the island of iEgina, and
it has only four figures sketched in
charcoal on the walls of rook. It re-
presents a Bacchic dance. The style
is free and masterly, but no conclusion
can be drawn from this solitary speci-
men, observes Professor Welcker, as
to the mode of painting sepulchres
among the Greeks, or even as to
its being a custom at all. (Bull.
Instit. 1843, 57). Pausanias, however
(VII. c. 22), describes one near the
city of Tritia, painted by Nicias, the
Athenian. "On an ivory chair sits
a young woman of great beauty; before
her stand's a maid-servant, holding an
umbrella, and a youth quite beardless
is standing by, clad in a tunic and a
purple chlamys over it, and by him
stands a slave with some javelins in his
hand, leading dogs such as are used
by hunters. We were not able to divine
their names ; but we all alike conjec-
tured that here a husband and wife were
interred in the same sepulchre."
GREAT ANTIQUITY OF THIS TOMB.
55
far as I can learn, now to be seen in Europe, and that few
other tombs in Italy, though unpainted, have any claim to
be considered anterior to it.7 Its great antiquity is con-
firmed by the rest of its contents, all of which are of the
most archaic character. Cav. Campana is of opinion that
if it did not much precede the foundation of Rome it was
at least coeval with, and in no way posterior to that event.
I am inclined to assign to it by no means an inferior anti-
quity. The wall within the doorway is built up with
masonry of very rude character, uncemented, belonging
to an age prior to the invention of the arch; for the
door is formed of blocks gradually converging towards the
top, as in the oldest European architecture extant—in the
style of the Cyclopean gateways of Greece and Italy—
those mysteries of unknown antiquity. On one side of the
door indeed there is some approximation to the arch—cunei-
form blocks like voussoirs, and one also in the place of a
key-stone ; but if this be not mere accident, as might be
supposed from the blocks not holding together as in a true
7 Even Mieali, who tries to assign as
recent a date as possible to every relic of
antiquity, admits that the paintings in
this tomb are the earliest works yet
known of the Etruscan pencil on walls.
He does not however attempt to fix
their date, but leaves it undecided in
the three centuries and a half between
the foundation of Rome and the fall of
Veii! (Mon. Ined. p. 395). He re-
marks that there is here no imitation
of the Egyptian, but all is genuinely
national, and characteristic of the pri-
mitive Etruscan school.
The only painted tomb yet discovered
in Greece is in the island of iEgina, and
it has only four figures sketched in
charcoal on the walls of rook. It re-
presents a Bacchic dance. The style
is free and masterly, but no conclusion
can be drawn from this solitary speci-
men, observes Professor Welcker, as
to the mode of painting sepulchres
among the Greeks, or even as to
its being a custom at all. (Bull.
Instit. 1843, 57). Pausanias, however
(VII. c. 22), describes one near the
city of Tritia, painted by Nicias, the
Athenian. "On an ivory chair sits
a young woman of great beauty; before
her stand's a maid-servant, holding an
umbrella, and a youth quite beardless
is standing by, clad in a tunic and a
purple chlamys over it, and by him
stands a slave with some javelins in his
hand, leading dogs such as are used
by hunters. We were not able to divine
their names ; but we all alike conjec-
tured that here a husband and wife were
interred in the same sepulchre."