Performance and Visual Culture in Etruria: 7th - 2nd Century BC Stephanie Anne Layton Marietta, Georgia Bachelor of Arts, The George Washington University, 2003 Master of Arts, Florida State University, 2006 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy McIntire Department of Art University of Virginia December 2013 © Copyright by Stephanie Anne Layton All rights Reserved December 2013 Abstract The Etruscan iconographic record is the primary source of information regarding performance activities, which include dance, music, gaming, ritual, spectacle, and athletics. In this study, performance theory is used as a framework for analyzing Etruscan material culture related to emically constructed and provisionally identified performance activities and ascertaining their meaning. Although evidence for Etruscan cultural activity, beliefs, and social interaction is limited, especially given the paucity of textual information, the application of performance theory to the archaeological record provides a means to analyze public and private transmission of messages, relationships, experiences, and cultural behaviors primarily in funerary and civic contexts. Although numerous Etruscan performances have been investigated individually by prior scholarship, performance theory has not been previously applied to Etruscan art and architecture and, therefore, this work takes a new approach towards the analysis of the archaeological record. Evidence included in this study dates between the 8th -2nd centuries BC and consists of wall painting, painted and relief vase decoration, stone and terracotta relief sculpture, engraved gems, and bronze mirrors, decorative attachments, figurines, and vessels. It is only through the study of such varied materials from a wide chronological range that a more complete understanding of Etruscan performance emerges. Following an overview of performance theory and its application to Etruscan visual culture, the remaining chapter are organized thematically, including investigations of Etruscan music and dances, play and games, and spectacle. An investigation of Etruscan performances reveals information about Etruscan relationships, beliefs, and about the communication of messages. Performance activities occur primarily in connection with Etruscan funerary events, due in part to the nature of Etruscan material record, but civic, mythological, and everyday contexts are also identified. Although both small- and large-scale performances are represented in the iconographic evidence, large-scale events appear with greater frequency. Most performance iconography dates to the Archaic Period in Etruria, the 6 th and 5 th centuries BC, although its nature changes throughout all media, beginning in the 4 th century BC; many performance-related motifs are abandoned at this time, including banqueting, bands of revelers, and large-scale athletic competitions. Late Etruscan performance iconography focuses on processions, especially in relation to the journey to the underworld in death. For Andrew Vita de la mia vita Table of Contents Acknowledgements i Abbreviations iii Map iv Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Performance and Etruscan Visual Culture 20 Chapter 2: Dance and Music 43 Chapter 3: Play and Games 104 Chapter 4: Spectacle I - Architecture, Funerals, Banqueting 169 Chapter 5: Spectacle II - Processions 223 Conclusion 248 Appendices 262 Appendix A: Engraved and Relief Mirrors 264 Appendix B: Funerary Wall Paintings 311 Appendix C: Bronze Figurines, Objects, and Containers 365 Appendix D: Engraved Gems 393 Appendix E: Stone and Terracotta Relief Sculpture 402 Appendix F: Decorated Ceramics 448 Appendix G: Architecture and Miscellaneous Objects 477 Bibliography 486 i Acknowledgements This dissertation would not have been completed without the incredible love, constant encouragement, and tireless support of my parents, Thaddeus and Gloria Layton. It is because of you that I developed a deeply-felt appreciation for learning, a passion for antiquity, and a desire to explore the world around me. I cannot thank you enough for all that you have given me. I also owe a debt of gratitude to my mentor, Nancy de Grummond, who has been a tremendous inspiration throughout my entire graduate student career. Thank you for the many opportunities that you have given me at Cetamura del Chianti. I greatly value your encouragement and guidance. My appreciation and thanks also goes to the McIntire Department of Art and the Program in Classical Art and Archaeology. It is through the department’s generous support that I have been able to grow as a scholar and as a teacher; I am grateful not only for the excellent instruction provided in the program, but also for the funding, travel, and teaching opportunities that the department has offered. My advisor, Tyler Jo Smith, has been an important source of encouragement, inspiration, and support during my PhD program at the University of Virginia. Throughout our time working together, both in classes and on this dissertation, I have grown tremendously as a scholar thanks to your guidance and knowledge. It has been a great privilege to work with you. I would also like to thank the other members of my ii dissertation committee, John Dobbins, Anastasia Dakouri-Hild, and John Miller for your valuable time, feedback, and advice. Many thanks go to Renee Gondek, Andrew Kim, Stacy Rapacon, and Carrie Sulosky Weaver for their help with editing the dissertation text; my gratitude also goes to Gloria Layton for her graphical knowledge and her assistance with images of the Etruscan tombs. I am thankful for Dave and Joyce Kim, who have provided me not only with emotional support, but also with travel funds towards the completion of this dissertation. My graduate experience was greatly enhanced by my fellow students at Florida State University and at the University of Virginia. I would like to thank you for your collegiality and friendship during our time together as students: Ricardo Apostol, Jainna Moysey Barbour, Elizabeth Bartlett, John Beeby, Jared Benton, Katherine Boller, Alexis Christensen, Jacquelyn Clements, Renee Gondek, Ethan Gruber, Melissa Hargis, Britt Holderness, Claire Johnston, Ismini Miliaresis, Rosa Motta, Dylan Rogers, Carrie Sulosky Weaver, Dan Weiss, Elizabeth Wilson, and Kevin Wohlgemuth. I wish you all great success in your future endeavors and I hope our paths cross often. And finally, my husband, Andrew Kim, has been a constant and unwavering source of encouragement and advice throughout my many, many years of graduate school. Thank you for all the ways, both large and small, that you have enabled me to succeed. iii Abbreviations 1 CSE Corpus Speculorum Etruscorum CVA Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum ES Eduard Gerhard, Etruskische Spiegel . 5 vols. (Berlin 1974) 1 Abbreviated journals follow American Journal of Archaeology guidelines and are not included in this listing of abbreviations; ancient sources follow The Oxford Classical Dictionary . iv Map of Etruria, Haynes 2000, vi 1 Introduction The Etruscans are not a theory or a thesis. If they are anything, they are an experience .1 Etruscans and Performance Etruscan artifacts and their associated images offer evidence towards an analysis of Etruscan performances that is otherwise lost to modern scholarship. An evaluation of the depiction of performance in Etruscan art provides information about physical activities not readily available in the archaeological record, as “the Etruscans seemed to have relied to a large extent on visual iconography rather than the written word to illustrate people and events.” 2 Etruscan evidence, especially related to cultural activity, beliefs, and social interaction, is limited. Although Latin and Greek texts provide information regarding Etruscan activities, beliefs, and origins, albeit by non-indigenous sources, very little of the Etruscan’s own language has survived intact. 3 Given the nature and paucity of extant Etruscan texts, an understanding of cultural activities in Etruria must largely depend on other sources: the archaeological and especially, the 1 Lawrence, D. H. Etruscan Places , 1932. 114. 2 Edlund-Berry 2012, 169. 3 In Bonfante 2006, 10-19, the author discusses the longest extant Etruscan inscriptions, which skew towards the religious. These include the Zagreb mummy wrappings, the Piacenza liver, the Terracotta tile from Capua, lead strip from Santa Marinella, lead plaque from Magliano, gold tablets from Pyrgi, and the Sarcophagus of Laris Pulenas. For more information on the Etruscan language, see Agostiniani 2000; Bonfante and Bonfante 1983, 5-51; Richardson 1986. 2 iconographic. 4 No one source of evidence is perfect and each has its disadvantages. How, therefore, can scholarly analyses of material remains offer insight into cultural activities of the past? Can human interactions be successfully extrapolated from the iconographic record? Can we derive an understanding about relationships and social actions between groups and individuals? Answers to these questions lie in an investigation of performance theory and its application to the archaeological and iconographic record. The archaeology of performance attempts, as Kyriakidis explains, to understand an ephemeral event through non-ephemeral evidence. 5 The advantage of such an approach lies in the interpretation of various human activities from the past through archaeological materials and contexts, including ritual, business, entertainment, sex, everyday life