The Sculptural Cycle of the tomb of Pietrera from Vetulonia (Grosseto).

In 1892, Isidoro Falchi found some statues inside the tomb of the Pietrera. As they date back to the second half of the seventh century B.C, they constitute one of the first examples of monumental sculpture known in Etruria.

The specimens found, about twenty or so, are only fragments: the figures which have been best preserved are a female head and bust with her arms folded across her chest, and are now part of the collection of the Museo Archeologico (Archaeological Museum) of Florence.

In spite of their fragmentary state, we can affirm that these sculptures in sandstone, almost life-sized, depict eight standing characters, men and women represented with costly clothing and with their arms folded across their chests in the customary ritual of mourning, to immortalize the ritual of the funerary mourning around the tomb.

The rudimentary treatment of the posterior part of the statues leads us to believe that they were backed by a wall and therefore designed to be viewed only from the front: they cannot, therefore, be defined as free-standing statues.

The rigidity of the moulding is contrasted by a chiselled working of the details: locks of hair which fall in curls, necklaces, a belt in relief which displays a decoration with two winged animals. This attention to detail reveals an influence of the minor arts: the statues testify the habit of repeating oriental models in the minor arts, already found on ivories and ceramics from the seventh century B.C.

Due to a clandestine ransacking operation preceding their discovery, we cannot say with certainty where and how the statues were originally placed. Their arrangement can, therefore, only be hypothesised as inside the funerary tomb, along the entrance corridor.

Aule Feluske, an etruscan warrior from Vetluna.

The stele, a sandstone funerary symbol, was probably placed on the mount of earth that covered a circular tomb. It was discovered in the late 19th century in the Vetulonian necropolis of Costiaccia Bambagini of Vetulonia and became part of the permanent collection in the Archaeological Museum of this centre in May 2005.

The stele, a one-meter high, rectangular slab, numbers among the most ancient specimens found in Etruria. On the face of the slab is the figure of a warrior, made through the fine engraving that recalls the technique used on contemporary Cretan models. Around the figure, along the edges of the slab, like a frame, runs an inscription in the typical structural formula of a gift. In fact, it states: “I am Avele Feluske, (son of) Tusnutaie and a (Pa)panai. I was given as a gift by Hirumina Fersnalnas”, having the name of the donator follow the formula of belonging. The use of the graphic sign “8” to identify the sound “f”, not yet diffused through the rest of Etruria, reveals a Sabine influence. The warrior represented is an image that alludes to the rank and social standing of the deceased; he is advancing towards the left and is equipped with a Corinthian-style plumed helmet and a hoplite’s shield, following a Greek model. He is wielding a two-edged axe, a weapon well documented in the Etruscan world, and exhibits mixed armour, typical of the recent Orientalising phase (ca. 600 B.C. circa).

ETRUSCAN CITY OF VETULONIA (Etruscan VATLUNA)

Vetulonia, formerly called Vetulonium (Etruscan Vatluna), was an ancient town of Etruria, Italy, the site of which is probably occupied by the modern village of Vetulonia, which up to 1887 bore the name of Colonnata and Colonna di Buriano: the site is currently a frazione of the comune of Castiglione della Pescaia, with some 400 inhabitants.

It lies 300m above sea level, about ten miles directly northwest of Grosseto, on the northeast side of the hills which project from the flat Maremma and form the promontory of Castiglione.

Vetulonia has Etruscan origins. Dionysius of Halicarnassus places the city within the Latin alliance against Rome in the seventh century BC. According to Silius Italicus (Punica VIII.485ff), the Romans adopted their magisterial insignia, the Lictors rods and fasces and the curule seat, from Vetulonia; in 1898, a tomb in the necropolis was discovered with a bundle of iron rods with a double-headed axe in the centre, and soon afterwards, a grave stela inscribed for Avele Feluske was discovered, on which the fasces were pictured. Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy also cite the town. The rich votive furnishing from the two extensive necropoleis attest to the importance of Vetulonia's elite.

The so-called Mura dell'Arce (cyclopean walls) date probably from the 6th-5th century BC, and aerial photography has revealed further stretches, which show the political and commercial importance of Vetulonia, which was famous for its goldsmiths. Under the Roman Empire, however, it shrank to a secondary center.

Little is known also about medieval Vetulonia: first contended between the abbots of San Bartolomeo di Sestinga and the Lambardi family of Buriano, it was acquired by the commune of Massa Marittima in 1323. Nine years later it was handed over to SIENA.

The site of the ancient city was not identified before 1881. The Etruscan city situated on the hill of Colonna di Buriano, where there are remains of city walls of massive limestone, in almost horizontal courses, was accompanied by two necropolis partly excavated by Isidoro Falchi in 1885-86; the town was renamed Vetulonia by royal decree in 1887.

The objects discovered in its extensive seventh-century necropolis, where over 1,000 tombs have been excavated, are now in the museums of Grosseto and Florence. The most important tombs, in this "richest and most interesting tomb group of northern Etruria", were covered by tumuli, which still form a prominent feature in the landscape.

Vetulonia: Tomb of Pietrera.

Tomb of the Leopards (Tarquinia).

The Tomb of the Leopards (Italian Tomba dei Leopardi) is an Etruscan burial chamber so called for the confronted leopards painted above a banquet  scene. The tomb is located within the Monterozzi necropolis and dates to around 480–450 BC. The painting is one of the best-preserved murals of Tarquinia, and is known for "its lively coloring, and its animated depictions rich with gestures."

The banqueters are "elegantly dressed" male-female couples attended by two nude boys carrying serving implements. The women are depicted as fair-skinned and the men as dark, in keeping with the gender conventions established in the Near East, Egypt and Archaic Greece. The arrangement of the three couples prefigures the triclinium of Roman dining. Musicians are pictured on the walls to the left and right of the banquet. On the right, a komos of wreathed figures and musicians approaches the banquet; on the left, six musicians and giftbearers appear in a more stately procession.

The man on the far-right couch holds up an egg, symbol of regeneration, and other banqueters hold wreaths. The scene is usually taken to represent the deceased's funerary banquet, or a family meal that would be held on the anniversary of his death. It is presented as a celebration of life,while Etruscan banquet scenes in earlier tombs have a more somber character.The scene appears to take place outdoors, within slender trees and vegetation, perhaps under a canopy.

Although the figures are distinctly Etruscan, the artist of the central banquet draws on trends in Greek art and marks a transition from Archaic to Early Classical style in Etruscan art. The processions on the left and right are more markedly Archaic and were executed by different artists.

The tomb was discovered in 1875. In the 1920s, D.H. Lawrence described the painting in his travel essays Sketches of Etruscan Places:

The walls of this little tomb are a dance of real delight. The room seems inhabited still by Etruscans of the sixth century before Christ, a vivid, life-accepting people, who must have lived with real fullness. On come the dancers and the music-players, moving in a broad frieze towards the front wall of the tomb, the wall facing us as we enter from the dark stairs, and where the banquet is going on in all its glory. … So that all is color, and we do not seem to be underground at all, but in some gay chamber of the past.