Etruscan Art - Etruscan Funerary Art

Etruscan Funerary Art

The Etruscans excelled in portraying humans. Throughout their history they used two sets of burial practices; cremation and inhumation. Cinerary urns (for cremation) and sarcophagi (for inhumation) have been found together in the same tomb showing that throughout generations, both forms were used at the same time. In the 7th century they started depicting human heads on canopic urns and when they started burying their dead in the late 6th century they did so in terracotta sarcophagi. These sarcophagi were decorated with an image of the deceased reclining on the lid alone or sometimes with a spouse. The Etruscans invented the custom of placing figures on the lid which later influenced the Romans to do the same.

The Hellenistic period funerary urns were generally made in two pieces. The top lid usually depicted a banqueting man or woman (but not always) and the container part was either decorated in relief in the front only or, on more elaborate stone pieces, carved on its sides. During this period, the terracotta urns were being mass-produced using moulds in Northern Etruria (specifically in and around Chiusi). Often the scenes decorated in relief on the front of the urn were depicting generic Greek influenced scenes. The production of these urns did not require skilled artists and so what we are left with is often mediocre, unprofessional art, made en mass.

• Etruscan Cinerary Urn,mid-2nd century BC, terracotta - Worcester Art Museum

• MMA Etruscan Funerary Urn

• Etruscan Canopic Urn from Chiusi

• Funerary Urn