Pottery: red-figured calyx-krater (wine-bowl). Designs red on black ground, with white accessories; Etruscan style. Below the designs, palmettos. (a) Suicide of Ajax (Aivas): Ajax, nude and bearded, wearing a wreath, is fallen on his knees to left over his sword, which comes out through his body by his left shoulder; blood is visible round the wound and the handle of the sword. On the left is his shield; above, a garment with border of dots suspended on two pegs. On the right are a large sheath suspended by a white band, a tree-stump, and a garment suspended on two pegs. The scene takes place in Ajax’s tent; the ground is indicated below. Above Ajax is painted a retrograde inscription in white.
Introducing the fourth piece in my ancient pottery series: Etruscan Bucchero! This pottery was the staple ceramic of Etruria, a powerful civilization that ruled central Italy before the Romans :)
Pendant: Lion’s Head 550–500 B.C./ Italy / Etruscan / Amber
The pendant consists of the head and neck of a lion with its mouth open, baring its teeth and extending its tongue; the ears are flattened against the head. The edges of the perforation show wear from the movement of a suspension cord. Examples of lion head pendants have been found in female graves. Depictions of necklaces with lions’ heads, which are hanging from tree branches, occur in Tarquinia in the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing.
Cippus Perusinus 3rd-2nd C. BCE. National Archeological Museum of Perugia.
“The Cippus Perusinus is a stone tablet discovered on the hill of San Marco, near Perugia, Italy, in 1822. The tablet bears 46 lines of incised Etruscan text. The cippus is assumed to be a text dedicating a legal contract between the Etruscan families of Velthina (from Perugia) and Afuna (from Chiusi), regarding the sharing or use of a property upon which there was a tomb belonging to the noble Velthinas.
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The Etruscan inscription is written in the alphabet used in northern inland Etruria, and particularly in Perugia, in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC. It reads from right to left, covering 24 lines on the front face and continuing for another 22 lines on the left side (following the right-to-left Etruscan writing system).
At least four paragraphs can be identified on the front face, with "breaks” after lines 8, 11 and 19.
Line 1 stands out by being centered and having larger letters.
Line 12, characterized on the right by a pause in the writing, is the completion of line 13: the stonecutter continued line 13 in line 12, shifting it toward the left, following a known customary expedient (seen in the inscriptions on the wrappings of the Mummy of Zagreb); he foresaw this to maintain the original unity of the sentence.
On the left side, line 9 has an error correction (anticipating of a letter of the next line: è abraded, then t at the head of the line, in anticipation of è at the head of line 16), a sign that the stonecutter had to copy a text but followed different rules than those used for writing the original document.
On the left side the words are separated by a dot, whereas on the front this seems to have been done only to emphasize parts of the text (peoples’ names, formulas, etc.). A symmetry in the placing of similar or assonant words suggest a poetry-like rhetorical structure.
The text is the transcription of an archive document: a legal deed between the two families of the Velthina (already known in Perugia) and the Afuna (from the Chiusi area) regarding the sharing or use of a property upon which there was a tomb belonging to the noble Velthinas.
Lines 1-2: these mention a judge or witness ([t]eurat) named Larth Rezu, in whose presence a pact (vachr) is made (ame) between the two families.
Line 5: contains the concept of “Etruscan” or “public” (rasnes), in connection with the source of the right to which reference is made.
Lines 5-6: the word “naper” before the numeral XII probably indicates a square measure.
Line 8: explicitly mentions the boundaries (tularu).
Lines 20-21: refer to the Velthina tomb (Velthinathuras thaura).
The inscription ends on the left side of the cippus with the expression “it is written” (zichuche), in ratification of the transcription of the pact.“
-taken from Wikipedia and archeopg.arti.beniculturali.it
Today, I’ll be making a simple bread-based soup - referred to as juscellum by Apicius! It’s a lot like Tuscan “aquacotta” soup, which is prepared in a similar way - though today it often includes tomatoes, which would not have been available in antiquity.
And now let’s take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video above!
1 - Chop Ingredients To begin with, we need to chop and dice an onion. You don’t need to worry about being too careful here, as they’ll soften up considerably while its cooking. Peel and dice a carrot or two - carrots and parsnips were considered to be the same vegetable to the Greeks and Romans, so either one works well here! Finally, deal with some celery by slicing it thinly.
2 - Sautee and Cook Toss a bit of olive oil into a pot, and place this over a medium heat. When it’s shimmering, toss in your onions, carrots, and crush a few crushed cloves of garlic. Let this sauté away for about 10 minutes.
When it’s finished sautéing, pour in 500ml worth of water or chicken stock. On top of this, toss some chopped thyme Place your soup over a high heat, and bring it to a rolling boil. When it hits a boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer away for 30 minutes.
3 - Prepare Soup and Eggs While your soup is cooking, go rip up some slices into large chunks. Alternatively, you could grate up dried bread into a powder. Toss your bread into the soup about 10 minutes before you’re serving it, along with your parsley.
About 5 minutes before you serve up your soup, place some eggs into the pot and let them hard-boil.
4 - Assemble Soup In a serving bowl, ladle in some of your soup, and place your poached egg on top of this. Garnish with a little fresh herb. And serve up warm!
The finished soup is very filling and flavourful - along with looking very colourful when finished! It’s quick and simple to make, which would have made it popular with the lower, poorer classes in ancient Roman and Etruscan societies - as this dish can be made using ingredients that are going off (such as stale or mouldy bread). It can be adjusted using seasonal vegetables and herbs, along with different kinds of eggs that would provided different taste profiles.
Today, I’ll be making an Etruscan dish - which is preserved through Roman cuisine through to modernity! The simple testaroli - a rudimentary ancestor to the pasta that we know and love today!
In any case, let’s now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!
Ingredients (for two servings) ½ cup plain flour ½ cup wholemeal flour 1 cup water pesto
Method
1 - Prepare the Batter To begin with, we need to make the batter. To do this, toss a half a cup of plain white flour into a bowl, along with some wholemeal flour. Mix in an equal amount of water, to form a thin slurry.
2 - Oil the Pan and Make the testaroli When the batter is ready, pour a ladleful into a pan that’s been oiled with olive oil. Spread this into a very thin layer, by tilting the pan around. Cook the thin layer of batter for a minute or two over a high heat, or until the edges start to firm up. Don’t cook it all the way through! Flip it over and let the other side cook for another minute or two.
When it’s done, you can eat it as is! Serve up warm with a dollop of pesto - that you ideally would have made following my recipe for it. This serving - technically speaking - isn’t testaroli, but actually placenta(pronouncedplakenta) which is a Roman dish prepared in the same way. It’s likely that this evolved from Etruscan assimilation by the Romans in the Bronze Age.
3 - Cut Testaroli For a more modern testaroli, place your dough disks and dissect them with a knife. Score them a few times with a sharp knife, before cutting them at an angle, so you make a bunch of thin dough-diamonds.
4 - Cook Testaroli
Toss your dough diamonds into a pot of boiling water, and let them cook away for a few minutes. Since this is fresh pasta, it won’t take too long to cook. Drain them using a colander or a slotted spoon, place them into a bowl, and serve up warm with a large dollop of pesto!
The finished dish is delicious and tender, and is a really quick and simple thing to make! It’s also very filling! Given that it seems to have been originally an “accidental” recipe - based on modern scholarship anyway - it definitely proved to be a staple of Etruscan cuisine. Something that can be made using only a few ingredients which is also very filling would have been a staple in the diets of the Etruscans.
Our t-shirt design “Etruscan youth playing the flute and riding a dolphin” is now available on the Amazon US and Redbubble (worldwide) One link for US (Amazon)＋other countries (Redbubble): https://geni.us/etruscanyouth
As a history student, i need to say it: Etruscans are criminally underrated and the fact that their history is only briefly used as a stepping stone to talk about Roman history is a real waste.
