The balance between traditional approaches and novel techniques in Etruscan archaeology has long been delicate. These three new volumes from the prestigious Giorgio Bretschneider publishing house demonstrate the continued negotiation between the discipline's past and future in three very different formats. Each is seemingly a standard publication: an edited volume, a catalogue and a detailed linguistic study. However, in each case innovation and tradition lie side by side and are not always comfortable bedfellows. The degree to which this tension is visible varies from volume to volume, and in one case is harnessed to produce a particularly valuable addition to Etruscan studies.
An edited volume is always an opportunity to compare and contrast a range of ideas and approaches: Orazio Paoletti's is no exception. While all the papers contributed share a focus on the archaeology of northern Etruria and Corsica, the theme of the original conference, they range widely, from accounts of rescue archaeology necessitated by coastal erosion (M. Milletti and F. Pitzalis (501–34)) to in-depth reviews of particular artefact classes (J.-P. Morel (157–76)). As such, the editor's task cannot have been a straightforward one, and P. is to be commended for the structure and coherence of the finished work. The decision to curate the format of the original conference in the pages of the volume, with contributions arranged in the order of their presentation, while perhaps the only coherent manner to structure such diverse contributions, nonetheless has its pitfalls. For example, an excellent paper by Luca Cappuccini (567–90) on reconstructing the ancient coastline around Piombino would have been of more use to the reader had it been presented earlier in the volume, providing a geographical context to the many contributions on trading relationships in the region. In a further editorial criticism, several papers suffer from errors or a lack of clarity and consistency in the labelling of images. This is most notable where maps have been recycled from other publications, with inexplicable labelling, missing keys, or inconsistencies in language use (see, for example, 396, fig. 1).
In spite of these occasional mishaps and the demands of the overarching structure, this remains a fine volume. Theoretical highlights include the unsurprisingly excellent discussions of Corsican archaeology by Giovannangelo Camporeale (17–24) and Dominique Briquel (25–31). The latter's account of twenty-first-century developments in the understanding of ancient Corsica emphasizes the strong currents of change that are steadily transforming the study of Mediterranean prehistory as well as the need to understand the antiquarian past of the discipline. The results of a series of important excavations are also presented, with Piera Melli's account of an eighth-century tumulus uncovered ahead of Metro expansion in Genova (135–56), and Matteo Milletti and Federica Pitzalis’ aforementioned detailed and well-illustrated description of rescue excavations at Casone, which includes an exemplary anthropological report on the skeletal material recovered. The importance of new data is emphasized in a further excellent contribution by Jean Gran-Aymerich assessing the relationships between Caere, Aleria, Massilia and Gaul (205–26), and hammered home by Franco Cambi, Alessandro Corretti and Laura Pagliantini, who call forcefully for the publication of late twentieth-century excavation data, and an increase in the production of anthropological reports and environmental studies as part of this. The presence of such reports in this volume, and at the Convegno di Studi Etruschi ed Italici upon which it is based, bodes well for the future.
From a series of viewpoints on the relationships between, and development of, Corsica and the northern Tyrrhenian coastline, to Laura M. Michetti and Iefke van Kampen's volume focused upon a single, spectacular tumulus in southern Etruria. The materials from the Monte Aguzzo tumulus, excavated in 1882, are presented for the first time in this luxuriant volume, rich in detailed analysis and both colour and black-and-white photographs, in addition to drawn illustrations. The work is the result of what Mauro Cristofani once described as ‘patient archival research’. The editors have chosen his words to introduce their volume (7), but this description understates their achievement in producing a significant addition to the Etruscan archaeological literature. The work is divided into four parts: an introductory section, an extensive catalogue, an interpretative contextualization of the material and a series of wonderful plates. There are a number of contributing authors, all of whom are to be commended for the quality of the resulting volume. K. opens with an account of the nineteenth-century discovery at Monte Aguzzo, 5 km to the north of the Etruscan city of Veii, reconstructed from the original documentation of the excavators (33–5). Much of the latter, including letters and plans, is reproduced fully or in part, and is one of the most satisfying aspects of the volume for the reader, particularly when antiquarian and modern plans are reproduced side by side (as 38).
The continuing story of the material from the original excavation, and of the surroundings of the tumulus at Monte Aguzzo itself, reveals the importance of this archive to their contextualization. As recently as the 1970s, it proved impossible to attempt to reconstruct the assemblages from individual chambers within the tumulus (43). It was the chance purchase of a small collection of documents by the Vatican Library that made this research possible. These included letters between excavators and museums, the excited tones of which, expressed in exquisite handwriting and accompanied by delicate plans, are the highlight of the plate section (Tav. XLV). The post-excavation history of the objects themselves was also chequered, as the editors delicately explain (41–2). In May 1918, the majority of the materials from Monte Aguzzo were made part of the collection of the Museo Nazionale Etrusco di Villa Giulia, although some continued to be held in Pisa. It is rather apt, ahead of the centenary of this decision, that the artefacts have been moved once more to the new exhibition space of the Museo dell'Agro Veientano di Formello in the refurbished Palazzo Chigi.
The catalogue section of the volume is bipartite: it incorporates finds from the Chigi collection in addition to the Monte Aguzzo material, and its treatment of both is impeccably detailed. However, it opens with an assessment of the Chigi vase, an olpe famous for its inscription in a non-Corinthian alphabet. The dominance of this single outstanding artefact continues throughout the interpretative section which follows: it is central to the assessment of inscriptions (141), and is then the major feature of discussions of dating (155) and potential trade routes (156) before an interpretation of its iconography as representing the transition to adulthood is used to characterize the entire burial assemblage as that of a young, literate adult (160). While the Chigi vase is obviously a highly important aspect of the burial assemblage from Monte Aguzzo, this intensity of focus upon it, at the expense of other material, results in a feeling of imbalance. In spite of this, more nuanced interpretations of the assemblage do emerge: for example, M. relates the high number of unguent vessels to social status rather than gender, and dismisses the possibility of a potential ‘Bacchiad moment’ at which the olpe was given to the family by élite migrants in favour of the more convincing idea of its being acquired and exchanged by local élites (157).
Mary Anne Tafuri's anthropological assessment of the skeletal remains that have survived looters and antiquarian excavation methods is similarly exacting (201), but even its results (that the remains are ‘gracile’ in appearance and could be those of a young male or a female individual) are swept up in the interpretation of the olpe, linked inevitably to its iconography. The final plate section is more balanced: only pls 1–4 focus upon the Chigi vase, with a further sixty-two pages devoted to photographs of other material, landscape shots and, of course, the original documentation. This remarkable series of images illustrates the growing recognition of the rôle of historiography in Etruscan studies, while the focus of much of the text on a singular object is reminiscent of more traditional channels of discourse. In spite, or perhaps because of, this tension, M. and K.’s volume is far more than a meticulous catalogue of material — it is an elegant portrait of a discipline on the point of change, and a very valuable contribution to the field.
In a similar vein, the sheer amount of hard labour that underpins Jean Hadas-Lebel's offering is highly impressive. His central argument is that Etruscan, as an agglutinative language, could be expected to possess multiple locative cases, and the substance of the book documents a search for these through a gazetteer of inscriptions, a dissection of Etruscan morphemes, and a close examination of syntax. H.-L.’s work is developed from his doctoral research at the Sorbonne, and strongly retains the flavour of a thesis in its structure and language. To clarify, the book reads like a separate series of arguments, with individual sub-sections stubbornly refusing to bind together into a flowing whole. As a result of this segmented style, there are somewhat problematic shifts in the argument: a discussion of the illative case shifts into a major digression on the reception of Greek migrants in Etruria (72), while a much needed discussion of the underlying methodology is left to the conclusions (149) rather than included as part of the introduction. More positively, there are also well argued and clear sections, notably a detailed analysis of the use of th/th-i and a thought-provoking piece on Etruscan pronouns (117).
While these parts of H.-L.’s argument are convincing, and would have potentially made strong standalone articles, the underlying logic of his methodology is problematic. Although the disclaimer is made (19) that modern agglutinative languages should not be conceived of as models for Etruscan linguistics, this caution is undermined by continual references to Finnish, Turkish and Romanian examples and their use as the basis for seeking out Etruscan case forms. More importantly, the author's expressed a priori determination to reveal multiple locative cases prefigures his conclusions at every step. Even allowing for the relative paucity of the inscriptional record, identifying a new case based upon a single inscription and the ‘feeling’ of the author (81, another single inscription example is to be found on 85) is inappropriate. Nowhere does the author acknowledge the potential circularity of his argument: that Etruscan is an agglutinative language; agglutinative languages have multiple locative cases; and now the author has identified six forms of these. The lack of critical engagement with, and recognition of, this issue, limits the impact of H.-L.’s findings, and his attempt at a novel morphological analysis is held back not only by the (lack of) evidence but also by this omission.
These three new books, despite their diverse themes and formats, neatly illustrate the current situation of Etruscan studies: poised on the brink of new explorations, making the most of new ideas and new evidence, but also clinging to familiar publication formats and patterns of discourse. Since the completion of H.-L.’s thesis, the Palazzo Chigi/Monte Aguzzo research and the 2011 Convegno di Studi Etruschi ed Italici conference, the discipline has moved forward, but the tension visible in all three publications is yet to be resolved.
