Etruscan pottery

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Board: Etruria
Topic: Architecture and Engineering 
Topic Editor: Nesnut Hatshepsut
Topic Description: Much of Roman architecture ...

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Message: Etruscan pottery
Author: - AULUS Sergius, Patron 
Date: May 29, 2000 00:44
      One of the hallmarks of Etruscan art is their distinctive "everyday" 
      pottery, bucchero. 

      Bucchero is a type of pottery made of gray clay and fired in an reduction 
      kiln to give it the black lustre for which it is known. There are two 
      basic styles, sottile and pesante. The sottile style is characterised by 
      its "delicate" appearance. Many of these pieces seem to be modeled on 
      metalwork pieces, even down to fake rivets at times. The other style, 
      pesante, is characterised by a heavier or thicker nature. 

      In the summer of 1973, I was fortunate enough to be in a program run by 
      Trinity College of Hartford, Conn. where we excavated a 6th century BC 
      Etruscan tomb. Unfortunately, it had been looted both in antiquity and in 
      modern times. Evidence of the latter was that we found a 4 volt car 
      battery about 4' down in the dromos leading to the tomb. The tombaroli had 
      used it to power their lights and drills. In the back chamber of the tomb, 
      they had carved out a hole in the wall to get into a tomb next to this 
      one. At any rate, we were able to find a good number of potshards of 
      bucchero, Etruscan copies of Greek and impasto pottery. I was able to keep 
      a few of these pieces, none of which is museum quality, but still cool. I 
      tossed a few of them on the scanner and present them here. 

      The first three images are of the same piece, a bucchero sottile kyphos. 
      The fourth is two fragments of a smaller cup in the bucchero pesante 
      style. The fifth is not from the dig, but is from a chance find. One 
      morning, the road crews were clearing brush and dirt away from the narrow 
      blacktop road thru the Banditaccia necropolis of Cerveteri, where we were 
      digging. As we walked back for a lunch break, I looked down and found this 
      fragment of a bucchero peasant handle that had evidently fallen down the 
      hill from some looted tomb above. the form and the incised decoration is 
      identical to a bucchero peasante kantharos on display in the small museum 
      in Vulci. 

       

       

       

       

       








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