Everyday Life of the Etruscans

Everyday Life

by Ellen MacNamara, Eva Wilson (Illustrator)

With so little of their own literature surviving, it is a difficult task to draw an intimate portrait of this colourful people called the Etruscans. Often, as Dr. Macanamara has done in this book, it is best to turn to the many fine Etruscan works of art and to the archaeological evidence. Thus we read of the cities and cemeteries of Etruria, some with tombs whose walls are still covered with marvellous paintings; and of the objects the Etruscans used from day to day. A selection of these works is illustrated in this book and helps us both to visualize the contemporary life of the Etruscans and, sometimes, to feel a response to their joys or sorrows of over two thousand years ago.

Genres: History

214 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1973

Reviews

[Marko Vasić · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oduševljen sam ovom studijom! Jedino mi je krivo što sam je čitao nakon The Buried People: A Study of the Etruscan World. i The Etruscans jer se ove potonje dve granaju svaka u svom smeru, a Macnamarina studija ih sve objedinjuje i najsličnija mi je Gavelinoj monografiji Etrurci.

Sistematično i taman koliko treba detalja da ne „uguši“ čitaoca koji se za temu zanima kao entuzijasta-amater a nije ni arheolog ni istoričar ni filolog. Najpre se u prvom poglavlju autorka dotakla istorijskih podataka o Etrurcima, citirajući Livija, Herodota, Diodora sa Sicilije i neke savremene istoričare, zatim je obradila arheološki deo: arhitekturu, skulpture i oslikane grobnice. Potom se bavila etnografijom pričajući o svakodnevnim predmetima: grnčariji, nakitu, odeći i oruđu, da bi na kraju obradila i religijske motive i dotakla se mitologije (o čemu je mnogo više i razrađenije obrađeno u monografiji Etruscan Myths of Larise Bonfante.

Knjiga obiluje kako skicama predmeta, tako i fotografijama istih, gde je uredno potpisano u kom muzeju se nalazi koji predmet. Na kraju knjige se nalazi skromni glosar i popis citirane literature, koja je odličan izvor za dalja istraživanja.

[Judy]

"It was the Etruscans who founded a town upon the hilltop of Fiesole, overlooking Florence and placed a city or the magnificent citadel of rock at Orvieto..." p. ix
"Of course we do not know about their intellectual development because we have none of their literature, nor have we been able to decipher their language. Livy says "I have authority for believing that in that age Roman boys were regularly .... schooled in Etruscan literature as nowadays they are trained in Greek.' p. 188
Their monuments indicate that they were well versed in Homeric and other Greek narrative. "Yet the extant monuments and all we have learned on the Etruscans should prepare us for the fact that it was for their religious literature that the Etruscans were famous in antiquity." p. 188
"It should be emphasized here that the coming of the alphabet to Etruria has nothing whatsoever to do with the problem of the origin of the Etruscans. Rather, the difficulties in assessing all the elements which went up to make up the Etruscan alphabet should be seen as another example of the complicated pattern of cultural transmission from the east Mediterranean to Etruria, so often with the Greeks acting as intermediaries." p. 183
"Languages impose their own requirements upon scripts and so, over the centuries, modifications took place in the Etruscan alphabet..... One of the greatest gifts the Etruscans handed on to their neighbors was the art of writing." p. 183 Many of the neighbors, including Rome, learned to write from the Etruscans.
Women were relatively free, compared to other cultures of the time.