Kyla Johnson

Blog post 2

Etruscan tombs

I had originally wanted to look at Etruscan architecture to see what kinds of things they built and what kind of houses they lived in but as I was researching it didn’t turn out the way I expected. It turns out that the more I looked into architecture the more I found out about their tombs. Most people would think weird why would the resting places of the dead come up when you’re looking for architecture? Well it isn’t so weird when you find out like I did that the best examples we have of Etruscan architecture is their tombs. The Etruscans didn’t build tombs like we do neatly lining people up in cemetery’s instead they built the tombs like cities with streets small squares neighborhoods. The huts and houses built in this city of the dead provide amazing insights to structural details of Etruscan houses that we would not have had otherwise. A well-known example is known as the “Hut Shaped Tomb” in imitating houses we find out that they had things like gabled roofs and a main cross beam it even has stone couches next to the walls. The tombs like the real city buildings differed depending on social status and wealth.

Another great thing about Etruscan tombs is that they also tell us about daily life and art because a lot of them have a wealth of paintings in side. These paintings show daily life, ordinary tasks, religious ceremonies and animals like birds and dolphins. So in all reality the best clues we have about the lives of the Etruscans is not from looking at how they lived but looking at what they did for their dead.

Bibliography

<a title=”By Franck Schneider (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons” href=”http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ALe_tombe_etrusche_dipinte_07.JPG”><img width=”512″ alt=”Le tombe etrusche dipinte 07″ src=”//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/41/Le_tombe_etrusche_dipinte_07.JPG/512px-Le_tombe_etrusche_dipinte_07.JPG”/></a>

“Norchia Nekropolis” by AlMare – Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Norchia_Nekropolis.jpg#/media/File:Norchia_Nekropolis.jpg

“Etruscan Necropolises of Cerveteri and Tarquinia.” – UNESCO World Heritage Centre. UNESCO World Heritage C Entre, n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

“Classic Court.” Tombs of the Etruscans « The Toledo Museum of Art. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

Elena. “Etruscan Architecture.” Art History Summary Periods and Movements through Time. 2015 Raindrops Entries RSS, 16 Nov. 2012. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.