The gate of the year

Etruscan funerary urn, dating to the III-II century B.C., now in the Archaeological Museum, Perugia, Italy. The scene in relief shows the evocation of a supernatural being, with therianthropic features, a human body and a wolf head, emerging from a sacred pit. This figure is surrounded by armed men, one of whom holds him by a chain or a cord, while at the centre appears a winged personage. A passage by Pliny (II, 140) reports an Etruscan legend, according to which a “monstrous” being, called Olta, ravaged the city of Bolsena, inducing the king Porsenna to invoke lightning from the sky to expel him. It is possible that the scene portrayed on the urn referred to this tradition, representing the demon with a wolf head to signify his provenance from the Underworld. On the other hand, the Etruscan god of the dead (Aita) was represented, as in the Tomba dell’Orco at Tarquinia, with a wolf headdress.

[Image: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/hen-magonza/sets/72157634228578874/]




World of the Dead

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Etruscan funerary urn, dating to the III-II century B.C., now in the Archaeological Museum, Perugia, Italy. The scene in relief shows the evocation of a supernatural being, with therianthropic features, a human body and a wolf head, emerging from a sacred pit. This figure is surrounded by armed men, one of whom holds him by a chain or a cord, while at the centre appears a winged personage. A passage by Pliny (II, 140) reports an Etruscan legend, according to which a “monstrous” being, called Olta, ravaged the city of Bolsena, inducing the king Porsenna to invoke lightning from the sky to expel him. It is possible that the scene portrayed on the urn referred to this tradition, representing the demon with a wolf head to signify his provenance from the Underworld. On the other hand, the Etruscan god of the dead (Aita) was represented, as in the Tomba dell’Orco at Tarquinia, with a wolf headdress. [Image: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/hen-magonza/sets/72157634228578874/]