Room IV.
Case A.
No. 9. Some good specimens of Etruscan helmets, one of them with flaps of iron to protect the ears of the warriors. We learn clearly in this room that the Etruscans wore elaborate armour—helmets, belts, greaves, and bronze and iron spear-heads being plentifully represented.
Case B.
No. 31. Pempobolo or graffio—an instrument used for stirring the bodies of the dead as they burned, and for raking in the ashes afterwards.
No. 35. Cottabu. This strange looking implement was probably used for a kind of game practised at Etruscan feasts. It is supposed that at the end of a feast, when the guests grew merry, a toast was proposed, and that a glass was put on the tray at the top of the pole just under the little deity, and then carried round the room. The broader plate below was put to catch the wine as it fell with the swinging of this most ungainly instrument.
Case D.
Nos. 10 to 33, 40 to 60. A collection of small metal images, Lari, or household gods, most of them very Greek in treatment, some of them archaic.
Nos. 34 to 40. A collection of lead missiles for slings. These are inscribed with words of the most marked abuse designed for the enemy. On one of them is written: (in Latin characters) “For thy right eye”—the sort of naïve thing a schoolboy might design.