With their religious notions, it is not surprising that the Etruskans should have devoted the greatest care to their tombs and burial-places.
These tombs were:—
1. Subterranean; hewn into the tufa on plains. Steps led underground, where a vestibulum, consisting of several chambers, sometimes provided with columns, led into the vault. The ceiling of this was either horizontal or pointed, in imitation of a wooden roof. Many such tombs are found at Volci, Clusium, and Volaterra.
2. A second species of their subterranean tombs consisted of those provided with tumuli above-ground; simple graves as found in Scandinavia and the north of the Western hemisphere, the corpses lying on simple stone beds.
3. Burial chambers (cucumella) with artificial hills above them, and provided with a tower-like construction, or with conical columns. They are found near Volci, Tarquinii, and Viterbo.
4. Chambers, vertically hewn into the rocks, with a simple or decorated entrance near Tuskania.
5. Rock-hewn chambers with façades screening the entrance, as at Aria, or with Doric fronts as at Orchia. Asia furnished patterns for the decoration and construction of these tombs. The reliefs are full of lively scenes, reminding us of Assyrian and Babylonian sculptures. The figures are heavy, the legs short and thick; the upper part of the statues is placed ‘en face,’ whilst the legs and feet are in profile. The monstrous element predominates. Harpies, chimeras, winged lions, sphinxes, and griffins abound; but they are void of any symmetrical arrangement, and are dry, stiff, and as revolting as possible in their coarse outlines.
With regard to the construction of their walls it is remarkable that they improved very early on the Kyklopean mode, and constructed the very best regular freestone walls. They had arched gates, built with wedge-shaped stones, which produced by their span a firmly-vaulted construction. The Etruskans thus acquired a lasting merit in the history of art by the new epoch which they inaugurated with the introduction of this decidedly progressive element in the technical construction of architectural works. As potters and metal-workers they distinguished themselves more than either as architects or sculptors. As the Chinese are considered as the potters par excellence of the farthest East, the Etruskans may be called the potters of the West. In burning, painting, and fashioning clay they appear to have acquired a speciality, so that their trade in vases extended all over the then known world, and even the Greeks furnished their houses with Etruskan pottery in preference to their own. The gloomy mythology of the Etruskans was far better suited to potters, manufacturing black vases with red figures, or red vases with black figures, or for casting dark bronze figures, than to sculptors handling white marble. They also distinguished themselves in chiselling and founding metal. Innumerable chests, candelabra, metal frames for looking-glasses, and other utensils show their cleverness in working gold, silver, and bronze. Some ivory carvings, described in a report of the Archæological Society at Rome, 1862, are of great interest. They were found at Præneste (Palestrina), where also silver vessels in the purest Egyptian style, and an ivory tablet with Assyrian patterns, were excavated. More important even than these discoveries are four ivory tablets found at Corneto, showing traces of gilding and painting. The carvings represent scenes of every-day life, mixed with mystic figures. We see on the tablets a lady and gentleman sitting at dinner, served by a little boy; a huntsman chasing game; a kind of sea-divinity holding in each hand a fish; and a man in a biga driving winged horses. These figures might have formed representations concerning the zodiac, namely: the Twins, Sagittarius, Pisces, and the Sun (Phœbus or Horus). The receding forehead of the driver and his manner of holding the whip are types which we constantly meet in Egyptian sculptures and reliefs.
About 660 B.C. Eucheir, Diopos, Eugrammos and Demeratos were driven from Korinthum into Etruria, and from that date we note a decided improvement in the artistic productions. The Etruskans began to excel in terra-cotta and bronze works. Their vases, amphoræ, statuettes, cinerary and mystic chests, prove this. Their mystic chests (cistæ mysticæ, corresponding to the quippa-chests of the Mexicans) were made of embossed bronze. The lids were ornamented with mysterious animals, and the legs formed of the claws or paws of mythical brutes. Foliage and Greek frets in good arrangement were also used. Their candelabra are of a superior design. Other works of art, such as ornamented backs and handles for mystic mirrors, in gold, silver, or bronze, are of excellent technical execution.
There was, however, too much of the aborigine Turanian element left in the Etruskans. The noble and elevating rhythmus of Greek idealisation is everywhere wanting. Cooking utensils, small pieces of furniture, tables, chairs, and couches, aqueducts and viaducts, and even cloacas, were made and constructed to perfection, but as soon as they attempted the production of human forms, or of higher works in architecture, they did not succeed. The heads of their figures are either too small or too large. The legs are short; the drapery in stiff lines hangs down with rope-like regularity. Animals are much better executed; but the human form, in consequence of a scrupulous and constrained conception, and an exaggerated attention to detail, had a cold, lifeless appearance, void of all spiritual animation. Their imagination was one-sidedly directed by nature and religion to take a gloomy and distorted view of creation, and their products bear this spiritual stamp. In everything they touched we recognise the Egyptian mythology with its stifling breath, and the influence of the volcanic ground on which the Aryans were thrown, amongst a number of superstitious Turanians. The rumbling, fire-spitting Vesuvius and Ætna worked on the brains of the new immigrants. The sudden, devastating bursts of fire and water filled their minds with horror; they were forced to ponder over the instability of human things. The beauty of the Italian sky, the exuberant luxury of the vegetation, heightened in them a feeling of dumb despair. The contrast between life and death was too striking, and filled the souls of the artists with awe and dread, reflected in their artistic compositions.