Sometimes the name of the subject was engraved on one side of it, and occasionally the wearer's name or a word of mystic meaning, rarely symbols or figures of the Etruscan gods or chimæras. The engraving is of great service to the historian and student of the glyptic art, as the subjects show the transition from Assyrian, Egyptian, and Persian forms and figures, to the archaic Greek and the best period of stone engraving.
Many of the Etruscan examples have been found at Præneste, the modern Palestrina, and in the necropolis of Clusium; some of those found there, have engraved on the base the lotus flower with four-winged figures of archaic Etruscan form, the kynokephallos ape, the sacred asp or uræus of Egypt, the winged sun of Thebes and the bull Apis; on others are figures copied from Assyrian originals; on others are Herakles fighting the lion, Herakles stealing the tripod of Apollo and discovered by the latter; Ajax and Cassandra, a Harpy, etc. Some of these have been found in tombs and other places with the color changed to an opaque white by the action of fire. These have been burned with the body of their owner when he was cremated.
The Etruscans have evidently borrowed the form without caring for the cult; there does not appear with them any mysterious, religious or astronomical meaning, nor the veneration for it, which existed among the old Egyptians; but no doubt, the representation was considered as a talisman or preservative amulet and was worn as such, but in many instances likely, only as a matter of ornament in dress.
They were pierced like those of Egypt longitudinally, and one method of wearing them, was, by stringing them, intermingled with beads, as a necklace, but they were also worn as a signet stone in a ring with a swivel, so they could be turned and the incised part used as a seal by the owner.
I think it likely that the Etruscans at first, purchased the scarabs from the Phœnician traders whose merchant ships, as I have said in the preceding chapter, trafficked in ornaments and jewelry at an early period, and who likely, at first, may have brought some from Egypt and afterwards manufactured scarabs as an article of barter.
There is one peculiarity to be noted in the glyptography of the Etruscans, the absence of a transitional period between the extremely rude designs of the early style, made almost entirely by the use of the drill, and the intaglios of the most beautiful finish in low relief. Mr. King, in his work on Antique Gems, says: "While the first class offers caricatures of men and animals, the favorite subjects being figures throwing the discus, fawns with amphora, cows with sucking calves, or the latter alone, the second gives us subjects from the Greek mythology, especially scenes from Homer and the tragedians, among which, the stories of Philoctetes and Bellerophon occur with remarkable frequency." I think the rudely made are likely of Etruscan or Phœnician manufacture, the finely executed of Greek.
The inscriptions on Etruscan stones are nearly always the names of the persons represented on them. There are but few exceptions to this. We may therefore divide Etruscan glyptography into:
I. Etruscan scarabs, with Etruscan or Assyrian subjects.
II. Etruscan scarabs, with archaic Greek subjects.
There are many more of the latter than the former. The Greek subjects most frequently met with, refer to actions by Herakles, Perseus, Tydeus, Theseus, Peleus, Ulysses, Achilles and Ajax.