The next stage in the development is represented by the Tomba dei Tori
at Corneto, discovered in 1892 and admirably published by G. Körte
in _Antike Denkmäler_.[7] The back wall of the main chamber in this
tomb has two doors, and it is between these that the one large figure
painting is placed, again in such a way as to suggest a tapestry
stretched on the wall (fig. 2). But now the picture has a narrative
content, inasmuch as a scene from the Greek cycle of myths is depicted:
Achilles watches for the Trojan prince Troilus at a well. Achilles,
to the left, wears a crested Corinthian helmet, sword, greaves, and
red loin-cloth. Troilus is naked and only decorated with armlets and
elegant shoes. He wears his hair long, according to Ionic fashion, and
in his hand he carries a goad (kentron). This is, as a rule, only used
when two horses are ridden, and the drawing shows traces of double
contours near the head and the right leg of the horse; it is probable,
therefore, that two horses were originally planned. In this picture
also, the proportions of man and horse are impossible, but progress
is perceptible in the monochromatic treatment of the body and legs of
the horse. On the other hand, the old manner of painting in stripes or
compartments is still retained in the running chimera in the pediment
above; it also lingers for a very long time in the pedimental figures
of the following period. The style is Ionic of the first half of the
sixth century B.C. A truly Ionian monster, created under Oriental
influence, is the human-faced bull in the pediment above the door, one
of the two bulls from which the tomb derives its name, and which are
omitted here because of the obscene groups on either side of them.
Other decorative details point to Cyrene and Egypt, especially the
characteristic frieze of lotuses and pomegranates, which corresponds
with the Cyrenaic vases of the sixth century B.C., and the stylized
flower-bed under the belly of the horse, which has its origin in
Egyptian and its parallels in Phoenician and in orientalizing Greek
art.[8] In this tomb the painting is not executed _al fresco_ but in a
yellowish-white pigment which unfortunately scales off in large flakes.
Thus in the Tomba dei Tori, besides a decorative treatment of the
wall surface with friezes, we have a main picture with a mythological
subject, painted in the Greek spirit and perhaps actually executed
by a Greek mural painter. We do not find even the slightest
allusion to death or entombment, or the least trace of any Etruscan
characteristics. The inscription in the large frieze is of interest
because it shows the Etruscan language in its archaic form, with a
rich vocalization which must have made it much more euphonious than
the language spoken later, in the fourth or following centuries. The
inscription runs: ‘arnth spuriana s[uth]il hece ce fariceka,’ and
means, ‘Aruns Spurinna monumentum sepulcrale ... condidit, adornavit,’
or the like.[9]
FOOTNOTES:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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