[7] II, Tafel 41, and Hilfstafel 1-8. [8] Poulsen, _Orient_, p. 67. [9] I am greatly indebted to Professor O. A. Danielsson of Upsala for information about this as well as about other inscriptions, and for numerous linguistic suggestions on the general subject of my treatise. IV A considerable group of Etruscan tomb-paintings, dating from the middle of the sixth century, show in their composition close connexion with Ionic vase-painting, especially with the so-called Caeretan hydriae, while their main pictures tell us something about the Etruscans themselves and their conceptions of Life and Death and Eternity. Only in the animal friezes beneath the painted roof-supports does the old decorative conception of the human and animal figure still linger; elsewhere the pictures now have content and meaning. [Sidenote: TOMBA DEGLI AUGURI] We may take the Tomba degli Auguri in Corneto, discovered in 1878, as our starting-point. There are coloured drawings as well as full-sized facsimiles of its pictures in the Helbig Museum. [Illustration: FIG. 3. BACK WALL IN THE TOMBA DEGLI AUGURI] The middle of the back wall of this tomb is occupied by a painted door flanked by two men in white chitons and short black cloaks lined with red; on their feet are peaked shoes. They raise both arms in a gesture of lament, ‘beating their foreheads’ as the ancient texts have it.[10] With this scene (fig. 3) the key-note is struck: the living stand at the door of the tomb and moan for the dead, a subject specially appropriate to the decoration of the walls of a tomb.