[Illustration: FIG. 2.15 Tarquinia: Tomb of Orcus, the demon Charun. (MPI)] Other finds cast further light. The Capua tile prescribes funerary offerings to the gods of the underworld. An inscribed lead plaque from near Populonia is a curse tablet, in which a woman urges Charun or another infernal deity, Tuchulcha, to bring his gruesome horrors to bear on members of her family whose death she ardently desires. Bronze statuettes give details of priestly dress (conical cap tied under the chin, fringed cloak) or show Hermes, Escorter of Souls, going arm-in-arm with the deceased to the world below. The total picture is one of a deeply religious, even superstitious people, attaching particular importance to the formalities of their ritual relations with their gods, and obsessed with the after life, of which they take a progressively gloomier view as their material prosperity declines. * * * * * What can archaeology tell us about Etruscan cultural life? Of art for art’s sake there seems to have been very little, of literature none, except for liturgical texts. The Etruscans excelled in fine large-scale bronze work, like the famous Chimaera of Arezzo or the Capitoline Wolf, but their minor masterpieces in bronze deserve mention also, especially the engraved mirrors, the cylindrical cosmetic boxes called _ciste_, and the statuettes whose attenuated bodies appeal strongly to modern taste. Their painting at its best shows in its economy of line how intelligently they borrowed from the Greeks, in its realism how sturdily they maintained their own individuality. In architecture, Etruscan temples, having been made of wood, do not survive above their foundation courses, but recent discoveries of terracotta temple-models at Vulci tell us something about their appearance, and masses of their terracotta revetment survive, brightly-painted geometric, vegetable, or mythological motifs, designs to cover beams, mask the ends of half-round roof tiles, or (in pierced patterns called _à jour_ crestings) to follow the slope of a gable roof. Made from molds, the motifs could be infinitely repeated at small expense, an aspect of Etruscan practicality which was to appeal strongly to the Romans.