Courtesy Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca e della Città di Cortona.© DeA Picture Library/Art Resource, NY
Courtesy Museo dell'Accademia Etrusca e della Città di Cortona.© DeA Picture Library/Art Resource, NY
Such intricate art/metalwork!
It must have belonged to a very wealthy Etruscan...............
Well...it’s a big old chandelier about 2’ in diameter with the usual archaic Mediterranean symbolism — winged persons, bulls, serpents. The more or less human characters are riding dolphins (being seated above them) and the dolphins are riding waves, as waves were depicted in Greece, Egypt, etc. The male figures show ithyphallic representations, also a common motif. And if I’m not mistaken the central face shows tusk-like canines (teeth) which is not typically a representation of Dionysus, so I’d say this object comes from a temple dedicated to Silenus, who was a sort of precursor to Dionysus. Ritual at such a temple would have been the usual carrying on, bacchanalian, ecstatic, advancing and celebrating fertility.
And not to read too much into it, but the dolphins and waves completely encircling the grimacing central figure suggest an island is depicted.
Until someone unearths a good standard Etruscan-Latin Dictionary, it’s all guesswork. Unfortunately they put everything in the tombs, for the enjoyment of the deceased, except the reading material. :(
