Here we have some ceramics exhibited at the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia in Rome, the gorgeous place in the Eternal City where you can discover a lot about this ancient and mysterious civilization. As a tour guide I always suggest to visit this museum, for its masterpieces (like this one) but mainly for the possibility to have a better idea about this mysterious civilization. What we know is that the Etruscans were really able to produce artifacts like that ones which you can see here, symbols of how advanced was their art and culture.

In these pictures you see just two small boxes of the vast production of pottery pieces exhibited in the museum that, however, could give the idea of an essential aspect of the Etruscans and their art. At the beginning of their history, as always happens in the evolution of a civilization, the production and realization of glassware, vases and bowls was poor, having a low and, in a certain way, primitive quality. Then, however, one of the most important inventions of the history that is necessary for the development of the mankind was improved: the trade! It, combined with the skills of navigating, sailing the quiet (especially in the summer) waters of the Mediterranean Sea, allowed the etruscan cities to get in touch with the Greek culture and style, coming from the balkan peninsula.

For example an important area for the Etruscans was Eubea, a small island near Athens, which promoted large trade with Etruria. In this way, in the italic lands, the knowledge and the production of ceramics reached the towering heights. These examples are dated around the VII-VI century b.C., when in Etruria came, always from Greece, even the concept of a banquet and the wine, and other activities that developed the desire to create vases, cups and bowls, various ceramics that could be useful for the new activities and styles found by the Etruscans. The ceramics were decorated with geometrical figures, mythological characters and heroes, always imported from the Greek culture.

Small objects, that for the people of that time were usual and daily objects, that today have become works of art displayed in a museum. Not only that, because thanks to this mix of styles and techniques, and through the dissemination of knowledge and of the Greek culture even in the etruscan centres, it is curious to note how the etruscan ceramics can be safely assimilated to the Greek ones. Often, with businesses, even Greek craftsmen, artists, used to move in the etruscan city-states, bringing with them their knowledge and know-how. Sometimes, therefore, it is not easy to understand if a polychrome ceramics discovered in ancient Etruria is local, or invoice from Greece or made by an Greek artisans in Etruria! All these ceramics, however, are artifacts that tell us about how people far apart, geographically speaking, were managed to influence each other through trade and cultural exchanges, those were capable of generating new ways of doing, new art productions, new costumes.

They are artifacts exaclty like the Gold Foils of Pyrgi, which are host always in the Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia of Rome being one of the most interesting historical documents of the etruscan civilization and of the cultural exchange between different communities (here to know more)...