A Contribution to the Study of the Orientation of Etruscan Temples

The aim of the present contribution is to analyse the orientation of Etruscan temples in order to understand whether they followed a certain ratio or whether they were randomlyoriented. After a critical analysis of the data from azimuth measurements, an attempt is made to understand whether this ratio could depend on factors that are of ritualistic character, possibly linked to the sky and precepts of the Etrusca Disciplina which are known to us. In undertaking this study, the author has decided first to give a brief summary of previous studies on the present subject. In the final section of this paper, the author presents the data (collected in a series of field visits during the year 2013) pertaining to the azimuths of Etruscan temples, and furthermore makes some comments on the data analysis and its significance

Notes on Etruscan cosmology: the case of the Tumulus of the Crosses at Cerveteri

The aim of this contribution is to test the possibility of the use of cosmological principles connected with Etruscan religion, for composing an inscription which is incised on the wall of a passageway running beneath a ramp attached to the northeast side of the Tumulus of the Crosses, in the Banditaccia necropolis at Cerveteri. The ramp features a stairway leading to a \ufb02at ceremonial platform. On the basis of the letterforms the inscription may be dated to the end of the seventh or the beginning of the sixth century BCE. It is a rare example of a monumental inscription of the Orientalizing period of Etruscan Civilization. Directly beneath the inscription is a sign (siglum) formed by a cross inscribed in a circle. This sign has been recognized as the representation of the Etruscan concept of sacred space, whose crucial attributes are delimitation, division and orientation. A recent new reading of the inscription points out four theonymic elements, which recall divinities that, in the Etruscan cosmology, it may be argued, occupied the northeastern quadrant of the sky. Any ampli\ufb01cation of this recent new reading must take into account interdisciplinary research focused on a possible relationship, in the \ufb01eld of archaeoastronomy, between the theonymic elements and the physical space that they occupy on the wall of the passageway, since the ramp is a crucial element of Etruscan funerary cultic practices