Una kotyle del Pittore di Bellerofonte di Egina e altre importazioni greche ed orientali dalla tomba 4 di Monte Abatone a Cerveteri

The paper presents one of the most important complexes of the Orientalizing period in Caere (Ce’rve­ ten). The tomb in question has unfortunately long remained unpublished, although it contains pieces of exceptional artistic importance, such as the black-figure kotyle of the Bellero’phon Painter of Aegina, the greatest and most gifted of the Corinthian potters active in the second quarter of the 71A century BC. The only kotyle of this period to have survived intact, this drinking cup is of extraordinary artistic level. With its monumental and imposing figures of animals and sphinxes, the decoration of the kotyle is characterized by elegant expressive lines and a sense of majesty in the way the bodies move forward in a placid and dignified manner. The cup’s excellent design uses, apart from the black-figure technique, moder­ ate but signflcant retouches in red, and a confident ‘use of incision. A satisfactory reconstru€tion of the career of the Bellerophon Painter is still awaised — in a period so marked by strong and continuous experiments in the art of ceramics. Only afew works have been attributed to him, often with some uncertainty or dissent among scholars, and all of them — with this exception — so far found in Greece itself The grave assemblage, to which our kotyle belongs, also includes a small bronze head of Near East­ ern, probably Urartan, production. It perhaps served originally as decor for a chariot terminal, and is of particular rarity both in a Greek and in a Western context. Many other rare pieces of pottery imported from various areas of Greece and the Near East also belonged to the same tomb. They include a Protoconinthian aryballos of the Corneto Painter three Rhodian bird-cups and an extremely rare Vroulian cup. In addition the artefacts include Greek transport amphorae, one with an inscription, and five pendants infaience of the cypraea moneta type of Egyptian production. The locally produced anlefacts are also important, including a model shield in terracotta, a little ship model, banqueting services in impasto and very fine bucchero pots. So, the context of Monte Abatone tomb 4 is emblematic of the tendency of the Etruscan aristocracies to acquire exotic luxury objects, display their rank and express their patrician pride through the accumulation and ostentation of prestige goods. The inclusion in the burial of a chariot, indicative of a precise social prestige, of furniture of particu­ lar luxury, such as thrones or footstools, and the occurrence of the holmos and the olla with lion protomes, of clear oriental derivation, not only attest to the new ideology of the symposium and its ceremonies, but sig­ nal the intention to reproduce models of life of the great foreign aristocracies. In Monte Abatone tomb 4 this is expressed both by the importation of furnishings of particular luxury, or at least of particular prestige, and by the sharing of behavioural models and ceremonial practices linked to the convivial consumption of wine and meat.