• January 8, 2026 | 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM
• Golden Gate 6, Lobby Level

3C: Ethnoscapes of the Dead: Italic and Etruscan Chamber Tombs Revisited (Colloquium)

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Organizers:
Valeria Riedemann Lorca, University of Washington, and Karolina Sekita, Tel-Aviv University

Discussants:
Luigi Todisco, Università degli Studi di Bari

Overview Statement:
Chamber tombs represent one of the most complex and enduring expressions of funerary architecture in pre-Roman Italy. Found across diverse regions, including Etruria, Campania, Lucania, and Apulia, these tombs serve as critical markers of ethnicity and cultural belonging. They reflect a wide range of localized traditions while simultaneously revealing shared practices of elite self-representation, memory construction, and ritual performance. To date, however, the study of chamber tombs has remained primarily confined to regionally specific and specialized approaches. Only a few attempts have adopted cross-regional perspectives capable of contextualizing these monuments within broader Mediterranean frameworks (Prayon 1989; Steingräber 2000). Moreover, scholarship has often emphasized the “Greek contribution” to the development of tomb painting and decoration, especially in Etruria and southern Italic contexts, frequently overlooking the agency and innovations of local workshops (Pieraccini 2016; Todisco 2024). This session revisits chamber tombs from the eighth to the third centuries B.C.E. through a comparative and cross-regional lens, highlighting their function not merely as places of burial but as dynamic ethnoscapes—constructed and contested spaces where identities were shaped, displayed, and transformed.

The session brings together seven case studies, organized by region. Three papers focus on Apulian chamber tombs: “New Observations on the Preserved Sculptural Decoration of Hypogeal Tombs from Canosa” offers a reassessment of figural programs and their spatial integration, while “The Funerary Hypogea of Daunia Between the Fifth and the Second Centuries B.C.E. Architecture, Paintings, Funerary Rituals and Assemblages” expands into different tomb typologies and the use of tomb furnishing at funerals. An integrated archaeological and anthropological approach to Messapian funerary systems is explored in “New Directions in Pre-Roman Southern Apulia Funerary Archaeology.” Next, chamber tombs from Lucania are the focus of “Family Burials at Roccagloriosa: Structure, Decoration, Intent,” while they are contextualized in “Theoretical Perspectives and New Approaches on the Interpretation of Necropolises and Funerary Chamber Tombs of Etruria and Campania.” Tombs specifically designed to contain coffins are the subject of “The Forgotten Tombs: Etruscan Sarcophagi in Context.” Finally, “Funerary Landscapes and Political Authority: Chamber Tombs and Necropolises in the Middle and Lower Tiber Valley” discusses the role of local authorities in determining tomb placement in non-Etruscan cultural areas.

Through this renewed focus on the chamber tombs as a node within wider ethnoscapes, this session aims to advance comparative dialogue, challenge entrenched interpretive models, and highlight the specific materialities of Italic and Etruscan funerary monuments and practices.