The workshop will be held in Italian at the Istituto Svizzero, Via Liguria 20, Roma.
Curated by Niccolò Savaresi (Fellow Roma Calling, Archaeology).
‘I Pomeriggi’ series

Free entrance, register here.

Istituto Svizzero
Via Liguria 20, Rome
Free entrance

To Be Etruscan, Go Greek

The workshop will explore the influence of Greek culture on Etruscan identity, examining the dynamics of cultural exchange between Greeks and Etruscans. In the past, this influence was often seen as a form of Greek “cultural colonization,” but today it is recognized that the Etruscans selected and adapted Greek elements to meet their local needs, without renouncing their own identity. The presentations will offer case studies on the adoption of Greek iconographies in Etruria, highlighting how this process involved complex negotiation that led to the creation of unique cultural outcomes specific to the Etruscan context.

Biographies

Niccolò Savaresi (1995) is a researcher in classical archaeology at the University of Basel. His field of study concerns the spread of Attic pottery in the Mediterranean. Since 2022, he has been participating in the annual excavations of the Enotrian necropolis of Macchiabate in Calabria. His previous archaeological training took place mainly in Italy (Trento, Bologna) and at various European sites (France, UK, Greece). In Rome, he will continue his research, focusing on the commercial ties between Athens and the Hellenic populations of southern Italy.

Angela Pola (1984) is a researcher at the University of Pavia and an Associated Researcher at the Beazley Archive, University of Oxford. Graduated from the University of Pavia, she specialized at the University of Milan and earned her PhD in Etruscology and Italic Antiquities at Sapienza University of Rome. She has been a Departmental Lecturer at the University of Oxford and a Visiting Fellow at ICS London. Her research focuses on Etrusco-Italic material culture, with particular attention to figured pottery. She is a member of the Falerii Project and the Tarquinia Project, the author of a monograph on Faliscan red-figure pottery, and the PI of a multidisciplinary research project on the use of figured vases in pre-Roman Italy.

Luca Cerchiai (1955) has been a Professor of Etruscology and Italic Archaeology at the University of Salerno since 1992. Since 1990, he has been a member of the Institute for Etruscan and Italic Studies, serving on its Board of Directors since 2018. He is the author of over 190 publications, with primary research fields including the archaeology of pre-Roman Campania and indigenous populations of Magna Graecia, the phenomenology of the Etruscan city, and Etruscan iconography, particularly tomb painting.

Raffaella Da Vela (1977) is a researcher at the University of Tübingen, at the SFB1070 RessourcenKulturen Research Center funded by the DFG, with a project on the role of resources in the mobility of people and ideas in the Apennines (8th–5th century BC). In cooperation with the Soprintendenza, she co-directs with Massimo Tarantini the excavation of an Etruscan site on Monte Calvana. She graduated from the University of Florence in Etruscology and Pre-Roman Italy Civilization and earned her PhD (Florence and Bonn) on the theme of cultural transmission between Southern Italy and Northern Etruria in the Hellenistic period.

Carla Tulini (1992), PhD from Sapienza University of Rome, with a dissertation titled “Cults and votive practices in Veii between the Archaic Age and Romanization. Votive terracottas between production and commissioning.” Her research focuses on cults, votive practices, and, specifically, the analysis of votive terracottas offered in Etruscan sanctuaries, particularly Veii. Since 2016, she has participated annually in excavation campaigns at the Etruscan sanctuary of Pyrgi (Santa Severa – RM), and since 2019, she has been a sector supervisor and member of the “Grandi Scavi Sapienza” project at the Pyrgi site.