Antiquarium del Palazzone

A signed path through the Palazzone necropolis leads from the Ipogeo dei Volumni to the small museum.

Cinerary Urns

The urns from the hypogea that are exhibited here all have reliefs that illuminate particular aspects of Etruscan culture. 

Urn from the Ipogeo dei Anani (2nd or 1st century BC)

[Provenance, inscription ??]

This urn is one of a number that have reliefs of scenes of Etruscan feasts, and is distinguished by a particularly animated relief of the head of a man playing a flute.

Cinerary Urn (2nd or 1st century BC)

This urn from the Palazzone necropolis shows a lion attacking a man, possibly during a hunt.  [More]

Urn of Vel Cai Carcu (2nd or 1st century BC)

This urn belonged to the founder of the Ipogeo dei Cai Carcu, which was discovered in 1963 at Ponticello di Campo.  The Etruscan inscription identified the deceased as Vel Cai Carcu, the son of a lady called Herini.  The pre-fix "Cai" suggests that the family descended from a freed slave. 

The deceased reclines with his wife on the lid of the urn, and she looks adoringly at him.  She is, however, not mentioned in the inscription. 

The fine relief on the front shows the hero Telephos, King of Mysia threatening to sacrifice Orestes, the young son of Agammenon and Clytemnestra.  The myth relates that Achilles wounded to pro-Trojan Telephos in a skirmish when the Greek fleet landed at Mysia by mistake on their way to Troy.  An oracle told him that only Achilles could heal the wound, so he seized Orestes in an effort to force him to do so.  Achilles claimed that he had no medical skill but Odysseus saved the day by suggesting that the rust from Achilles sword would do the trick.  It worked and, in return, Telephos guided the Greeks to Troy.  In the relief, three female relatives of Orestes surround the altar as Odysseus makes his entry from the right.  The lady on the left, who wields an axe, is probably Clytemnestra: this is odd because in some versions of the myth she suggested the ploy to Telephos.  She did however murder Agammenon with an axe when he finally returned to Attica from Troy.

Red-figured vase (330 – 310 BC)                

This lovely vase was discovered in the 19th century, but all that is known about its precise provenance is a cryptic note that says that it was found in the, “Ipogeo degli Acsi”.  Since it is much later than the other grave goods from this hypogeum, the information as to its precise provenance might well be inaccurate.

The vase, which was probably made in Volterra, depicts two scenes from the myth in which Hercules rescues Hesione, the daughter of King Laomedon of Troy from a sea monster:

• Hercules puts his foot on the lower jaw of the monster as he prepares to draw his sword; and

• Hecules embraces Hesione, who is suitably grateful for her rescue.
  

These scenes are the autograph works of the so-called Hesione Master.