Etruscan mysteries

A visit to Vetulonia, an Etruscan metropolis, and its museum happened since father found a family discount online for that day. I’m sure they didn’t mean bestia by it but welcomed him anyway. And the kid was a bit grown.

I’m really bad at history. Really really bad. So bad that when I had to pass the “International Relations” exam during my journalism studies, first I had to get my dates down on a sheet of paper – wars, treaties, and the like – and learned them by heart as if for the first time. Museums also remind me of forced school visits too much, that’s why I’m not so eager to spend time in them.

I found this museum – Isidoro Falchi Civic Archeological Museum – small but illustrative and well-stocked. Vetulonia is a rather recently discovered site where supposedly a mega metropolis of the Etruscans once stood.

But this will not be a history lesson. Kindly visit yourselves and pack as many dogs as you wish.

Living here, however, in the heart of the Etruscans, my thirst for history is slowly being awakened. There is a certain sense of ancient well-being in the air, as well as memories of highly turbulent times. It makes me wish to delve into Etruscan mysteries.

Not only because father, and quite a few of Slovenian scholars, suspect that Slovenians may be direct descendants of the Etruscans. Even their language sounds so familiar. Vetulonia, for example, used to be called Vatluna, which is not so far from Slovenian ‘votlina’, meaning ‘cave’ or ‘cavity’.

Today let’s have a look at the museum on the inside and leave its surroundings and tombs for the next time.

I can enter! Yeah!

He was good. He almost didn’t wish to pee on anything.

Rooms are in alphabetical order and yet we went to A last.

Well-lit spaces.

The Etruscan territory. I live to the south of funny 3-road peninsula, which is where Orbetello is.

How they lived.

Apparently iron was in much higher regard than gold.

Maybe that’s why this necklace was only 32 EUR, and yet, as we saw yesterday, I still didn’t buy it. Neither did I the little 7 EUR hog. Shame on me.

Niki de Saint Phalle has a not very unlike statue in her Giardino dei tarocchi.

A little mysterious Etruscan smile.

A little quaint collection.

That way please.

She has been preserved for eternity.

The feminine space is indeed interrupted by this white block so I can’t read it all, and one bestia.

Love the joyful colours and shapes.

There are two floors.

Pleased to meet you too!

Looks like a spare leg.

Something tells me they were trading with Greeks a lot.

Photo: a © signature mmm production