Viterbo Bucchero Chicken
The bucchero chicken from Viterbo is an Etruscan artifacts dating from the late 7th century. And is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York . The chicken is made of black burnt clay ( Bucchero ) and was probably used as a storage vessel for ink . An early Etruscan alphabet is carved into the vessel .
Description of the pottery
The chicken is four inches high and was built between 630 and 620 BC. Made from baked clay . The black, shiny color results from a fire in the so-called reducing fire. The oxygen supply is stopped by narrowing the exhaust air openings and adding fuel, which creates deep black iron oxide. Ceramic fired in this way is known as Bucchero . The pattern that is supposed to represent the plumage of the rooster and the alphabet were carved into the ceramic after the fire.
The rear part of the figure, which probably also sat on the floor and increased stability, has broken off and has not yet been found. Likewise, the chicken lacks the front part of the left foot. The head of the chicken can be removed at the height of the beak and probably served as a closure. The vessel could therefore have been used to hold a liquid, in particular ink. The Bucchero chicken probably came from near Viterbo in Lazio and came into the possession of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1924.
An abecedarium as an inscription
An early Etruscan alphabet is carved on the chicken . Such inscriptions, which contain only one alphabet, are called abecedarium . The 26 letters run from left to right and come from a western Greek alphabet that the Etruscans used in the 7th century BC. By Greek settlers in Campania . The letters B, D and O were not used for text inscriptions, since the corresponding sounds did not occur in the Etruscan language . An S-sound in the form of a window was also not used.
The writer probably made a mistake while writing the letters, because the letter S appears twice, in position 21 and in position 24. Other Abecedaries from this period show the letter X in position 24, so that a typographical error is obvious. Experience has shown that the beginning of an alphabet is easier to memorize than the end.
Cultural and historical significance
The chicken is an early example of Etruscan Bucchero ware and of the depiction of Abecedaria on such ceramics.
The Etruscans produced Bucchero goods from the middle of the 7th century to the beginning of the 4th century BC. They developed a wide variety of shapes, from simple bowls and pots to ceramics in the shape of animals and human bodies. Many of the Bucchero objects were decorative drinking vessels, including some commonly made from metals such as gold, silver, and bronze. The Etruscans often took over forms and names from the Greeks, e.g. B. Etruscan culichna for a drinking vessel from the Greek kylix . This type of ceramic was made in an elaborate and labor-intensive process that required a great deal of skill. Therefore, a Bucchero ceramic was not intended for everyday use, but served as a prestige and representative object for a wealthy elite.
In addition to the Viterbo chicken, other abecedaries with model alphabets have survived from the early Etruscan period, including the Bucchero amphora by Formello , an alabastron from the Tomba Regolini-Galassi in Cerveteri and another Bucchero vessel from the Sorbo necropolis Cerveteri. The alphabets on these artefacts are clockwise, like on the chicken. H. from left to right, written. The oldest abecedarium was scratched on the writing tablet by Marsiliana d'Albegna . The letters are there to the left, i.e. H. written from right to left, and mirror-inverted. Except for the spelling mistake, the same letters were used as on the Bucchero chicken from Viterbo. In the 7th century the Etruscans initially wrote their inscriptions in a clockwise direction, from the 6th century BC onwards. Chr. Left-handed with mirror-inverted letters.
Since the chicken was probably used as an inkwell, the abecedarium was initially a practical memory aid when writing. The inscription also served as a decoration and demonstrated the owner's knowledge of the art of writing. It is believed that inscriptions on Etruscan artifacts also had a sacred character. The letters had a magical effect and the writing itself was a ritual act.
See also
literature
- Giuliano Bonfante , Larissa Bonfante : The Etruscan Language. An Introduction. 2nd Edition. Manchester University Press, Manchester / New York 2002, ISBN 0719055407 , pp. 52-55 and pp. 132-135.
Web links
- Metropolitan Museum of Art : Terracotta vase in the shape of a cockerel
- Pippa Steele: Inscription Spotlight: An Etruscan Cockerel , University of Cambridge, Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS), September 24, 2016