Transportation-Carvings - Etruscan Wagon Types

Not only roman sarcophagi has carvings on their front-side showing wagons.. this tradition is much older.

In the post on “ships and carvings” i launched some photos from the archaeological museum in Volterra, Tuscany, showing some ash-urns with ship-scenes on the side. Some of these scenes are made in the “same” mythical tradition as later the roman sarcophagi are, and therefore this kind of transportation-scenes might be of the kind showing the dead persons transport into afterlife.

Transportation-scenes on the Etruscan sarcophagi is not only represented in carvings concerned  with ships and sailing, but also in scenes showing the dead-transport in a wagon. In the Etruscan carvings, especially two types of wagon are seen; a two-wheeled triumphant-like wagon (see photo above) and a covered wagon, looking a bit like a house-wagon (see photo right). 

Of the first kind more examples are known since it is a standard motive in Etruscan and later in Roman art. The main person is transported on the wagon in a procession-like scene. Two sarcophagi, one from Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen (above) and one from the Vatican museum (see photo below) are here set to represent this theme.

The second type of wagon is, as mentioned above, more like a house-wagon, where the travellers are (often) seen lying in the wagon. This particular wagon was put on the ash-urns in Volterra, Tuscany, and so far I haven’t found it anywhere else in Etruria. In my next post I will try to deal some more with this; the Volterran Dead-Wagon.