Etruscan Urn with Carved Medusa Head Puzzles Experts

News September 5, 2025

Etruscan urn carved with head of Medusa, Perugia, Italy
Ipogeo dei Volumni e Necropoli del Palazzone
SHARE:

PERUGIA, ITALY—During routine restoration work at the ancient Palazzone Necropolis in Perugia, Italy workers found a mystifying funerary urn that has challenged traditional ideas about Etruscan burial customs, according to the Greek Reporter. The travertine box was discovered in a third-century b.c. hypogeum, or underground tomb, and was decorated with an ornate Medusa head carved in relief, floral motifs, and cursive Etruscan writing. In Italic-Etruscan traditions, Medusa figures were apotropaic and were believed to protect the grave’s eternal inhabitants and ward off evil spirits. The tomb belonged to the Asci family. An inscription on a lead sheet found nearby indicates that the funerary vessel contained the remains of someone perhaps named Arnθ and possibly Larθi Caprti. When researchers opened the box, however, they did not find any bones or ashes, but three neatly placed small terracotta vessels. Researchers do not why the urn only contained these items, as such grave goods are not usually discovered in Etruscan funerary contexts. They suggest the urn may have served as a cenotaph, a symbolic burial created when the deceased’s body was either lost or buried elsewhere. To read about a fourth-century b.c. hypogeum uncovered on the island of Corsica, go to "A Funeral Fit for Etruscans."

  • Features September/October 2025

    Spirit Cave Connection

    The world’s oldest mummified person is the ancestor of Nevada’s Northern Paiute people

    Read Article
    Howard Goldbaum/allaroundnevada.com
  • Features September/October 2025

    Here Comes the Sun

    On a small Danish island 5,000 years ago, farmers crafted tokens to bring the sun out of the shadows

    Read Article
    Courtesy the National Museum of Denmark
  • Features September/October 2025

    Myth of the Golden Dragon

    Eclectic artifacts from tombs in northeastern China tell the story of a little-known dynasty

    Read Article
    Photograph courtesy Liaoning Provincial Museum, Liaoning Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and Chaoyang County Museum
  • Features September/October 2025

    Remote Sanctuary at the Crossroads of Empire

    Ancient Bactrians invented distinct ways to worship their gods 2,300 years ago in Tajikistan

    Read Article
    Excavations of the sanctuary in the village of Torbulok in southern
    Gunvor Lindström/Excavations supported by the German Research Foundation