Abstract
There is a substantial amount of Etruscan art featuring waterfowl, but very little research has been dedicated (by ancient or modern historians) to discovering what the birds had meant to the ancient civilization to warrant such a proliferation of their visual representation. There are multiple ways that waterfowl could function in Etruscan values, which seem to be largely apotropaic due to their liminality in occupying land, water, and the sky as well as their more practical uses such as providing food through their meat and eggs. These symbols can provide apotropaic protection during transitional occasions in a person’s life, such as childhood, marriage, and death. Moreover, they may represent an aspect of cultural and aesthetic pride in local resources. Waterfowl imagery is likely associated with or representative of the gods which led to the production of ritual objects. The purpose of this research is to better establish waterfowl iconography in modern writing through formal analyses and by comparing waterfowl to related Etruscan symbols as well as to the use of similar imagery in contemporary cultures (i.e., Greek, Roman, and Egyptian).
How to Cite
Peragine, J., (2022) “Revealing the Liminal Role of Waterfowl in Etruscan Art”, Capstone, The UNC Asheville Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship 35(1).
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