ETRUSCAN MUSIC

   The data for Etruscan music are both artistic and from some surviving instruments. The evidence of painted tombs from Tarquinia and carved reliefs from Chiusi provides considerable support for the importance of music among the Etruscans. Artistic evidence of this type concentrates on the double pipes (auloi) and stringed instruments, which include the lyre (from appoximately 700 BC) and the kithara (in its simpler cylinder form, from appoximately 520 BC). Brass lip-reed wind instruments are not only depicted but also survive, including two examples of a lituus (a long, hook-shaped trumpet that had a powerful ritual aspect from its shared shape with the staff of the augur). The first is from Caere and the second was recently discovered in an important seventh-century BC ritual deposit at Tarquinia. Another important form is that of the U-shaped cornu (horn), that, in time, became almost circular in shape. The context of music was often ritual and more particularly in funerary ceremonies that included dance.