Etruscans Now
Ceramics, Technology and Workshop Production
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J.M. Berkin - Natural Resource Group, Inc.
A Consideration of Bucchero Production in Northern Etruria: The Orientalizing Bucchero from the Lower Building at Poggio Civitate (Murlo)
The excavation of the Lower Building at Poggio Civitate (Murlo) produced a large deposit of bucchero pottery that dates from the late Orientalizing period (ca. 650 – 575 B.C.). The analysis of the shapes and decorations of the bucchero suggests that the majority of the vessels recovered from the deposit were locally produced and belonged to a distinctive local style of bucchero. While the deposit also contained a few vessel types found at other Etruscan sites, most of the vessel shapes represent variant and unique vessel types. During the late Orientalizing period, northern Etruscan potters tended to develop their own unique and variant bucchero vessel shapes and decorative motifs. This pattern of local production was undoubtedly tied to the contemporary political situation in the north where numerous autonomous settlements flourished. The workshops in these settlements appear to have produced fine bucchero and other status items for limited markets, perhaps only for local consumption and to suit individual taste, as some of the more exotic vessels from northern sites attest.