Cinerary Urn with Eteokles and Polyneikes (Main View, front, post-cons.)

The Etruscans cremated the dead and placed their remains in stone or terracotta urns. These were usually decorated with figural scenes on the sides and a portrait of the deceased reclining on the lid. Stock figures were often recombined and used to illustrate different myths. The relief on this chest may depict the legendary victory of the Trojan prince Aeneas, shown crouching on one knee at the center, over the Latin king Turnus, who collapses on his shield at the far right. The dead Turnus is supported by a woman, who may be his sister Juturna. Between the two adversaries is the old king Latinus, who kneels and raises his hand in a victory salute. Behind him, the agitated woman who gesticulates in anguish may be Lavinia or her mother Amata. A winged female demon stands at left, signaling the funerary character of the scene. In Roman mythology, Turnus was Aeneas’s rival for the Latin princess Lavinia, whom the goddess Juno promised to Aeneas in marriage. Episodes from this story, which is recounted in Virgil’s Aeneid, are illustrated on several other funerary reliefs from Volterra, the site of prolific production of cinerary urns.