Etruscan funerary ritual

Carved in low relief between cornice-like upper and lower borders, this limestone base depicts scenes of funerary ritual on all four sides.
A: Laying out the body
Two Tuscan columns support a pediment with a disc acroterium at the apex and lions as corner acroteria. Inside the architecture, the deceased lies in state on his or her deathbed. Two women stand inside the building as well, behind the bed; they turn to the right and raise their arms. A man at right grasps the column beside him and hits his head against it as a sign of mourning. A pendant figure at left, also outside the house, plays the flute. Although the elaborate roof ornaments would befit a temple, temples were not used to lay out the deceased before burial; the location must therefore be an opulently adorned private house.
B: Horse race
Two horses gallop to the left. A rider wearing a knee-length garment sits on the leftmost horse while a similarly dressed man lies under the horse, one of his legs twisted into an almost decorative design – presumably he has fallen from his mount. Behind the horses at right stand two men raising their arms in greeting. They are clad in long luxurious robes and necklaces, and their long hair is carefully coiffed. They may represent onlookers or perhaps the organizers of the horse race.
C: Banquet
A kline with elegant turned legs stands at the center of the scene. On it recline two young men at a symposium. Their torsos are bare, but they wear crowns on their heads and robes wrapped around their lower bodies and legs. The left of the two holds a drinking cup in one hand, and with the other takes an object (a taenia?) from a woman standing to the left. A boy with a ladle stands between them. The righthand of the two reclining youths holds a taenia in one hand and a pomegranate in the other. He turns his head toward a figure dressed in long robes standing beside the kline. In front of him is an olla and a stand with a large wine vessel placed decoratively atop it; a wine cooler (psykter) peeks above the rim of the vessel.
D: Dance
Four women in long chitons stand facing rightward, although the second from the left turns to look back. They clench their hands into fists, thumbs protruding, and alternately raise their arms or hold them in front of their breasts – apparently in a dance of mourning. The women’s disc earrings and costly clothing indicates that they are family or friends of the deceased rather than professional mourners.
Chiusine limestone cippi consist of a base, like this one, and an element shaped like a pine cone set atop it. While some of the bases are solid blocks, deep hollows in the top of others (including the Berlin piece) suggest that they could also have functioned as ash urns. Deep angled notches at the edges of the Berlin base certainly contributed to the breaks that now run through the piece, but what purpose they originally served is unclear. Interestingly, recent excavations have brought to light such damaged cippi even in undisturbed tomb contexts. If they were ritually destroyed before being placed in the tomb, the practice was unique to these cippi and did not affect other types of ash urn. The assumption that libations were poured into the hollow to dribble down into the notches is unlikely, given that solid cippi also feature such notches.
The scenes represent various activities of the funeral ceremony: the laying out of the body (prothesis) before bringing it to the grave; the athletic competitions in honour of the deceased; and the mourning dances. Dance scenes also appear on other Chiusine ash urns and cippi, as well as in wall painting in Archaic Etruscan tombs; they lend a festive quality to the farewell rites. The banquet scene may refer to a real feast held by the mourners, perhaps one in which the deceased was imagined to take part. Obscuring the boundary between living and dead is typical of Etruscan art.