Abstract
The project called An Eye on the Wing of a Demon as a Phenomenon on the Etruscan Relief Urns is carried out under the patronage of the internal grant of the Faculty of Arts at Charles University. The grant has duration of one academic year (October 4th, 2018 - September 30th, 2019).
The project will examine Etruscan relief urns with demonic winged beings proceeding from Hellenistic period and manufactured in Etruria. The subject of the research consists of a narrow group of relief urns on which the demons are depicted with an eye on their wings.
It is a very rare, up to now not properly researched phenomenon. Thanks to 'I rilievi delle urne etrusche' and 'Urne Volterrane' catalogues we know that most of them are in Volterra, but in some cases it is necessary to find out where exactly they are deposited.
One of the probable locations could be for instance the Gregorian Etruscan museum in Vatican, which lodges an extensive collection of Etruscan relief urns. The first fundamental goal of the project is to create a set of Etruscan urns with winged demonic figures with an eye on their wing.
While searching them (in the above mentioned catalogues), I will firstly focus on the locations where we know for sure the urns can be found (Volterra and probably Vatican) and where other specimens are also very likely to be stored. The second essential goal is to examine the importance of this extraordinary depiction, its origin and similarities between the individual urns.
We will try to confirm or rule out the possibility of them being the work of one artist or one workshop. The poster aims to accentuate this exceptional element as such and to present the current research.
The final output, presentation of the achieved results, would be eventually published in a domestic peer-reviewed journal, which will inform both the professional and the wider public about the studied phenomenon. The project's results also broaden the public knowledge of Etruscan culture, of the Etruscan notion of the underworld and moreover it will highlight this interesting phenomenon that has been so far neglected.
In my diploma thesis I focus on all Etruscan urns of the Hellenistic period in which the demons are depicted. However, the depiction of the eyes on the wings of demons is something extraordinary and no one in the Czech Republic or abroad is likely to go into depth of this unexplored area in the field of Etruscan demonology.
Many etruscologists consider Etruscan demonic beings as an area where there are still many questions waiting for their answers.