70 F. B. Tarbell 



early Greek and Etruscan art. However, he is not unknown in early art, 

 sometimes with wings, sometimes without, the snaky legs sometimes taper- 

 ing off into tails, sometimes terminating in heads, as here. The human head 

 is usually bearded, but not always.^ 



Inasmuch as there is no record of the character of the tomb or tombs 

 in which the three sarcophagi under discussion were found, nor of the asso- 

 ciated pottery or other objects, if there were any such, there is no evidence 

 as to the period or periods to which they should be assigned, except such as 

 is afforded by the form of the sarcophagi themselves and by the character 

 of the paintings. At Narce in the Faliscan territory, if we are to trust in 

 this particular the elaborate, but much discredited, report in the Monumenti 

 antichi (Vol. IV), sarcophagi of this form belong to the earliest chamber 

 tombs (p. 148), there assigned to the seventh century B.C. (p. 160), and are 

 later replaced by a funeral couch of tuff, on which the corpse was laid with- 

 out a covering. The intelligent excavator, Fausto Benedetti, who carried 

 on much of the work on that site, assigns this form to a second period in the 

 evolution of burial in chamber tombs.^ In any case, the practices at Narce 

 and at Toscanella may not have been identical. Thus there is little but the 

 character of the paintings to determine the date or dates. It is obvious that 

 A and B are archaic. Assuming that Etruria did not lag much, if at all, 

 behind Greece in the development of drawing, we may say that the eyes 

 of the sphinxes, drawn in full front view, with the circle which represents 

 iris and pupil placed in the middle of the opening between the lids, indicate 

 a date before 480 b.c. and probably before 500 B.C. All things considered, 

 some time in the latter half of the sixth century (550-501 B.C.) may be 

 suggested for A. B may, I think, be contemporary with A, in spite of the 

 fact that the coiled bodies of the hippocamps have not hitherto been known 

 to occur before the fifth century. C, on the other hand, looks decidedly 

 later than A. Its more varied coloring is favorable to this conclusion. So 

 is its more truthful and animated rendering of the aquatic birds. So are 

 the types of its sea dragons. And, above all, in view of the unsuccess of 

 the vase painters of the sixth century, whether working in the black- 

 figured^ or the red-figured'' style, in their occasional attempts to render the 



' FurtwXngler, Die antiken Gemmen, Plates XVIII, 51; LXIII, 14; LXIV, 28. 



» Benedetti, Gli scavi di Narce, pp. 19, 21. 



3 For instance, Francois vase: Furtwangler-Reichhold, Griechische Vasenmalerei, 

 Plates I-II; Chalcidian amphora: Monumenti dell' Institute, Vol. I, Plate LI; terra- 

 cotta plaque in Berlin: Antike Denkmaler, Vol. II, Plate X, i. 



<For instance, amphora of Andocides: Furtwangler-Reichhold, op. cit., Plate 

 CXXXIII; psycter of Euphronius, ibid., Plate LXIII. 



