The Lady From Lavinium

A fragment of a life-sized terracotta statue of an Etruscan woman
from ancient Lavinium housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
(Click-on images to enlarge)

"The legendary king Aeneas, father of the Latin race, fled from Troy to Macedonia, then Sicily, and finally to the Italian peninsula. There he founded a city called Lavinium (modern Pratica di Mare), a site eighteen miles south of Rome, which became a major religious center for the Latin people. The distinctive clothing and jewelry on this life-sized statue closely resemble those on fourth and third century B.C. terracottas found there. The elaborate necklaces and armband appear to be reproduced from molds of actual jewelry. Some of the pendants are decorated with reliefs depicting various Etruscan deities and heroes. Originally, this woman wore a pair of grape-cluster earrings. The one on her left ear is visible behind her long hair. When complete, the statue probably stood in a sanctuary and showed the young woman holding an incense box in her extended right hand. This rare statue is an exceptional example of the awakening sophistication of Italic artists, who over the following two centuries fused native traditions with imported ones and gave birth to the multifaceted art of Late Republican Rome."

- A description of the Lady from Lavinium - the terracotta statue fragment (shown centered above and inset right) from this New York Metropolitan Museum page. (Note: I am somewhat flummoxed as to why this statue is referred to as having "long" hair when, in fact it's shorter and straighter than the hair on most statues of women from any time period.)

"The tradition of making sculpture in terracotta represents one of the signal artistic accomplishments of ancient Italian cultures before and during the rise of Rome as the dominant regional power... The first recorded artist names on the peninsula in fact belong to sculptors who worked in clay, Vulca of Veii and Gorgasus and Damophilus of Magna Graecia...

Mass produced and finished by hand, terracottas were ubiquitous in the ancient Mediterranean. Usually modest in scale, statuettes circulated widely over long periods and through multiple generations of molds, providing critical evidence for regional styles, patterns of trade, and local cults. Commonly found in dwellings, graves, and sanctuaries, terracottas gave tangible form both to private spiritual beliefs and to public religious observances."

- An excerpt sourced from this .pdf. Inset left is a more common, classically-featured terracotta head from the same period.

"I began to feel an overwhelming obligation to question history. As a woman, I wanted to take this idea one step further. Since the dawn of written records, the vast majority of materials that scholars consider academically acceptable have been created by men of a certain social and political strata. We believe, usually without question, in the veracity of documents simply because they can be "authenticated" to a specific time period. Rarely do we take into account that they were written during darker days when women held a status lower than livestock and were believed to have no souls! How many magnificent stories have been lost to us because the women who starred in them weren't deemed important enough, even human enough, to merit mention? How many woman have been removed completely from history? And, would this apply most certainly to the women of the first century?"

- From the novel The Expected One by Kathleen McGowen (2006).

 "A new generation might forget where their freedoms came from, drifting back once again into the sandbar of silence. Sara Evans thinks that concern helps explain why so many second-wave women became scholars. 'Certainly I am not the only historian,' she writes, 'who wishes to spare the next generation the rage we experienced about having been cut off from our own history in all its complexity.'"

- Excerpt from Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, 2007.

***

No, this post is not another interlude; it's actually what would've and should've been a prelude to the entire series of empowerment posts I've been slowly churning out for months; the last of which (alas) is still "under construction." As it happened, I was looking through a book on classical Greek and Roman art the other day when I came upon the photo (seen above) of a statue of an anonymous woman from Lavinium, a port city in ancient Italy. I confess, I was startled. It is so unlike what one expects to find when looking at classical art, either Roman, Greek, Etruscan, Celtic, etc.  She almost seems medieval except that this isn't possible; she was created well over 2000 years ago. And, yet, nothing about the woman's image (inset right) is classical; not even the length of her neck. Note the intensity in her eyes, the generous mouth, her 20th century hairstyle: a straight bob framing her face. Note, too, her striking individuality, the unmistakable character in her face; she's an actual woman, not a generic, idealized version of a woman.

Then again, maybe it's just me. Perhaps, I'm merely in the dark about the true scope of ancient art and there's nothing anomalous about this piece at all. But, then again, much of Lavinium art from this period has only recently come to light.* And, what is coming to light is fairly strange. There is, for instance, the discovery of thousands of buried sculptures of various human body parts - referred to as "votives" - found all across Italy. The hypotheses is that they were offerings to the gods and goddesses in hopes of regaining health for various physical afflictions. Some of them are pictured below. (See the article: Why were thousands of clay body parts buried in ancient Italy?)

In any case, something tells me that sculptors in the early Roman empire were in high demand, not to mention highly respected. And, I would assume that many of the gynecological-related body parts were very often created by those who knew them best: women. And, as there's thousands of them, I'm guessing they must've worked!

Oddly enough, our lady from Lavinium looks very much like a statue I thought I saw in a cemetery a number of years ago while photographing its impressive grave monuments. Unfortunately, it was late in the day, so, I decided to come back and photograph her the following day. But, this was not to be. Eerily, after returning to the graveyard as intended, and searching for her for over two hours, I couldn't find her. I began to fear that I never saw the statue to begin with, and, slowly it occurred to me that, no, I actually hadn't. Because, when I really thought about it, the statue in my memory did not have the same classical facial features as every single one of the other statues in the cemetery. It also occurred to me that, In my memory, she was standing with a bluish glow around her as if it were nightfall and she was standing beneath the moon. But, this could not have been true; I had left the cemetery at twilight.

In the end I concluded the statue must have appeared in a dream I experienced the night before... an anomalous statue of a woman holding a chalice in one hand and a disc in the other... more like a pagan goddess than anything you'd find in a Roman Catholic cemetery in New England. Which was very spooky at the time and disorientating.... especially because I had confused reality with a dream.

So, what was that all about? To this day I don't know. But, seeing the lady of Lavinium opened that particular file in my memory banks. In other words, I guess it kind of shook me up to encounter a similar anomalous statue again.

As it was, smaller terracotta pieces were numerous in Rome and Greece at the time, allegedly made by men (of course) who were referred to as "modelers of girls." I don't think our featured statue portrayed a girl, however. She was young, but judging by her low-hanging breasts, a young adult. Speaking of her breasts, I also note that they are small and uneven, that is, not symmetrical - hardly the idealized specimens we'd expect in a work of art. Normally, I would not make a point of addressing this, but, as breasts are one of the issues that surface in my upcoming empowerment post I might as well broach the topic here.

Let's face it, one part of a woman's anatomy male artists - especially classical artists - would not fail to idealize is a woman's breasts... the fuller and more perfectly round the better.** In fact, one gets the impression that if it weren't for breasts, there would be a great deal less art and fewer male artists!

But, I digress. It was, however, with this thought in mind, that I had a kind of epiphany. And, this is how it went: there are few male artists who would devote their efforts to the expression on a woman's face while, at the same time, completely overlook the contours of her chest. Inset right is a perfect example of what a man might produce (no, darlings, the delicate folds of her headdress were not designed to frame her face). So, I think we can safely say, this is the work of a male artist. The lady from Lavinium, however, well, I have a strange intuition that she may have been a woman's work. Moreover, the woman was a renegade and a genius. In terms of enigmatic expressions, the Mona Lisa has nothing on our Lady of Lavinium!

And, yes, it could've happened. Etruscan women were amongst the more liberated women of the classical world and some assume the lady was created by an Etruscan artist. Moreover, we mustn't forget those fierce Italian women painters of the Italian Renaissance. Did we actually assume they appeared out of thin air? No, I don't believe they did. Others came before them; ancestors from a pre-Christian world and, specifically, a pagan world.*** So, if I were an art historian, you can bet I'd do a lot of digging around this particular place and time period. Perhaps, there are more silenced voices we need to listen to... and there is no time like the present.

As for the lady of Lavinium, she might be gazing into a mirror... assessing herself, scrutinizing herself as if she were, in actuality, her own subject. Might this be the case: our lady from Lavinium was a sculptress who modeled her own portrait in clay? Stranger things have happened.

_________________________________________

* According to information found on this history blog page, the Lavinium Archaeological Museum wasn't opened till 2005 due to a lot of red tape involving private land owners, bureaucrats and the "Archaeological Superintendency for metropolitan Rome." Apparently, in 2017, the archaeological site itself had just been opened to visitors.

Inset left is one of the terracotta statue fragments featured in the museum: an amazing woman holding what appears to be an elegantly-shaped container of some sort. Everything about this noblewoman is outstanding and has an almost contemporary appeal... from her clothing to the expression on her face. (Note: I want that hat!)

I think I've seen the future... and it looks like this woman...

(... and, it looks as if this woman is empowered.)

** Interestingly, classical statues of women often featured asymmetrical breasts; that is, one breast was often larger or differently-shaped than the other and/or misaligned with the other. We can see this on the lady from Lavinium as well. But, why was this, do you suppose? Was it some sort of code known only to artists?  Or, possibly a symbolic tribute to Amazonian culture and the warrior women who allegedly removed one breast?

Whatever the case, I found that bit of information on this wonderful UK site from 2013: Nemi to Nottingham: In the Footsteps of Fundilia. Happily, it seems as if other women - actual scholars - are also asking questions about pre-Christian artifacts... specifically those found at Nemi near the Temple of Diana... which somehow made their way to Nottingham Castle museum in the UK. Nemi, incidentally, was an area of ancient Latium as was Lavinium.

The website specifically centers on one enigmatic statue (as this post does): the Herm of Fundilla... who was allegedly sculpted by the "actor" Fundilius. Hmmm... you should definitely check out Fundilia!

*** How and why a pre-Christian civilization might allow a woman more equality and autonomy than the sum total of the patriarchal religious/political structures which followed is easily illustrated by the pagan pantheons of gods and goddesses; particularly (but not limited to) those deemed highest in the hierarchy.

In both Greece and Rome there were 12 major dieties: 6 male gods and 6 goddesses. Of the goddesses, 3 were virgin - Minerva (Menrva or Athena), Diana (Artemis), and Vesta (Hestia) - that is, without offspring. So, while there were most certainly Mother Goddesses for women to identify with, emulate and seek help from, there were also goddesses for women who would never bear children, either due to physical disability, personal preference, economic hardship... or lack of a mate. In other words, the virgin goddesses might have represented an honorable place in society for women who chose (or, were "chosen" for) an alternative route through life, up to and including those of artistic, intellectual and even mystical persuasion (i.e., the sibyls, and the vestals). Inset left is a Roman mosaic of an androgynous Minerva with an image of a gorgon on her chest.

Incidentally, the Etruscans had a very surprising sacred trinity. It was composed of 1 god and two goddesses: Tinia and his wife, Uni, and their daughter, Menrva!  Menrva was the Etruscan equivalent of Minerva (Athena), virgin goddess of wisdom, war, art, education, and medicine. She was also a lightning deity. (Note: the Celtic equivalent of Minerva might be Sulis.)

Meanwhile, the goddess Diana (inset right), although a virgin herself, was the goddess of childbirth and women in general. In her Wiki entry we read:

"Diana is the only pagan goddess mentioned by name in the New Testament (Acts 19). As a result, she became associated with many folk beliefs involving goddess-like supernatural figures that Catholic clergy wished to demonize.

In the Middle Ages, legends of night-time processions of spirits led by a female figure are recorded in the church records of Northern Italy, western Germany, and southern France. The spirits were said to enter houses and consume food which then miraculously re-appeared. They would sing and dance, and dispense advise regarding healing herbs and the whereabouts of lost objects. If the house was in good order, they would bring fertility and plenty. If not, they would bring curses to the family. Some women reported participating in these processions while their bodies still lay in bed. Historian Carlo Ginzburg has referred to these legendary spirit gatherings as "The Society of Diana."

     

Lastly, there were the mysterious sibyls - oracles, prophetesses and trance mediums - who allegedly channeled the gods.  Above are two sibyls from the Sistine Chapel painted by Michaelangelo. The first (left) is the Greek Delphic sibyl reading a scroll, and the second (right) is the amazing sibyl of Cumae studying a book... possibly one of the Sibylline Books of prophecies about which Wiki relates this legend:

"Centuries ago, concurrent with the 50th Olympiad, not long before the expulsion of Rome's kings, an old woman "who was not a native of the country" arrived incognita in Rome. She offered nine books of prophecies to King Tarquin; and as the king declined to purchase them, owing to the exorbitant price she demanded, she burned three and offered the remaining six to Tarquin at the same stiff price, which he again refused, whereupon she burned three more and repeated her offer. Tarquin then relented and purchased the last three at the full original price, whereupon she "disappeared from among men."

I love that story.