The Etruscans emerge from oblivion at the Musée de la Romanité in Nîmes

The exhibition. From IX^e at I^er century BC. AD, the Etruscans, who occupied the center of Italy (Tuscany, Umbria, Latium), were one of the major peoples of the western Mediterranean. Yet many aspects of their culture still remain unknown. The Musée de la Romanité, in Nîmes (Gard), takes stock of our knowledge, devoting an exhibition to this civilization that aims to be exhaustive and didactic.

For a long time, the Etruscans were an enigma shrouded in mystery. Today, in the light of the latest archaeological discoveries, both terrestrial (necropolises and foundations of sites) and maritime (wrecks), we know more about this people. However, there are still large gray areas, due in particular to the small number of texts that have come down to us, mainly epitaphs, the meaning of which continues to elude us.

This ignorance explains why this hedonistic and refined civilization does not have the place it deserves, as explained by Raffaella Gafa, in charge of studies in the conservation of the Museum of Romanism. “Recent research has shown that Rome is an Etruscan creation, she says. Before, the site was only occupied by a few villages. » Experts in town planning, architecture and hydraulics, the Etruscans built the first ramparts of the Eternal City and the Cloaca Maximathe main sewer, which made it possible to clean up the bottom of the valley and to develop the Forum Romanum, the historical, political and economic heart of the city. The Romans also inherited from their neighbors the practice of divinatory arts, in particular the observation of the entrails of sacrificed animals.

This is also the case for many symbols of Romanism such as the toga, the curule seat, reserved for men of power, and the lictor’s bundle, a mark of the military and political power of the magistrate, which has even crossed the centuries to become the emblem of certain parties or political regimes. Obviously, the contribution of the Etruscans is just as important as that of the Greeks. This point alone would justify the presentation of this event in this museum devoted to Romanism, but to this reason is added a second: the presence in its reserves of 90 pieces of Etruscan origin from the collection of the Marquis Campana, bought by Napoleon III in its almost totality. Some of them appear in this exhibition alongside the 140 works on loan from the museums of Florence and Volterra, to which are added objects from underwater excavations in particular, carried out in the south of France. They teach us that the Etruscan presence in southern Gaul was much more important than we supposed.

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