DATEBOOK PICK
The Etruscans are often the undersung sibling of the ancient Mediterranean.
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“The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy”: 9:30-5:15 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. On view through Sept. 20. $15-$30. Legion of Honor, Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave., S.F. www.famsf.org
From around 900 B.C. to 100 B.C., contemporary with the Ancient Greeks and predating the Roman Empire, the Etruscans were a dominant power in the western Mediterranean, primarily in the Tuscan region of Italy. Their contributions to art, architecture and engineering were essential in laying the foundation for modern life.
Now after more than a decade of new scholarship, Renée Dreyfus, curator in charge of ancient art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, has mounted a show that will raise their profile with “The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy” at the Legion of Honor Museum.
The exhibition greatly benefits from new archeological discoveries and feature more than 150 examples of well-preserved bronze and terracotta sculpture, gorgeously crafted gold jewelry, detailed ceramics and architectural fragments displayed to reveal how the structures they came from would have looked intact. Among the standout pieces is an exquisitely carved stone sarcophagus showing the figure of a woman reclining.
“The Etruscans” also shows the longest-surviving piece of Etruscan writing, the Liber Linteus, a linen manuscript that was used as a religious calendar and documentation of ritual sacrifices.
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This article originally published at A rare San Francisco exhibition reveals the ancient civilization hiding in Rome’s shadow.