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Etruscan Death and Divination: Gods and Goddesses of Death (Part 4) - Ep 10
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Explore the ancient Etruscan burial practices and deities of the underworld.
The Etruscans began rising to power around 900 BCE in Etruria, modern day Tuscany. They dominated the Italian peninsula and became a major political and economic force in the Mediterranean that left a legacy that shaped the region. Etruscan kings ruled over Rome until 509 BCE when an uprising removed the tyrannical monarch and people created the Roman Republic.
In this episode, we'll discover the Etruscan view of the journey to the underworld and the important role of horses in carrying the soul and the body to it's eternal destination. Learn about the elaborate celebrations that helped shape some of the most iconic Roman traditions. Uncover the cities for the dead with rock cut tombs shaped like family homes that reflect their emphasis on family connections in life. Then meet the guides, gatekeepers, and guardians of the Etruscan afterlife from the sun god who's dark side rules the underworld to goddesses who protect the deceased, and see how they changed over time as cultural exchange happened across the Mediterranean region.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast Network
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
Etruscan and Roman Death Deities
00:00:28
Speaker
Welcome to the past macabre, where we journey through history to explore how our relationship with death reflects the values, fears, and hopes that shape how people live. I'm your host, Stephanie Rice. Thank you for joining me for episode 10, Etruscan Death and Divination, Gods and Goddesses of Death Part 4. This is part of a series of episodes that will look at some of the many deities of death from around the world.
00:00:55
Speaker
In this episode, we'll continue to look at the deities of death in the Mediterranean region. The entire region was very interconnected for quite a long time, so it's not a simple one-way path of cultural exchange and religious exchange when tracing the origins of myths and deities.
00:01:15
Speaker
I won't complicate things by bringing in every connection a deity may have to the wider region, and I'll focus mostly on the Etruscan deities of death and some of the Roman deities that were strongly associated with them.
History and Language of the Etruscans
00:01:30
Speaker
Since the previous episode went into the Mycenaean and Greek death deities, I'll only briefly mention any Greek counterparts there are to these Etruscan deities, but I won't go into any in-depth info or comparisons. Be sure to check out episode 9 if you missed it so that you have that further context. Now let's explore a little bit of the history of the region and then dive into the Etruscan underworld.
00:02:03
Speaker
Around 900 BCE in the region now called Tuscany, the Etruscans began establishing several city states that would become important trade centers with both the Celts and the Greeks. What we know about the Etruscans comes from their material culture and Greek and Roman and other regional texts about them because the Etruscan language still hasn't been fully deciphered.
00:02:28
Speaker
Like the Rosetta Stone, there are multilingual engravings found with Etruscan on them, but not yet enough to crack it. Linguists know enough to identify a few words, names, and understand how words would be pronounced roughly because their written alphabet was adopted from the same ancient Greek traders and colonists in southern Italy, and the Latin alphabet was derived from theirs.
00:02:53
Speaker
I won't pretend to know the intricacies of how linguists trace these things, but it's now widely understood by linguists that Etruscan wasn't an Indo-European language like Greek and Latin, despite their close proximity, and they still aren't sure where Etruscan originated.
Etruscan Influence on Rome and Culture
00:03:12
Speaker
Latin, on the other hand, is traceable by linguists. It's a branch of the italic languages and the term italic is often used as a way to group cultures who all spoke the same language at first and then regional variations were created over time. The italic language family and cultures originated north of the Alps and then migrated into the Italian peninsula in several waves over centuries.
00:03:36
Speaker
One of these groups were called the Latini or Latins, and they're the original Latin language speakers. They migrated into the Italian peninsula roughly around the time the Etruscans were beginning to establish themselves as an important economic and political power in central Italy. The Latin settled in the region that they called Latium, which is modern day Lazio for the most part, to the south of what was then called Etruria.
00:04:05
Speaker
According to myth, Rome was founded on April 21st, 753 BCE. But the archaeological evidence shows it was likely founded around 900 BC and wasn't a distinctly Latin settlement, but it was fairly small at first.
00:04:21
Speaker
Now, to be clear, the Italian peninsula has been inhabited by people for a very, very long time, tens of thousands of years. There's even evidence throughout the Italian peninsula and closer to the Alps that Neanderthals and humans, Homo sapiens, lived roughly within the same regions at the same time.
00:04:44
Speaker
But in this context, we're only talking about the culture group of the Latins that became the Romans as we know them. And that's usually determined by archaeologists based on when a distinctly cultural idea begins to appear in the archaeological record. Most often, this pattern is found in burial practices because this is usually the thing that most cultures preserve the best.
Etruscan Burial Traditions and Art
00:05:13
Speaker
This small settlement that became Rome was near the borders of Latium, Etruria, and a separate italic group called the Sabines. The early evidence shows a mixture of all three cultures at a site that became part of the Roman Seven Hills from the founding myth.
00:05:33
Speaker
In fact, there's several things we've come to know as a core part of ancient Rome that came from its Etruscan roots and several of its neighbors. We'll be focusing on the Etruscan roots in this episode. For example, Rome's origin myth is heavily influenced by the Etruscans.
00:05:55
Speaker
According to linguists, the name Romulus has several possible Latin root words, but Remus isn't of Latin origin. It's closer to several Etruscan place names than any Latin name or word, and we know that there were Etruscan sites on these original seven hills of Rome, especially the Caelian hill, which was named for the legendary Etruscan hero, Caeli Vipina.
00:06:22
Speaker
The gladiatorial games weren't Roman either. They originated as dramatic sacrificial rites done during festivals for honoring the dead in Etruria. Depictions of these early games have been found in Etruscan tombs that are centuries older than the Roman evidence for them.
00:06:39
Speaker
Ancient Roman writers documented that the first gladiatorial games in Rome were originally held in 264 BCE as part of a funeral for the Roman consul Decimus Yanius Brutus Scavia.
00:06:54
Speaker
But they didn't specifically say where the idea came from, and they never specified that the gladiators who fell were seen as sacrificial victims. In their interpretation, it seemed to already have been seen as more of a celebratory context. It's very likely that by this time, the original ritual aspects had been lost over time through the many retellings of it, like a very long, drawn-out game of telephone.
00:07:23
Speaker
Rome grew because of its strategic location, but not as its own political entity at first. By 600 BCE, e Rome was a fully subjugated vassal kingdom of Etruria, and Etruscan kings sat on the throne of the Roman kingdom.
00:07:40
Speaker
But the Etruscan kings were not known for their benevolence, and in 509 BCE, e the Romans rose up against their tyrannical leaders. According to ancient accounts, one of the leaders of the rebellion was the nephew of the king, and his name was Lucius Unius Brutus. Rome seems to have had more than one man named Brutus in the rule of a tyrant in its history.
00:08:06
Speaker
The Etruscans never regained Rome and slowly lost all their power in the region. Eventually, they became absorbed by Rome and Latinized, which is where their language is replaced by Latin and very large parts of their culture were replaced as well. But their influence remains present in Tuscany today from the Etruscan names for places like Populonia and Chiusi.
00:08:34
Speaker
The architecture of the region kept a lot of its Etruscan roots for quite a while, which adds to the atmosphere of Tuscany, and even modern Tuscan cuisine holds a lot of similarities with Etruscan dishes. We know this thanks to the art in Etruscan tombs that depict banquets held in honor for the dead. Etruscans had their own views of the afterlife and burial practices before they became more and more heavily influenced by Rome and Greece.
Etruscan Underworld Deities
00:09:03
Speaker
In Etruria, family ties and bonds were a very important part of their lives, and this was also reflected in their burial practices. Etruscan necropolises were true cities of the dead, with streets, squares, and neighborhoods carved into the bedrock. The squares would be used for funerals or festivals dedicated to remembering the dead, and along the roads there were rows of thousands of tombs, all carved into the living rock.
00:09:31
Speaker
The tombs of elite families were built exactly like family homes and the extended family was buried within this eternal generational home. Less well-off people would be buried in cube-shaped single tombs, also called dice tombs, that would be near their relatives in a sort of generational neighborhood. These dice tombs would still look like homes, just much smaller versions of them without multiple rooms.
00:09:59
Speaker
The resting places for the dead within Etruscan tombs were carved into the stone and designed to look exactly like beds, complete with pillows. In later periods, when Etruscans were under Roman rule and adopted more Greek and Roman burial practices, they no longer carved beds into the tombs, but still painted them onto the walls to retain a bit of their heritage.
00:10:22
Speaker
Some of the oldest, most famous, and best preserved Etruscan tombs are found just 50 kilometers or 31 miles northwest of Rome. They're near Severetti at a site called the Necropolis of the Bandituche. This and some of the other necropolises in the area were continuously used from the 9th century to the 1st century BCE.
00:10:47
Speaker
So this lets researchers easily see the way that Etruscan tomb art and their depictions of death deities evolved over time. As with their burial practices, the Etruscans had their own views of gods and goddesses. At first, none of them were depicted in human forms the way that Greek and Roman gods were. Instead, natural phenomena were said to be the physical manifestations of the divine and how the divine communicated with humans.
00:11:16
Speaker
But over time, the Etruscans began adopting the imagery and aspects of the gods from other cultures, especially Greek and Roman gods. However, unlike many of the pantheons they drew inspiration from, the importance of family loyalty was just as evident in the Etruscan myths as it was in their burial practices.
00:11:37
Speaker
The ruling couple of the underworld, for example, are portrayed as happily married, and there is no evidence of the relationship starting with an abduction like with Hades and Persephone. The king of the underworld was Suri, who was also the god of the sun, fire, volcanic lightning, which is caused in some volcanic eruptions, and darkness and prophecy.
00:12:02
Speaker
He holds many titles to go along with his different attributes and was also associated with wolves and goats as his sacred animals. He was often depicted wearing a wolf's head and pelt, similar to Greek depictions of Heracles wearing the Nemean lion pelt. In some art, he's a full wolfman, very similar to our modern werewolf depictions.
00:12:26
Speaker
In this form, he is often called calu in Etruscan inscriptions or ceranus in Latin. Tomb art and Roman and Greek writers spoke of festivals that were dedicated to this aspect of him, where priests would dress as wolves, sacrifice a goat, then walk across burning embers carrying the goats in trails. Ancient writers said that this symbolized the descent into the underworld, which was a common theme associated with seeking prophetic knowledge throughout the region.
00:12:58
Speaker
Once the priests were on the other side, a fortune teller known as a Haruspex would read the entrails of the sacrificed goat to determine if the gods would be appeased and forgive any transgressions that the entire community had made in the years since the previous festival. The Roman festival of Lupercalia likely came from this and was adapted to celebrate the founding myth of Rome later, but I will delve into that in a future episode.
00:13:26
Speaker
Another epithet for Suri was Usul, and with this title, he was depicted as the sun rising over the ocean or a winged man with the solar disk crown holding two fireballs and rising over the ocean.
00:13:40
Speaker
Under the epithet, Manth, he was depicted as a winged old man holding torches, often sitting on a throne, with no evidence of any solar association. This aspect of Suri was the father of the demons of the underworld, and so the Romans associated him with their underworld deity, Desi Potter, who I will introduce you to a bit later in the episode to not confuse things now.
00:14:08
Speaker
Suri's solar and prophetic aspects became closer to Apollo over time, the Greek god of sun, music, prophecy, and more. This site of Suri was given the epithets wrath and apulu. The epithet wrath was often used on depictions of Haruspex, either in their initiation rituals or in some depictions of them at work. This indicates that he was likely what we would call the patron god of the Haruspaces.
00:14:37
Speaker
We don't know a ton about it, but this form of divination through reading the organs of sacrificed animals was carried well into the Roman period. Herod spices were depicted reading prophecies at very important state and religious events for Roman consuls and emperors. While this form of Suri wasn't depicted with direct ties to the underworld himself, the Herod spices who worshipped him were.
00:15:04
Speaker
Suri's volcanic lightning aspect had the epithet Vettis, or Vettis, who was depicted as a man holding arrows or a javelin that symbolized his lightning bolts. He was often shown with a goat by his side and it was attested in many sources that female goats were specifically the only sacrificial offerings to be made to him.
00:15:27
Speaker
and it was specified they must be sacrificed Ritu Humano, or in the manner of a human. Some researchers think that this distinction indicates that the ritual previously did include human sacrifice. As Vettis, he was fully adopted by the Romans as the god Vihovis, and over time he gained an association with healing, especially preventing and curing plagues.
00:15:57
Speaker
In death-related contexts, Suri was depicted more and more like Hades as Greco-Roman influence grew stronger throughout the Mediterranean. This led to him being given the name Eita. As Eita, his role as a solar deity was heavily minimized, but he kept his association with wolves even though Hades wasn't connected to them.
00:16:20
Speaker
He was still shown wearing the wolf pelt, and sometimes it was a bronze helmet shaped like a wolf's head, but he was no longer depicted as a wolfman. The Etruscan queen of the underworld and divine partner of Suri was Catha or Kafta. Less is known about her and her epithets, but she was likely a goddess of childbirth, the moon, and the spirits of the dead. Her sacred animals were horses, and this is how she's most often identified in Etruscan art.
00:16:50
Speaker
To the Etruscans, horses were also associated with the underworld as they carried the spirits of the dead from the world of the living. We'll get into the various ways Etruscans could get to the underworld and the roles that horses played in a bit. Katha was given the epithet Mania when she was depicted as a goddess who watched over the souls of dead mortals and kept her childbirth aspect as the mother of demons of the underworld.
00:17:17
Speaker
The Romans worshipped Mania as part of their pantheon as well, and she had pretty much the same aspects as her Etruscan counterpart. The Greeks also had a Mania in their pantheon, but she was purely a goddess of insanity and didn't have any of the underworld aspects, as the Etruscan and Roman Mania did. In Etruscan sources where Katha is identified as Mania, Suri is identified with the epithet of man.
00:17:46
Speaker
These two aspects were meant to complement each other and both of them were extremely just focused on their roles in the underworld as the parents and patriarch and matriarch of the demons of the underworld. Katha began to take on many aspects from Persephone by the 4th century BCE and was called Persepni by the Etruscans.
00:18:10
Speaker
She's depicted with snakes in her hair in this aspect, like they are accessories and not with snakes as hair, like Medusa from Greek Myth. A common image in Etruscan tombs during this period was Eita and Forsipnai as a happy couple dining together with a relaxed, personal, everyday feel to the paintings that's different from depictions of formal feasts.
00:18:32
Speaker
The deceased and their partner would often be depicted in the same way in their tombs, so it seems that they were mirroring the social norms of the time in both their art and the art of their gods. Next, we'll take a look at the deities and demons that were the subjects and children of Suri and Katha. One of the Etruscan gods who guided the souls of the dead to the underworld was Terms, who was adopted from the Greek god Hermes.
00:19:01
Speaker
Etruscan art also highlights his role as a messenger for the gods and he's often depicted with both Suri and the Etruscan sky god who became equated with Zeus. Terms was shown with the same winged hat and sandals as Hermes and also adopted the role as the god of travelers. But terms didn't keep most of the other attributes that Hermes was associated with.
00:19:24
Speaker
At least not in a widespread way, but often in borderlands and rural areas, there were variations in which aspects are emphasized from different sources. Most of the time when he's guiding the souls, terms wasn't shown for their entire journey. He was usually collecting the souls from the land of the living and then was shown taking them to the other deities who would serve as guides and protectors.
00:19:51
Speaker
One of these guardian deities was named Kaerun. His role is very similar to the Greek Kaeron, but Kaerun doesn't ferry the dead across any water. He takes them either on horseback or by chariot over the land route to the Etruscan underworld.
00:20:08
Speaker
The road traveled on this journey by the soul of the deceased was seen as a liminal space between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The Etruscans ritualized this in the land of the living through the journey their physical body traveled on the roads of the necropolis that they were going to be buried in. As I mentioned earlier in the episode, horses were often associated with the Etruscan underworld and were shown carrying souls to their eternal destination.
00:20:36
Speaker
This is because they were also an important part of daily life for the Etruscans who were known across the region for their horsemanship. There are many Etruscan tombs where people were buried with their horses and sometimes chariots too. This journey on horseback to the underworld was seen as very dangerous for the soul. So the community would hold rituals meant to celebrate the life of the deceased and purify both the deceased's physical body and their spirit.
00:21:06
Speaker
The earliest form of gladiatorial games were part of these rituals and horse races were too. Cairun was said to protect the spirit on their journey as these celebrations were performed in the land of the living. He was shown walking alongside the deceased as they rode a horse or driving the chariot they rode in. He was depicted this way in several tombs across Etruria.
00:21:33
Speaker
In fact, most Tumar included him either riding a horse, leading a horse, or driving the chariot. He carried a large hammer with him that he used as a weapon against anything that tried to interfere with the journey. He was depicted as large and ogre-like with boar tusks and bluish-gray skin like the dead.
00:21:57
Speaker
Once Cairun led the soul to the door of the underworld, which was often depicted as a large archway in Etruscan art. He unlocked it for them, but he couldn't go through himself. It wasn't it explicitly stated as far as we can tell that he couldn't go through. He's just never depicted as going through. He always remains on the other side between the underworld and the land of the living.
00:22:23
Speaker
Another guardian of souls for their land-based journey to the underworld was Banth, a goddess of fate. She was depicted as a winged woman carrying a torch and a scroll. The meaning of the scroll isn't very clear, but many researchers say it's to represent the person's fate being predetermined and then written down. She's most often depicted with Kaerun either at the door of the underworld or guiding the souls with him on the journey to the underworld.
00:22:53
Speaker
Unlike Cairun, Vanth wasn't shown actively leading the dead or their mounts. Instead, she was most often shown like an observer passively watching the journey or standing behind the royal couple of the underworld as if she was greeting the deceased. Cairun wasn't the only guardian of the door to the underworld. There was also the goddess Khulsu.
00:23:16
Speaker
She was the goddess of doorways and major transitions in life and therefore also associated with the door to the underworld and the transition between life and death. Unlike the previous two, she was able to come and go from the underworld as she pleased and wasn't only depicted with other deities. She was shown as a seemingly normal woman, no wings or other animal-like attributes like most of the other underworld deities of the Etruscan pantheon.
00:23:45
Speaker
She was shown opening the door to the underworld and welcoming the dead in, but was not depicted on the journey between leading the souls to the underworld. In addition to the land route previously mentioned, Etruscans believed there was a way to reach the underworld through the sea. The guides through this route were the mythical creatures known as Hippocamps.
00:24:10
Speaker
They aren't deities but deserve honorable mention because they're one of my favorite mythological creatures and are a very interesting concept of transportation into the afterlife. Hippocamps were depicted with the head and front hooves of a horse and the tail of a sea monster. Occasionally the front hooves are replaced with webbed feet and sometimes they have wings too.
Cultural Syncretism of Deities
00:24:33
Speaker
They were seen in Greek and Roman art as well and in several other cultures around the Mediterranean,
00:24:40
Speaker
It makes it a little bit difficult to tell where exactly they originated because the dates for most of this art overlaps very closely. But there are more depictions of them in Etruscan art than there are in Greek or Roman art, and horses were such an important part of the Etruscan culture that if hippocampus didn't originate in Etruria, they certainly fell in love with them and took off with the concept.
00:25:06
Speaker
which I can't blame them, as I said, one of my favorite supernatural creatures. It's widely accepted that hippocamps were inspired by real life seahorses, especially since several depictions of them have their proportions much closer to seahorse proportions than actual horse proportions, especially when it comes to narrow noses.
00:25:30
Speaker
There are two species of seahorses that live in the Mediterranean, the long snout seahorse and the short snout seahorse. Very original names. They do live in shallow waters, which makes them very easy to see. Nowadays, you don't even need to scuba dive in order to see them. In the Mediterranean, you can see them snorkeling. And I'm sure that when the populations were much larger in ancient times, it would have been even easier to see them from the shore or from boats.
00:26:00
Speaker
It's easy to understand the idea that they would be associated with souls. Seahorses seem to float through the water with very little effort and they have a very unique shape to them. And they're one of the only sea dwelling species with a prehensile tail, meaning they can use their tail to grab things. It's very fun to watch.
00:26:20
Speaker
I know I'm a nerd, but I think they're adorable. In Greek and Roman art, hippocampus were associated with Poseidon or Neptune in the case of the Romans and seen pulling his chariot. But for the Etruscans, they weren't associated with a specific god, just the association with the underworld and the journey to it.
00:26:41
Speaker
The last Etruscan deity we have is Febreus. I saved him for last because his identity became very entangled with several other Etruscan Greek and Roman gods and goddesses. He seems to have been initially a god of purification and an earth god specifically associated with metals, gems, and rare stone, similar to the Greek god Plutus.
00:27:06
Speaker
Then, just like the Greek god Plutus, his association with the Earth began to change over time to include the underworld, because it's under the Earth. According to the ancient writers, Februse meant underground one in Etruscan, but because his name sounded like the Latin word for purification, Februa, he became associated with purification rituals like the Roman goddess, Februa, or Februata.
00:27:35
Speaker
Februse became the god of purification rituals specifically done as part of Etruscan burial rites because of this association with Februa's purification. Eventually, the roles of Hades, Pluton, Suri as Eta, and as Calu, Februse and Februa all became blurred into one another and their various depictions.
00:28:02
Speaker
The Roman gods Orcus, Despotter, and Pluto also got thrown into the mix, made it very, very messy. There were various depictions all throughout the region that incorporated all sorts of different aspects of all of these different gods. Now, the Roman pantheon is very interesting because it took on aspects of the cultures that Rome absorbed instead of suppressing the indigenous religions.
00:28:28
Speaker
Sometimes they would adopt an entirely new god or goddess from the new pantheon, but usually they merged the foreign deities with whichever of theirs they thought was the closest. Most researchers tend to call this Romanization or Latinization, and sometimes it makes it a little bit difficult to identify the deities and names from other cultures because they would be written by Roman writers in with the Roman variations or equivalents instead of giving us the exact name of the original deity.
00:29:02
Speaker
One of the best and also most complicated examples of this is the depictions of the Roman god of the underworld. Orcus was likely the original Roman god of the underworld, and he had a portion of the underworld that shared his name too, just like Hades did. He was said to dole out punishment to the souls who deserved it, and his role as the Punisher of Oathbreakers specifically continued on long after Hades had been adopted as the king of the underworld.
00:29:32
Speaker
The realm of Orgus was said to be filled with monsters, like the snake-haired Gorgons, or the half-man, half-horse Centaurs, who were more often than not depicted as negative or evil monsters. It was also said that the Camara lived here, which was a monster with a lion head and a goat head, and then a tail that ends with a snake's head. It was depicted a lot in medieval times especially.
00:30:03
Speaker
As the Romans shuffled around their underworld aspects amongst their various deities, the realm of Orgus became more prominent than the god Orgus. Writers began referencing Orgus in the context of a deity less and less. I've mentioned Despotter, and he was a Roman god of the underworld too. His name means father of wealth because he started out as a god of wealth from the earth, like Plutus and Februse.
00:30:34
Speaker
Despater, though, was also associated with fertile land and the life cycle of plants in addition to metals, very much like a lot of the early versions of the fertility goddesses in Greece that were also associated with the underworld.
00:30:50
Speaker
Over time, Dese Potter became conflated with these same concepts of fertility and death, and this led to him being more and more associated with the underworld and syncretized with Hades, Plutus, Thebrous, and the calmer aspects of Suri and Orcus. Around the third century BCE, Pluto was born of this amalgamation of underworld and earth gods.
00:31:19
Speaker
Pluto was the ruler of the underworld and a god of abundance. He is often shown with keys, a scepter, and a horn-shaped basket that symbolized abundant harvests called a cornucopia. Pluto began replacing Hades in myths in the first century BCE. e For example, in retellings of the abduction of Persephone that was written by later writers, Pluto was named instead of Hades.
00:31:44
Speaker
The popularity of using Pluto as the name for the King of the Underworld carried on well past the fall of the Roman Empire. Many European writers of the 14th through 16th centuries CE used Pluto in their works that reference or are inspired by ancient mythologies. And thanks to them, that's why it's one of the most popular names still of the King of the Underworld today.
00:32:09
Speaker
Now to add to the fluctuating identity of the Roman king of the underworld, Pluto and Hades became associated with the Egyptian ruler of the underworld and god of fertility Osiris and the sacred Apis bull of the god Ta. I talk about Osiris and Ta in episode 7 so I won't go into details about them here. Be sure to give it a listen if you did miss it.
00:32:34
Speaker
This new combination of Egyptian, Etruscan, Roman, and Greek gods led to the creation of the god Serapis. The Roman Empire absolutely loved him. By the end of the first century CE, Serapis became one of the core deities of the Roman Empire. A temple dedicated to Isis and Serapis was built in Rome and his image was put on coins in several regions of the Roman Empire.
00:33:03
Speaker
He was depicted as a bearded man, very similar to Greco-Roman depictions of Zeus and was shown with a basket to represent his agricultural fertility aspect. He also held a scepter that showed his status as king and an ankh, which was the ancient Egyptian hieroglyph for life. Many statues of Serapis show him with Kerberos, the dog of Hades who guards the underworld, as well as the Eureus Cobra of ancient Egypt that was associated with kingship and the protector goddess Wadjet.
00:33:35
Speaker
The changes and regional variations of the ruling god of the underworld can show us what traditions and afterlife beliefs were important to people of a certain time period or region. The aspects and rituals that persist through several variations of this deity were likely kept because they held special significance, either to the mourners of the deceased or because it reflected widely accepted social norms of the time.
Burial Practices and Afterlife Beliefs
00:34:04
Speaker
The aspects that endure the longest or cycle back can often tell us what people held as most important that they wanted to reach back to their further back ancestors to connect with. Very similar to how ancient Egyptian kings would use iconography and names and places that were associated with much older Egyptian kings in order to solidify their kingship.
00:34:32
Speaker
The way that we treat our deceased loved ones is always going to be one of the most important aspects of humanity.
Episode Conclusion and Next Steps
00:34:41
Speaker
This carries through with our burial practices and with our belief system and whatever happens in the afterlife.
00:34:50
Speaker
And because of this and how enduring these practices are and how regular they are in comparison to many other rituals, they can tell us so, so much about the actual living society of the time. We'll explore the rest of the Roman gods and goddesses associated with death and the underworld in another episode. Thanks for joining me on this tour of the Etruscan deities and demons and their Roman overlap.
00:35:18
Speaker
In the next episode, I'll take a little break from Death Deities, and in honor of Valentine's Day, we'll explore the ways that people of the ancient world immortalized their love for one another in their tomb art and their burial practices. Until next time.
00:35:36
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Be sure to subscribe to keep up with new releases. Please leave a rating and a comment. That helps the show reach others who may be interested in the past macabre.
00:35:47
Speaker
For access to bonus content from all archaeology podcast network shows, become a member at arcpodnet dot.com slash members.
00:36:01
Speaker
slash members. You can find show notes for this and other episodes at arcpodnet
00:36:43
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network is 10 years old this year. Our executive producer is Ashley Airy, our social media coordinator is Matilda Seabreck, and our chief editor is Rachel Rodin. The Archaeology Podcast Network was co-founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in 2014 and is part of CulturoMedia and DigTech LLC. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.