Table of Contents
Manufacture
For what must have been the fifth time in that hour Larth cursed himself for his bad spending habits. He had drunk and played himself into debt, and did not have enough money to pay back what he owed. His only option was to sell himself into slavery to pay off those debts. Most who were sold into slavery over debt did not have to work in the clay mines, but Larth had never been lucky. Now he had to work for many hours a day without breaks surrounded by foreign slaves. And clay mining was not easy work. Today he had to work for ten hours mining for the clay. Larth carried his clay to the surface and continued his work.
The clay that Larth had helped mine was carried from the mine and through the mining town that had sprung up around it. Then it was carried to the nearby city of Caere by other clay-mining slaves where it was sold to a small workshop.
Mettius, an apprentice in the small workshop on the outskirts of Caere, helped carry the clay to a storage room. He took part of the clay back to his station to begin his work for the day. Many people came to Caere for help healing their ailments, as there were many healing temples in the vicinity. His job was to help create the small offerings to the gods that represented the places that hurt. Today Mettius was working on an ear. He wondered what illness the person who bought it would have. Would he be deaf perhaps?
Mettius had created a terracotta mold for the ear before, and would continue using it until he could not anymore. He began by mixing the clay with sand and other small coarse material. Then he pressed it into the ear mold. The back of the ear was completely out of the mold when he pushed it down. When he took the ear out of the mold he tried to smooth the back on both the right and left sides, however he did not smooth down the center and a slight ridge was left down the middle of the ear. After forming the ear he covered the rough clay with white slip so that the ear could be painted on after firing. Later, when the firing was done, Mettius painted the ear with red, black, and white paint to decorate and make the finished product ready for selling.
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The terracotta votive ear does not have a location where it was found, however there are similar artifacts that were found in Caere, where modern day city of Cerveteri is (Thomson, 2016). I looked at the manufacturing of objects around Caere to base the manufacturing of this terracotta votive ear. I was not able to find anything more specific about when the ear was made besides the 3rd-2nd century BCE.
Caere is in Northern Latium and is an Etruscan town that holds a healing cult (Thomson, 2016). Many votive artifacts are found in this area as people would come to Caere and give offerings to the gods. These offerings were small votive statues or specific body parts (Ceccarelli, 2007). Many of these artifacts are similar and found in the same areas, which makes me think that they were created in the vicinity of Caere. This is why the workshop is in Caere. The workshop would have gotten much of its business from the creation of votive terracotta. Caere is also six kilometers from the sea and so had trade with neighboring regions. This means that many people were able to reach Caere and the healing cult. Their pottery was sold to many places, as in Caere the ceramic workshops created many objects. The style of their ceramics was influenced by both Greeks and Roman, who Caere had a friendly relationship with very early on (Thomson, 2016).
The clay around Caere had mica and volcanic material. This clay was chosen because it was able to stand high temperatures without breaking. Clay was mixed with sand and coarser material so that during the firing process the objects would not shrink excessively and the object would not be distorted. I can see that these coarser materials were added to the ear as this material makes the objects more porous and the terracotta votive ear is porous. The paints were able to stick to the terracotta much more easily because of this. The black paint is visible in these holes, and the white and red paints are clearly visible on large sections of the ear.
Terracotta votive heads and other objects that are found around Caere are created in molds, so it would not be unlikely for a votive ear to be created from a mold (Gisela, 1948). Only the front of the ear was in a mold, as the back shows ridges where someone, by hand, was smoothing the surface. The back was not completely smooth, which is why I believe that the creator of this ear was an apprentice who did not have the skills to create a completely smooth ear.
Use
Messia walked toward the workshop. She was looking to purchase a model of an ear to dedicate at the healing cult at Caere. Her youngest daughter had some sort of hurt in her ear, causing her to be in a lot of pain throughout the day. Messia was hoping to find a way to heal her daughter’s ear.
Messia purchased her ear from a small workshop on the outskirts of Caere and began to make her way to the healing temples. They were easy to find, Messia had asked for directions from a helpful stranger who had pointed her well. The temples stood out in all their beauty from the other buildings.
As Messia entered the temple she was struck with a sense of awe. The temple was beautiful, large, and colorful. It was made from the finest timber and sheathed by terracotta tiles. To Messia the tiles made the temple look very grand. The roof of the temple was decorated with statues and painted exciting colors. The temple Messia entered was for the god Tin. She had decided to dedicate the votive ear to Tin as he was the father of the gods, and may want to help out children to heal.
As she looked around the temple, Messia became self-conscious of what she had brought to offer. Among the other offerings were kourotrophos, standing figures of mothers with children, and other larger objects. Messia wished she could have afforded to buy a larger votive to dedicate for her baby daughter.
She placed the votive ear down in a shrine and said a prayer to invoke the help of Tin in healing her daughter. Nearby a priest was giving an offering of incense and the smell of myrrh drifted near to her. The smell was nice, and she knew it would be easy to fall asleep in the temple that night so she could get a vision with instructions on how to heal her child.
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The temples in Caere were built from timber as this more readily available than other construction materials. To decorate these timber buildings the outsides were covered in terracotta tiles. They would be on the roof and the sides of the buildings. Statues were positioned on the roof as decoration, and plaques were also used. These were painted for a more pleasing to look at temple.
The most common types of votive offerings left in Caere were anatomical models, usually made out of bronze, and statues called kourotrophoi. These statues depicted figures, either seated or standing, that were usually a mother and a child. Other variations were couples, both female or one male and one female figure, with a smaller figure of a child between them. The purpose of these statues was most likely for fertility, help with childbirth, or illnesses in young children (Ceccarelli, 2007). These intricate statues are larger than the terracotta votive ear and more ornate, and would most likely have been more expensive.
In Caere the gods most referenced were Zeus, Dionysos, and Herakles. The Etruscan names for Zeus and Dionysos were Tin and Fufluns respectively (Turfa, 2005). I chose to use Tin as he is the head of the pantheon of gods. To invoke a god an offering was left at their shrine and a prayer was said. The person invoking the god would sleep over in the temple to have a prophetic dream. The dream told the person how to cure the illness or pain that they were asking about.
Reuse
The votive terracotta ear sat on the shelf in the temple surrounded by many other offerings. The shelf had begun to fill up as other people travelled to the healing temple to pray to the gods for help. Among the objects they left were terracotta figures of mothers and children, kourotrophos, and votive objects shaped like the body parts which ailed them. Sometimes the objects were made of terracotta and others were made of bronze.
Messia arrived back to the healing temple a few months after she had gone to pray. She lived somewhat nearby so it was not an impossible journey for her to undertake. She arrived at the temple and searched for her votive terracotta ear that she had left on the shelf. It was still there, but took a while to find as there were more objects surrounding it. Messia had placed her object in the temple at the right time, just after it had been cleared and the old objects had been deposited, so that even a few months later her object was still remaining on the shelf. She located the ear on the shelf, it had taken a while because it had been hidden from her view by a large terracotta foot.
Messia took the votive object in her hands and prayed to Tin, the leader of the gods. When she had spent the night in the healing temple a few months ago she had received a dream from the god who told her how to heal her child, which advice she followed. Now her child’s ear no longer hurt and she was completely healthy.
***
Many people traveled to healing temples to give offerings to the gods in return for help with their illnesses, this meant that many offerings were left at the altars (Ceccarelli, 2007). Over time many objects are collected in the temples. These objects need to be gotten rid of, but since they are dedicated to gods it would be disrespectful to throw them away or reuse them in other setting than for the gods. The most common way to dispose of these objects in a respectful way is for the priests to bury these objects when there are too many. Messia came at just the right time to place her object when there were fewer objects which meant it would be a longer time before the objects are disposed of.
Many objects were offered to the gods. The votive objects in the shape of body parts like the terracotta ear were only a small portion of those. At Caere the most commonly found objects were the kourotroph, the figurine of mother and child. These came in another variation of two adults with a child. Childhood was a dangerous time in the ancient world, and praying to the gods was part of that help. (Thomson, 2016)
Messia prayed to the god who helped heal her child as the gods are known to be finicky people who can easily turn on people that they help. By coming back and praying again to the god that helped her she is ensuring that she is not taking for granted the help that he gave her, which could cause him to act angrily. Also this is a way to just give thanks for the help that the god have given to her life and her family.
Deposition
Many people had visited the healing cult, both from the surrounding areas and from far away cities, to ask the gods for assistance with their ailments. The stone shelves of the temple were once again crowded with votive offerings. Almost all the space had been filled, so new petitioners could not easily find space to place their objects. All sorts of objects had been placed on the shelves, from bronze sculptures of legs to terracotta ears, but most of all were statues of women and children made out of terracotta.
The priests of the temple had decided, after a few years, to clear the shelf again, to make way for the new dedications. Of course, these objects were dedicated to the leader of the gods, Tin, and could not be used for any other purpose. The only way to treat these objects, and in extension Tin, with respect was to dispose of them properly by burying them.
Marcus, a priest at the temple was given the task of disposing of these objects. The location he and the other priests had chosen was deliberate: adjacent to the outside of the temple’s walls. This was to keep them in a sacred area without digging in the temple itself.
Marcus deposited the objects into a hole dug next to the temple. He placed the objects in one by one very carefully and deliberately, trying not to damage any of the objects. Doing so could anger the gods. Once all the objects had been placed in the hole, it was filled.
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Objects dedicated to the gods “were displayed in a sanctuary for a long time” (Ceccarelli, 2007). After this time, objects dedicate to the gods would have filled the stone shelf of the temple. This would cause it to be unusable to the next who would try to offer objects. These objects were sacred, and as such could not be reused or disposed of without a ritual.
Because this object was not found by Van Buren at a site, it is hard to know what could have been included with the object and how it entered the archaeological record. I used similar objects and contexts to figure out an idea of what could have happened to the ear after its use and display in the temple. Many similar objects were found in Cerveteri where the ancient city of Caere, a town with healing temples, once was.
These objects were “ritually discarded” (Ceccarelli, 2007) by being deposited into the ground near the temples. At Cerveteri there was a “Large votive deposit was excavated next to the external face of an archaic fortification wall adjacent to the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore” (Gleba, 2008). I followed this idea for the deposit at the healing temple. The deposit would be outside the walls of the temple, but still very close by.
The items that were deposited near temples were mostly the votive objects dedicated at that same temple. Of these objects, most were figures of women, couples with children, and one adult and one child. There were small anatomical sculptures like that of the terracotta votive ear, but those were in the minority (Bradley, 1997). The terracotta ear was left unbroken when it was deposited into the ground. Other objects that were deposited in similar was seem to also be mostly unbroken. The terracotta ear is small, 2 cm by 4 cm, and as such it may be harder for it to break.
Acquisition
Luigi Fiorentini walked toward a promising piece of land near the remains of the walls of a building. Maybe the building had been a temple? He could not tell anymore but liked to guess. He knew that temples tended to had large collections of artifacts both inside them and around. These were the objects that people had given as gifts to the gods.
He and his group of looters, though they did not call themselves that, had had a lot of luck digging in the tombs to find artifacts. It was a good way to earn money. There were so many artifacts in Italy that a few sold directly to outsiders might not do any harm, and would bring them much needed money.
Luigi wanted to find some objects from other areas of the city. He began by digging around the temple searching for deposits of artifacts. After he had searched for a long, hot while in the sun he came across a section that contained a large amount of objects, small figures made of bronze and terracotta. Luigi was ecstatic. This was a great find and he had made it, which meant he would be getting a large amount of the profits!
A good place to sell artifacts was in Rome. More specifically Luigi like to sell the goods in Isola Farnese, which was a neighborhood of Rome. It was full of historians and tourists all wanting to get their hands on genuine artifacts from the ancient world. Sometimes it was difficult to transport the artifacts, but Cerveteri was close to Rome and small objects were much easier to transport than large, more breakable objects.
Luigi was talking to an American student who had introduced, probably fresh out of graduate school, but Luigi had never been good at figuring out ages, trying to convince him to buy the artifacts he had discovered. He managed to sell to the student a few votive objects, including a foot, head, and a small ear. These were cheaper objects than the vases that many bought, probably because a student could not afford the more expensive objects.
***
The town of Cerveteri was known to have been the site of the ancient city-state of Caere, one of the most important cities in Etruria. It had become such an important city through its port, Pyrgi, and because of the sanctuary temples built in the 500s BCE. Now, it is known for these temples and the large amount of tombs that range from the 9th Century BCE to the 1st Century CE (Badian, 2009). Cerveteri is a much smaller city than Caere was in its prime. It is now mostly know because of the ancient city that had been built before it. Because of the tombs and temples Caere was filled with many objects that people who were not archaeologists dug up to sell and collect.
Cerveteri is just outside of Rome, about an hour trip by car now. This means that transporting the artifacts into the heart of Rome to sell would have been very easy. They may have used cars, but still in the early 1900s, and around 1902 when Van Buren acquired his objects, they may have used horse drawn carts especially because of the short distance between the two cities.
Albert William Van Buren was a Professor of Archaeology and Curator of the Archeological Study Collection and the American Academy in Rome. He collected many artifacts over the time that he was in Italy. The collection that Smith College owns, which includes the terracotta votive ear, was collected from 1902 to 1906 when he was a Fellow of the American School of Classical Studies in Rome. He originally housed this collection to Phelps Hall at Yale in 1908. Later on in 1925 he sold his study collection to Professor F. Warren Wright in the Smith College Latin Department. Now, the collection is housed in Neilson Library in a Classics Study Room (Bradbury, 2011).
Van Buren recorded his collection in a private notebook. The entry on the terracotta votive eat is fairly empty, on with a number, name of the object, and a few measurements. (Van Buren, 45) However, there were similar objects that had more details. I decided to place the terracotta votive ear in similar context with these by placing the votive ear in Isola Farnese, Rome where other objects had been recorded to have been purchased. Van Buren purchased a Fragment of a terracotta frieze, a votive terracotta foot, and a votive terracotta head (Van Buren, 39). The name Luigi Fiorentini was written as the source that Van Buren bought both the votive terracotta foot and head, so I decided to use him as the dealer for the terracotta votive ear.
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