La Tomba del Tuffatore e la pittura tombale degli Etruschi

Since the years immediatedly following its discovery, the Tomb of the Diver has been compared with Etruscan funerary paintings. In order to explore these relations, I will focus about the main topics of the scientific discussion. Archaeologist and Art Historians mostly have concentraded on stylistic relationships, iconographic programs and, more specifically, on who commissioned the tomb. This approach helps overcome the problem on the Etruscan origin and its owner, allowing us to focus on its social dimension. The buried person was part of an aristocratic elite, ethnically transersal, and exhibited his ideological distinction through a privileged relationship with Dionysus. The use of representing the symposium in relation to death was common in both Greek and Etruscan aristocraties, it constituted the adherence to a privileged cultural model, and codified an individual solution to the passage of death by distinguishing a small social group from the community.