Thesis (M.S.)--Florida State University, 2006. / Advisor: Nancy T. de Grummond, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of Classics. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 15, 2006). Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 187 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

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In this dissertation, I focus on the creative and commercial activities of the Nikosthenes workshop, a Greek vase-painting enterprise that operated in Athens between 545 and 510 BCE. My research examines the objects produced by the workshop, the artists who produced them, and the different contexts in which these objects were made and found. By using a fixed set of data, the painted vases signed and/or attributed to the Nikosthenes workshop, I argue that this particular enterprise was central to a number of important developments in the art of vase-painting during the Archaic period and that non-Athenian artists were a significant part of its workforce. Moreover, I argue that the shared painted signature that appears on 149 vases from this workshop represents a savvy business that catered to customer demands and nimbly shifted its aesthetic according to varying tastes. My dissertation is the first comprehensive study devoted to the Nikosthenes workshop in over twenty years, and my research represents a major shift in method and approach to the topic. In the first chapter, I explore the artistic identity of the Nikosthenes workshop by examining what is known about artists in antiquity more generally and what has been written about Nikosthenes as an individual artist. Signatures are an important part of this discussion, in that their survival on painted vases continues to play a significant role in how scholars interpret vase-painting artists and their artistic personalities. I propose that a diverse group of artists contributed to the workshop’s identity, and I discuss their contributions in chapter two. I place these artists in their busy workshop setting by examining the evidence for their physical spaces, and I profile some of the most important Athenian and non-Athenian artists who worked therein. In chapter three, I focus on the creative developments pioneered by the Nikosthenes enterprise, and I highlight the many ways these innovations were the result of complex reinterpretation of foreign aesthetic and likely carried out by non-Athenian artists in the shop. I end the project with the fourth chapter which presents the distribution of the Nikosthenes vases, and I show how the geographical patterns indicate that there were different types of vessels going to different customers. I argue that Nikosthenes, while both an individual artist and a workshop, is best thought of as a brand that catered to the demands of a growing overseas market.

Between 1961 and 1963 a large terraced Etruscan building on the southside of the Acropolis at the archaeological site of San Giovenale in Italy was excavated. The building, named House K, remained largely unpublished and unstudied throughout the years, leaving our picture of the ancient settlement at San Giovenale incomplete. This thesis aims to get a better understanding of the Etruscan architecture, settlement, culture, and society at San Giovenale, by doing an architectural analysis of the building of House K, using unpublished field journals, drawings, and photographs. By comparing the architecture of House K and any structural elements immediately connected with the building, to other structures at San Giovenale, as well as other Etruscan sites, this thesis set out to learn: what kind of structure House K is; what function it had; what its relative dating is; what role it played in the settlement at San Giovenale; and what it can tell us regarding the society and culture at San Giovenale. Using environment-behaviour relations and building archaeology, the study first examined the structural elements of House K, before comparing House K to other structures at San Giovenale built 700–400 BCE. Thereafter, the study looked at parallels outside of San Giovenale, looking at the sites of Acquarossa, Luni sul Mignone, Poggio Civitate, Cerveteri, Pyrgi, Montetosto, Vulci, and Narce. Finally, a discussion was had regarding the character and function of House K, whether it was public, private, sacred, or profane. In the course of the study, an architectural chronology of San Giovenale was established, which dated the construction date of House K to between c. 565 BCE and the late 6th century BCE. The interpretation of the function of House K that seems most probable is that it was a monumental building complex of administrative, political and/or religious significance, which probably also acted as a residence for the ruling elite at San Giovenale – in other words: a palazzo. House K being a palazzo would mean that there was a centralised authority at San Giovenale, suggesting that there was some sort of ruler or leader at the top of the social hierarchy, splitting the social division at San Giovenale further than it was previously believed to have been.

The following work is the result of three years of research for my Ph.D. at the University of Trento, Faculty of Law. The aim of my research is to give an account of the Etruscan legal system by analysing both direct and indirect sources. For this, I have attempted to use historical, linguistic, and epigraphical methods and instruments, combining them to offer the most complete view of one of the most influential cultures in the Italian peninsula before the rise of Rome. The first chapter is an account of the historical evolution of the Etruscan ethnos from the Bronze age to the end of the I century b.C., focusing mainly on the socioeconomic drives that informed public affairs and the complex exchequer of international events. This part is based on indirect sources, such as literary ones. The second chapter is an attempt to offer a short linguistic vademecum, focused mainly on Etruscan alphabet and morphology, with some remarks regarding the origins of Etruscan language and alphabet. The third chapter is the analysis of the direct sources, mostly epigraphic ones. I have chosen the most relevant legal epigraphs that have yet been discovered and have proceeded to study them, attempting (where possible) some parallels with roman law. After the general conclusions, I deemed it appropriate to add two appendixes concerning Etruscan amgistratures and a short legal lexicon. The work is closed by some hand-drawn maps and the most important epigraphs.

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Access to abstract permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of Anthropology

This study presents an overview of the spreading of the Protovillanovan culture on the Acropolis of San Giovenale through a typological study of the materials such as the oval huts and the ceramics of this period. Through a typological study of ceramics this study will be able to define what type of ceramic vessels are more common during the Protovillanova period. The oval huts are included in this study in order to see the size and the spreading of the proto-urban society of San Giovenale.

This thesis discusses depictions of stories from Homer's Odyssey to ancient art. The thesis is divided into ten chapters. The first chapter is devoted to Homer and the Odyssey, where closely acquainted with Homer's perception of the person and his iconography, as well as a focus on the importance and value of his literary work. In the second chapter I try bringing different perspectives of researchers on locations of Odysseus's journey, which also briefly introduces Odysseu's stops in connection with the story. The following chapters focus on individual stories and becoming familiar with their iconography in connection with the literary pattern. I realize the extent to which individual scenes were shown from the perspective of chronological and geographical, eventually on what types of artistic monuments (vase painting, reliefs and sculpture, murals, mosaics, etc.). Together I am trying to explain the reasons for eventual higher frequency of certain themes. Keywords Homer, Odysseus, iconography, Greek Art, Etruscan Art, Roman Art

A Swedish excavation took place in the settlement of San Giovenale between the years 1956 to 1965 to shed further light on Etruscan settlements. During the excavation, a great amount of bucchero was uncovered at the site. This study focusses on the forms of bucchero that were uncovered in the San Giovenale area and how these vessels might be connected to a broader network of the ware. By identifying the forms of bucchero found in the area and by bringing together all the earlier publications concerned with the bucchero finds from San Giovenale, this study tries to look at the bucchero material in its totality. By locating and counting the forms and context in which the bucchero was found, together with the other finds from the area, this study attempts to contextualize and uncover the status of the bucchero ware within the settlement and how this particular ware might be connected with the Etruscan banquets. By bringing all the material together from all the areas in San Giovenale, this study hopes to paint a clearer picture of the bucchero in San Giovenale in terms of form, amount, chronology and spread of bucchero. By studying the bucchero from the settlement of San Giovenale we might greatly enhance our understanding of the bucchero ware outside of the tomb context that it is usually found within.