Semata marmorei con leoni da Pisa

Adriano Maggiani,

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Abstract

The exploitation of the Apuan marble quarries for sculptures by the Etruscans, from the Archaic until Hellenis- tic Age, is today widely recognized by the archaeological research. A complex of fragments, some of them little known or unpublished, discovered at La Figuretta near Pisa in 1987, is here discussed. These artifacts document a special kind of funerary sema consisting of one base decorated with seated rampant lions and a superposed cippus, attested so far by only two other specimens: the marble piece of the Bardini Museum in Florence and the Cippus carved in sandstone from Settimello (Fiesole). The decoration of the basis (or bases) from La Figuretta shows images of Sirens. The style of the lions and of these figures allows a dating in the last three decades of the VI cent. B.C. We can assume that in Pisa a ‘bottega’ of marble workers was active at the end of the archaic age, and that were working here also some Greek sculptors, maybe from the Anatolian coast.