Polyvisceral votive figure

Poly-visceral votive figure
Etruscan-Lazio production
2nd century BC
Terracotta

Between the early 4th century BCE and the first decades of the 1st century BCE, the practice of offering anatomical ex-votos to the gods spread throughout the Etruscan and Italic regions, within cults devoted to health and fertility.

These were representations of parts of the human body, made mainly of terracotta, offered either to request healing of the organ depicted or to give thanks for recovery, but also to invoke divine protection over male and female fertility.

Such votive offerings rarely included a complete representation of the torso and head, as in this case. The female figure wears a short-sleeved tunic and a cloak that covers her head, falling along the sides of her face and wrapping around her left arm.

Below the breasts opens an oval slit revealing the internal organs: the trachea, lungs, heart, multilobed liver with gallbladder, stomach, intestinal loops, and possibly the uterus. It is difficult to determine whether the Etruscans possessed an actual anatomical knowledge of the human body; however, certain features — such as the multilobed, animal-like liver — suggest an approximation based more on the observation of animal than of human anatomy.