Vase depicting a ritual hunting scene

Vase depicting a ritual hunting scene
Produced in Bisenzio
Second half of the 8th century BC
Bronze

The bronze sheet vessel with a lid depicting a ritual hunting scene is one of the very few surviving examples of this type of object. An expression of Villanovan culture, it can be associated with the production of the city of Bisenzio, on Lake Bolsena, and dates to the end of the Iron Age, when the practice emerged — also in ceramic forms — of adding small sculptural figures for narrative purposes.

On the lid are four armed and ithyphallic figures arranged around a large boar. The men are shown nude, wearing a belt around the waist and a flat cap on their heads, while stretching out their arms to brandish weapons and small shields. The boar, with its long, pointed snout, is chained by its right foreleg, held by one of the men.