Etruscan Paintings of the Demoni Alati Tomb in the Sovana Necropolis (Southern Tuscany, Italy).

The Demoni Alati tomb in the Sovana necropolis (Southern Tuscany, Italy) was discovered only recently; at the end of the nineties, some excavations revealed the rest of an aedicule tomb, carved into a red tuff, which for a long time remained covered by soil. Part of the monument was still in situ whereas other blocks were found all around the area. Thanks to the excavation work, a surprising finding was made; the most interesting figurative element of the tomb, an all-around male figure, representing a defunct in a banquet, was found. The discovery appeared even more exceptional because the defunct maintained most of his original polychromy. The finding of the Demoni Alati tomb permitted to underline an essential aspect of the Etruscan artistic production until now overlooked: the use of colour on sculptures and architectural elements. In the Demoni Alati tomb different techniques were used depending on the characteristics of the surfaces showing different details and sculptural depths (Barbieri et al., 2013); in particular, the oldest technique consisted in the application of colour on the smooth stone surface of the wall while successively the stone was covered with a carbonatic basic plaster and the colour was applied over a thin white preparation layer (lime based); in the sculpture, inside the niche, the colours were applied on two finishing white layers of similar composition (lime based) while in the decorations of the sculptured surfaces outside the niche, the colours were laid on a thin white amorphous silica based layer. Furthermore, the colour palette of the tomb was extremely varied, and not only the primary colours but also their different nuances were used. A detailed study of the preparation layers and the different colours used on the Demoni Alati tomb was undertaken through the use of complementary traditional and innovative techniques, and we report in this paper the obtained result.