Highlighting lectures, recent discoveries, and ongoing scholarly conversations that shape current understanding of Etruscan culture, archaeology, and interpretation through collaborative research and public academic exchange.
The Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco is the venue for the first major exhibition on the Etruscans in the USA in the last twenty years. The exhibition represents ten years of planning and will feature numerous artifacts and works of art on loan from museums in the USA and abroad. The show was organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco with the help of numerous generous donors and curated by Renée Dreyfus, George and Judy Marcus Distinguished Curator and Curator in Charge of Ancient Art for FAMSF. INSEI-NA members Richard De Puma and Lisa Pieraccini played key roles in planning the show.
Never before seen in the USA is the spectacular linen cloth book featuring an Etruscan calendar, the longest text known in the Etruscan language. It survived from antiquity by chance, when the linen cloth was cut into strips to be used to wrap a mummy in Egypt, perhaps in the third or second century BCE. The piece comes on loan from the National Museum in Zagreb, Croatia.
Among the items shown, nearly 200 in all, is a variety of Etruscan objects made of bronze and terracotta, as well as Etruscan paintings, fine gold jewelry and carved gems. Bronzes include an intriguing figure of the Etruscan underworld deity Vanth brandishing serpents, from the British Museum, London, as well as the brilliant image of the Etruscan sun-god Usil from the J. Paul Getty Museum.
The exhibition will be on display at the Legion of Honor from May 2 to September 20, 2026. It will then move to the San Antonio Museum of Art, from Oct. 31, 2026 through March 14, 2027.
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The Opening Day of the Exhibition, May 2, 2026, will feature a symposium on the Etruscans in the Gunn Theater at the Legion of Honor. A team of internationally known experts will deliver comprehensive presentations on Etruscan society, beliefs, culture, artistic creations, and legacy. Their insights will provide a meaningful background for the materials in the exhibition,
The Sessions are as follows:
Session 1 (10 am – 12 noon):
Introduction and Welcome Remarks
Renée Dreyfus, George and Judy Marcus Distinguished Curator and Curator in Charge of Ancient Art at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Etruscan Pasts, Present & Futures
Lisa Pieraccini, Lecturer, Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology and History of Art, University of California, Berkeley
Etruscans in Full Color: The Painters and their Techniques on Walls, Terracottas and Pottery
Daniele F. Maras, Director of the National Archeological Museum, Florence
Session 2 (1:30-4 pm):
Myths, Mirrors, and Matrons, Reflections on Etruscan Art and Society
Alexandra A. Carpino, Associate Dean, College of Arts and Letters, Professor, Comparative Cultural Studies, College of Arts and Letters, Northern Arizona University
Formed by Fire. Etruscan Mastery of Bronze
P. Gregory Warden, Custard Institute, Southern Methodist University
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The Etruscan Interest Group of the Archaeological Institute of America (EIG-AIA) and INSEI-NA are hosting a new online speaker series entitled “Etruscan Discoveries and Debates.” These sessions consist of a 20-minute lecture followed by questions and discussion. At least one session a year focuses in particular on a debate in the field.
The first speaker was Dr. Jacopo Tabolli (Università per Stranieri di Siena) in March, 2025. Dr. Tabolli’s presentation, “Stratigraphy in Bronze at San Casciano dei Bagni” emphasized several of the astonishing Etruscan bronze statues uncovered at this sacred spring site.
In April, 2025 Etruscan scholars had the pleasure of hearing from Dr. Gregory Warden (Southern Methodist University). His talk, “Rethinking Etruria,” offered insight into the recent exhibition at New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World on material from the sites of Poggio Colla and Norchia. Of enormous interest in the show was the recreation of a sacred stone stele found at Poggio Colla (“the Vicchio Stele”) in 2015, featuring Etruscan inscriptions referencing Uni and Tinia, the principal Etruscan deities.
Alexander Ekserdjian was featured speaker in November, with his observations on the wearing of the Gallic torque (necklace) in Etruria, with emphasis on the question of why Etruscan ladies would wear this ornament. His talk was entitled “Gallic Ornament and Female Self-Fashioning in Hellenistic Etruria.”
The recent End-of-Year Letter from Greg Warden, President of the Etruscan Foundation, announces the appointment of Jason Bauer as the new Executive Director of the Foundation. Jason comes with some 20 years of experience in the field at the American site of Poggio Civitate (Murlo). The handsome new website of the Foundation is live [https://www.etruscanfoundation.org/], detailing all the organization has to offer, through the Cinelli Annual Lecture on Etruscan archaeology, the publication of the journal Etruscan and Italic Studies, and the various scholarships and awards for field work, conservation/preservation, research and conferences.
The Cinelli Lecture for 2026, held in collaboration with the Archaeological Institute of America, will be delivered by Gretchen Meyers, Professor at Franklin and Marshall College. She is well known for her expertise on Etruscan social customs as manifest in the creation and usage of textiles and dress, and for her many years of work at the American field project at Poggio Colla, part of the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project. Her novel observations include analysis of depictions of cloth that give clues about social and ritual usages through fine-grained details such as textile borders, folds and textures. Her lecture on Sacred Threads: How Ancient Etruscan Women Wove Power Through Cloth, will be presented on April 10 at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, a fitting venue since it is the home of one of the best collections of Etruscan and Italic antiquities in North America
Lisa Pieraccini reports on the opening of a show curated by her seminar students at the University of California, Berkeley. Encountering the Etruscans opened at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology on Dec 5, 2025 and will remain open at selected hours until May 2026. This is the very first time, ever, that an Etruscan exhibit, albeit small (some 20 objects), has been on display at the Hearst Museum. The Hearst holds some 4,000 Etruscan objects, making it one of the largest collections, if not the largest, of Etruscan material culture in North America. Phoebe Hearst procured the collection by way of her art advisor, Alfred Emerson, with the artifacts arriving at Berkeley in 1902. For more on the Hearst, see https://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/
This exhibit is a student-led exhibit created during Pieraccini’s seminar on the Etruscans from the Fall of 2025. The team worked at an incredible pace to get the show up in less than 3 months. It features three themed cases: Life at an Etruscan Sanctuary; Adorning Etruscan Bodies; and Etruscan Banquets: Life and Afterlife.
The students carefully studied the artifacts and created not only the graphics, but also brochures, pins, keychains and stickers (lots of merch) with the overall theme of UC Etruscans. Check them out on Instagram: UC_Etruscans.
The exhibit will be open through May 2025 only on Fridays from noon-4 pm.
