What it is: A bird-shaped ceramic inkwell
When it was made: Circa 650 to 600 B.C.
The vase stands just over 4 inches (10 centimeters) tall and is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The dark-black ceramic, known as bucchero, was made through a unique firing method that prevented the kiln from getting enough oxygen, which caused the clay to absorb carbon. Bucchero is considered the trademark Etruscan ceramic, and it was produced from the seventh to the fourth centuries B.C. by this pre-Roman society. It is unclear where the cockerel vase was originally found, but it may have been discovered in a grave in one of the many cemeteries that surround Viterbo, which was originally an Etruscan town about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of modern-day Rome.
The Etruscan alphabet is well known, since it was adopted from a regional version of the Greek alphabet in the early eighth century B.C. There were 26 letters in the Etruscan alphabet, but one of them in this abecedarium is incorrect. A close look at the end of the alphabet shows that someone inscribed an S twice; the second one should look more like an X, according to The Met.
Thanks to the adoption of the Greek alphabet, it's possible to fully sound out the Etruscan language. But although more than 10,000 Etruscan inscriptions have been found, the language is still only partially understood because those inscriptions are short and any lengthy Etruscan literature that once existed has been lost.
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