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Judith Swaddling and John Prag, eds. Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa: The Story of an Etruscan Noblewoman. British Museum Occasional Paper, no. 100. London: British Museum Press, 2002. vi + 69 pp. 111. £20.00 (paperbound, 0-86159-100-3).
The brightly painted sarcophagus of the Etruscan noblewoman Seianti was found in 1886 near Chiusi (Tuscany) and was subsequently sold, along with its contents (a skeleton and some grave goods), to the British Museum. This impressive work of art has finally received its due in an interdisciplinary study that will serve as a model for future research. The Etruscans are known primarily through funerary remains, even though ironically those remains have not been well studied. It is only in the past half-century, for instance, that skeletal remains have been saved, and only very recently that they have undergone proper study and publication. The Seianti sarcophagus, with its identifying inscription, high-quality effigy of the deceased, and well-preserved skeleton...