Analysis Of The Etruscan Votive Ear

Hello and welcome to the first episode of a history of the Roman World in 200 objects here at the Royal Ontario Museum. I your host today, Rahman Salehi, will take you on a journey 2000 years back in time, in which the Roman Empire was one of the greatest powers of the Ancient world. The Roman Empire was a very heterogeneous society with various ethnic groups such as the Latin’s, Etruscans, Greeks, Phoenicians, Italians, Carthaginians and so forth. However, they all had one thing in common. That is, religion played a very important role in the daily lives of individuals of Rome. Romans believed that gods controlled their lives and, hence, spent a great deal amount of time worshiping deities.

The object of analysis for today’s program is an Etruscan Votive ear which is displayed in the Eaton Gallery of Rome at the Royal Ontario Museum. The Etruscan Votive ear is a beige sculpture, roughly five to ten center meters in length, of a human’s right ear produced during the Republican Era of Rome between 200-100 BC (Refer to image 3 on page 9). According to the Royal Ontario Museum, the Votive Ear reflects “the lasting influence of Etruscan religion in Rome” (Refer to image 4 on page 8)

The Etruscans settled northwest of Latium and are regarded as one of “the most remarkable people of early Italy”. Although the origins of Etruscans are a mystery, archaeological sources such as artifacts reveal the material culture of the Etruscans civilizations. The Votive ear is associated to the Etruscans religious tradition known as Votive offerings. Votive offerings can be defined as the purpose of “offering body parts at a shrine as a means to seek help from a deity to alleviate an afflicted organ or region of the body”. Although we inte...

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...x the problem. In today’s society, because of the advancements in the medical field, technology and the rise of professional doctors, we do not need to resort to supernatural phenomena to cure medical hardships. Doctors have the ability to fix most of our troubles through procedures such as medicine or surgery. Hence, this demonstrates how the study of history, puts human experience in context and allows us to understand ourselves as people and how much we have evolved, and will continue to evolve for centuries to come.

This concludes this week’s programme of a history of the Roman World in 200 objects here at the Royal Ontario Museum. Tune in next week as we move from ceremonial and religious objects such as the Votive ear in Rome, to the funerary and burial objects analyze the concept of death and how one deal with it in the 1st century AD in the Roman Empire.