Etruscan Temples: an Analysis of the Distribution of the Data Related to their Orientation

In the Spring of 2013 a series of field campaigns were started aimed at measuring azimuths and, where possible, the horizon heights, of 28 Etruscan sacred structures (so as to verify the previous samples present in Prayon 1991 and Aveni-Romano 1994). The results achieved in this work (Pernigotti 2019) led to the hypothesis that the orientation of Etruscan temples was determined by the movement of the sun, with a clear preference for that sky arc where the sun never rises or sets but where it goes through every day of the year, lighting up the front of the sacred structures for multiple hours a day. Starting from these results, the goal of the first part of this contribution will be to focus on a more specific analysis of the collected data, concerning the distribution of the orientations, to proceed, in the second part, to a comparison with those concerning both the temples of the Greek cities of Sicily and Magna Graecia (Aveni-Romano 2000; Salt 2009; Hannah-Magli-Orlando 2017), and the sacred buildings of the Samnite centers (Ruggeri 2010). This comparison will allow us to identify similarities and differences, regarding temple orientation, between the Etruscan tradition and those of two populations geographically and culturally close to the communities of Etruria. Finally, in the last part of the contribution, through an interdisciplinary approach that combines data from the archaeological, epigraphic and literary record to those of the orientantions, it will try to return, in the light of the analysis of the data and comparisons made, both on the reasons that may have determined the general distribution of the orientation of Etruscan temples, both on the motivations and the factors that may have influenced the orientations of the single structures.