Terracotta architectural plaque with lotus and palmette designs
Said to be from Cerveteri
Major portions of most Etruscan temples were made of wood, abundantly available in ancient Italy. To protect wooden beams from the elements, they were covered with terracotta slabs of varying dimensions. This mold-made plaque originally was attached to a horizontal beam high on the exterior of an Etruscan temple. It was one of a series that would have created a long decorative frieze for the architrave, the horizontal element just above the columns. Traces of red, blue, and yellow paint indicate how colorful the original appearance of an Etruscan temple must have been.
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