Unknown Maker, Etruscan

Etruscans interpreted the flight of birds to foretell the future. This sculpture fragment captures the moment before answers are revealed.

—GB

Many ancient societies, including the Etruscans, attempted to divine the future from earthly omens. Etruscan religion was based on three books of prescribed religious practices, each concerning predictions. It is believed that these books inspired the famous Roman Sibylline Books. Etruscan diviners came in two kinds: augurs, who interpreted the movements of birds, and haruspices, who interpreted the entrails of sacrificed animals. This object relates to the practice of augury, evoking the hand of an augur holding a dove at the moment before its release into the sky. The temporal nature of this piece is twofold. It concerns divination, a system of ascertaining what will occur in the future, and it represents a pivotal moment in the process itself, the instant right before the answers will become known.