![Tomba della quadriga infernale - three-headed dragon - Etruscan tomb Pianacce [4th century BC] - camminare nella storia | by petrus.agricola](http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/50217252761_196357b3f1.jpg)
Tomba della quadriga infernale - three-headed dragon - Etruscan tomb Pianacce [4th century BC] - camminare nella storia
In the end room, which symbolically represents the recesses of Hades, an enormous three-headed serpent reaching up to the ceiling is depicted on a white background. The heads have combs and beards and the body is rolled up in one single big loop. The huge three-headed monster is, as usual for hell beasts, a clear allusion to the chthonic sphere, and is a recurrent symbolic presence in vase and wall paintings from the 2nd half of the 4th cent. BC. And once again the closest resemblance with the monster of Sarteano is found in the area of Orvieto, although it is clearly much smaller in size than the monster of Sarteano: a two-headed snake struggling with small Heracles on side A of a stamnos by the Settecamini Painter, active in Orvieto between 360 and 330 BC. There are therefore many similarities between the figurative decoration of the tomb in Sarteano and Orvieto, and especially the tombs of Settecamini. However, similar animals are quite frequently depicted on pottery of the last decades of the 4th cent. BC with scenes of the journey towards the underworld and on sarcophagi while images of snakes with combs and beards are also common in both the Greek and Italiot world.
Source: Museum
Tomba della quadriga infernale - three-headed dragon - Etruscan tomb Pianacce [4th century BC] - camminare nella storia
In the end room, which symbolically represents the recesses of Hades, an enormous three-headed serpent reaching up to the ceiling is depicted on a white background. The heads have combs and beards and the body is rolled up in one single big loop. The huge three-headed monster is, as usual for hell beasts, a clear allusion to the chthonic sphere, and is a recurrent symbolic presence in vase and wall paintings from the 2nd half of the 4th cent. BC. And once again the closest resemblance with the monster of Sarteano is found in the area of Orvieto, although it is clearly much smaller in size than the monster of Sarteano: a two-headed snake struggling with small Heracles on side A of a stamnos by the Settecamini Painter, active in Orvieto between 360 and 330 BC. There are therefore many similarities between the figurative decoration of the tomb in Sarteano and Orvieto, and especially the tombs of Settecamini. However, similar animals are quite frequently depicted on pottery of the last decades of the 4th cent. BC with scenes of the journey towards the underworld and on sarcophagi while images of snakes with combs and beards are also common in both the Greek and Italiot world.
Source: Museum