Was there an Etruscan Ritual Economy? Tracing the Organization of Production and Crafts in Etruscan Sanctuaries (8th–5th Centuries BC)

In Classical Antiquity, sanctuaries and cult places were important economic nexuses and covered important economic fields, such as: (1) storage of commodities and resources, objects of value or money (thesauroi, in some cases even proper temple banks); (2) religious services, e.g. healing, oracles, and sale of priesthoods; (3) land property and livestock; (4) market places and harbors for long distance trade, especially as emporia or ‘ports of trade’); (5) production of goods and crafts. The terms ‘ritual economy’ or ‘temple economy’ (in analogy to the term ‘palace economy’) have been coined to describe these religious-economic functions, and have been studied quite profoundly in the context of the Ancient Greek world. However, there is a still a lack of analyses for ritual economies in Etruscan sanctuaries, and the Etruscan religion. This paper shall tackle important aspects of production and crafts, and offer a reconstruction regarding the organization of possible Etruscan ritual economies. I am going to discuss three economic activities before outlining some principles of the Etruscan ritual economy: (1) metal processing; (2) textile production; and (3) trade and the standardization of weights in sanctuaries.