Infancy and Archaeology in Sacred Areas in Etruria

The analysis conducted on archaeological documentation underlines the extreme difficulty of tracing the presence of children in Etruscan sanctuaries and their actual involvement in religious rituals. Beyond the rites of transition to adulthood which primarily concerned the category of youth, the identity of children surfaces mainly as an object of interest to adults, especially women — the true protagonists of a sacred ritual more often directed towards the goddesses Uni, Vei, and Menerva with their role of safeguarding the realms of human fertility, birth, and growth, as outlined above. Archaeological evidence thus reveals only traces of devotees, brides, mothers, and female nurturing deities, complemented in epigraphic documentation.The evidence points to the conclusion that children in the Etruscan world did not possess the social significance that would have allowed them to be active agents in the ritual areas of sanctuaries, as confirmed by epigraphic documentation.