Fragmented Images: The Last Tomb Paintings of T arquinia

Summary Cultural decline as a result of the R oman conquest is usually invoked to explain the gradual disappearance of T arquinian tomb paintings during the third century BC . By contrast, this paper argues that, first, the late tomb paintings of T arquinia markedly differed from their predecessors by decorating individual burials (fragmentation), as opposed to entire chamber tombs, which should be seen as a culturally meaningful development in the iconographic approach towards representing the deceased; and that, second, the disappearance of this time‐honoured type of monument be seen as part of wider changes in the ways in which T arquinian and other E truscan elites chose to materialize their ideologies during the cultural and political realignments of the period of the R oman conquest.