The richly illustrated publication surveys the painted tombs dating from the 6th to the 2nd century BCE found across regions such as Apulia and Campania and in important centers including Taranto and Naples. These monuments provide extraordinary insights into the beliefs, rituals, and social identities of Italic and Greek communities in southern Italy before the consolidation of Roman power. Following the better-known Etruscan painted tombs, the South Italian corpus represents the largest surviving group of funerary wall paintings in the ancient Mediterranean, with particular prominence given to the approximately one hundred painted tombs discovered at Paestum.
Steingräber’s study offers a comprehensive overview of the discovery and research history of these monuments, the architectural typologies of the tombs, and their archaeological contexts. It also examines painting techniques, regional stylistic developments, and the iconography and ideological messages embedded in the imagery. By situating these paintings within broader Mediterranean artistic traditions, the book highlights their connections with vase painting, monumental painting, and evolving funerary practices.
Stephan SteingräberThe author, who studied Classical Archaeology, Etruscology, Ancient History, and Protohistory at the universities of Munich, Cologne, Bonn, and Rome, was born in Munich in 1951. Often described as “Etrusco-Bavarian,” Stephan Steingräber worked for many years at the German Archaeological Institute in Rome and has taught at several universities in Germany, Italy, and Japan, including Munich, Mainz, Tokyo, Padua, Foggia, and Roma Tre, where he served as Professor of Etruscology and Italic Antiquities from 2006 to 2021. He has also been a visiting professor in the United States, Denmark, and Italy. His scholarship has long focused on the historical topography, urbanism, funerary architecture, and especially the wall painting of Etruria and southern Italy.
Steingräber is widely known for several influential books on ancient painting, including Etruscan Painting: Catalogue Raisonné of Etruscan Wall Paintings, a fundamental reference work on the decorated tombs of Etruria, and Abundance of Life: Etruscan Wall Painting, which explores the iconography and cultural meaning of Etruscan funerary art. Over the course of his career he has published around 230 scholarly works, many of which have been translated into several languages, significantly shaping modern understanding of ancient Italic visual culture. He is a member of the Istituto di Studi Etruschi e Italici, the Accademia Etrusca of Cortona, the American Institute of Archaeology, and the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin
With 112 pages, more than one hundred color illustrations, and a synthetic yet scholarly approach, Bilder für die Ewigkeit provides both specialists and a broader audience with an accessible introduction to a remarkable artistic heritage that reflects ancient conceptions of death, memory, and the afterlife. (@EtruscanTimes)
