Alpan- Etruscan SpiritSpirit"Lasa"
Also known as: πππππ and Alpnu
Description
Her name appears in two forms cut into Etruscan bronze mirrors: Alpan and Alpnu. Winged, she stands among Turan's attendants, perfume vessel and garland in hand. No myth tells her story. Only the gesture remains, engraved in bronze and buried with the dead.
Mythology & Lore
On the Mirrors
Alpan appears on Etruscan bronze mirrors of the fourth and third centuries BCE, her name cut into the metal beside her winged figure. She stands among Turan's attendants, one of the Lasa spirits who serve the goddess of love. A perfume vessel in one hand, a garland in the other. Sometimes nude, sometimes draped, she turns toward Turan or toward another figure in the scene.
Her name takes two forms on the mirrors: Alpan and Alpnu. Both were scratched beside the same winged woman by engravers at different workshops across Etruria.
The mirrors that carry her image were found in tombs, placed beside the dead with the engraved face upward. Alpan has no surviving myths and no known cult. She exists entirely on polished bronze, a winged figure caught mid-gesture, perpetually about to anoint someone who will never be named.
Relationships
- Associated with