Sethlans- Etruscan GodDeity
Also known as: Śeθlans
Description
Hammer raised over the anvil, he shapes divine weapons in the firelight of an Etruscan bronze mirror, the smith god whose name on the Piacenza Liver marks his place in the celestial order of a civilization renowned for its mastery of bronze and iron.
Mythology & Lore
The Smith at the Anvil
Sethlans is the god who split Tinia's skull open. On Etruscan bronze mirrors from the fourth and third centuries BCE, he stands beside the supreme god with the axe that freed Menrva, the blow that let the warrior goddess spring fully armed from her father's head. Other mirrors show him at his forge, hammer and tongs in hand, working metal at the anvil or presenting finished weapons to assembled gods. His name is inscribed beside his figure in Etruscan script.
His sector on the Piacenza Liver places him in the celestial order alongside the other established gods. But the mirrors are where he lives. The objects themselves are products of the craft he governs: bronze cast, polished, and engraved by the same metallurgical skill Sethlans represents. Etruscan smiths working at their forges in Populonia, the smelting center where iron from the mines of Elba was processed, or in the workshops near the copper deposits of the Colline Metallifere, worked under his name. The industry that made Etruria wealthy was his domain.
Votive deposits at sanctuary sites include miniature hammers and tongs left as dedications. The tools are small enough to hold in one hand, tokens of the real tools the smiths used daily, offered to the god who used the same instruments on a divine scale.
Relationships
- Equivalent to