Etruscan paired funerary urn of the 500s BC and the place of women at the banquet

One of many paired Etruscan funerary urns, 500s BC. It is generally held that the spouses depicted are sharing a meal. The wife may be passing her husband an aromatic liquid, perfume or oil, while in her left hand she holds a pomegranate, the symbol of immortality.

Hm. Two on a couch, eyes closed in pleasure, faces frozen in a grimace of bliss, he with an outstretched hand, she tilting a small flask. Indeed, they are most definitely sharing food. Case closed.

In fact, fragrances were a significant element of the Etruscan funeral rite.

One would draw attention to the fact that the figure of the woman occupies as much room in this terracotta sculpture as the man's: in Etruscan society a woman could lay claim to a standing equal to a man's at a feast, even when that feast is a banquet in the afterlife. Greek sculpture of a similar period would hardly have portrayed a wife lounging so nonchalantly on cushions beside her husband; in Greece, feasting was a male affair.