Liver of Piacenza

[1] It is a life-sized bronze model of a sheep's liver covered in Etruscan inscriptions (TLE 719), measuring 126 × 76 × 60 mm (5 × 3 × 2.4 inches) and dated to the late 2nd century BC, i.e. a time when the Piacenza region would already have been Latin-dominated (Piacenza was founded in 218 BC as a Roman garrison town in Cisalpine Gaul).

The Piacenza liver is a striking conceptual parallel to clay models of sheep's livers known from the Ancient Near East, reinforcing the evidence of a connection (be it by migration or merely by cultural contact) between the Etruscans and the Anatolian cultural sphere.

A Babylonian clay model of a sheep's liver dated to the Middle Bronze Age is preserved in the British Museum.

The outer rim of the Piacenza liver is divided into 16 sections; since according to the testimony of Pliny and Cicero,[citation needed] the Etruscans divided the heavens into 16 astrological houses, it has been suggested that the liver is supposed to represent a model of the cosmos, and its parts should be identified as constellations or astrological signs.

[citation needed] In this interpretation, each of the 16 houses was the "dwelling place" of an individual deity.