Eternal Embrace

This picture came out in the news today under the title "Eternal Embrace" - I wonder if it is somehow related to the Etruscan Art at the MFA in Boston I have cited below. The distance between the sites is 493 km (about 6 hours 22 mins driving) - the time distance can't be precisely determined yet as the burial found this week has yet to be dated.

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A pair of human skeletons lie in an eternal embrace at a Neolithic archaeological dig site near Mantova, Italy, in this photo released February 6, 2007. Archaeologists in northern Italy believe the couple was buried 5,000-6,000 years ago, their arms still wrapped around each other in a hug that has lasted millennia.

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Sarcophagus and lid with portraits of husband and wife
Italic, Etruscan, Late Classical or early Hellenistic Period, Late 4th–early 3rd century B.C.

Place of Manufacture: Vulci, Lazio, Italy
Height : 88 cm (34 5/8 in.); width: 73 cm ( 28 3/4 in.); depth: 210 cm (11/16 in.)
Nenfro (volcanic stone)

Classification: Tomb equipment

The cover of the sarcophagus shows a man and woman lying nearly facing each other on a bed with pillows and a large sheet wrapped about them.The portrait of the man is of particular interest to the study of Etruscan (and Early Roman) portraiture, foreshadowing in many respects the Roman Republican portraiture which would, in considerable degree, devlop from the Etruscan form. The woman wears a double fillet or braids around her hair, a heart-shaped earring, and a long chiton with sleeves. It is difficult to tell what, if any, clothing the man was wearing, unless details of costume were added in paint. The pediments at each end of the lid have three ideal, female(?) heads in relief in rosettes.
The front of the body shows a ceremony, presumably the couple's marriage. They clasp hands in the center, or (more precisely) he places his hand around her wrist, while he also holds a knotted staff in the left hand. Four attendants follow on either side. Those on the left comprise (from center to corner) a man with a tall staff, a lantern or jar suspended from it; a woman with a tray on her head and a pitcher in her lowered right hand; a woman with a large fan or flabellum and a situla in her lowered right hand; and a woman with a lyre and plectron. On the right appear a young man with a chair; another with a small stick or scepter; a third with a curved horn; and a woman with a wreath and double flutes.
On the left end, two women, parasol over their heads, ride in a cart drawn by two mules driven by a male attendant. A winged spirit of death waves two snakes at them. On the right end, a bearded magistrate mounts a two-horse chariot, attended by a man with the pastoral staff or lituus.
Since the man on the major front panel wears the Greek himation, it has been suggested that he is the heroized deceased, leading his wife to the underworld. If such be the case, she may have survived him to have her own separate procession on the left end, and the scene on the front thus may be taken as a symbolic "marriage" ceremony, the union with death and life in the underworld rather than merely in life on earth.
The lid is broken across at the couple's legs and has been rejoined, with two small pieces missing. The body has cracks.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston