yeah could be it CA.
"All around the walls runs a frieze of crews: helms, spears, shields, perhaps emphasizing the participation of the deceased in military campaigns. It should be emphasized that the tomb dates to the age of the wars with Rome, a little before end of the 4th Century BCE. "
sounds more like a life story in relief than an attempt to offer "grave goods" which was more common in cultures fairly far behind the one in question. The Villanovans from which Etruscans were meant to be descended were prone to leaving not much more than rings, knives and whatnot near urns for burial. That tomb doesn't look like the work of a superstitious people who needed to hunt for their lunch, more like the modern day "my daddy made a lot of money, and left me quite a bit of it" style family mausoleums found in western cemetaries.
Of course, doesn't rule
anything out, and I am sure some mob of dead Etruscan artisans is looking down on us from on high saying "hahaha...what a pack of numbnuts... it's the string you use to keep your dressing gown shut, duh!"
They do look a lot like slings but I reckon over at "www. some kind of site about donkeys. org" they reckon it's donkey leads. at "www. kinky bondage devices. com/forum " it's ligiature cords and at "www. militaristic tendencies.net" it's a braided belt with a loop to hold the rather large throwing axe pictured elsewhere in the tomb.
I go with the life story version, rather than goods, if you want to bury the dead with goods you use goods not images thereof.. efven in cultures that used a lot of token "icons" like the ancient greeks buying foot shaped offerings for sore feet, they still buried you with the real deal.
Maybe they're slings but more memorials of a campaign against a slinging division or a famously captured sling... who knows.
but "On the two semipillars that frame the loculo objects are carved legacies to the life of the aristocratic family" suggests to me the kind of person that probably did not have to hunt their own lunch and would have lost a lot of face if it was thought they'd have to hunt their own in the afterlife.
Can't see why the emphasis would be on the sling lines and the split but not the loop or release... maybe they used a style of fist wrapping one and just holding the other.
It is great fun to do some guesswork though, the human capacity for possibilities always amazes me!
better than playing Wii, anyway