Etruscans

Over the whole of Tuscia you can feel an almost continuous magic presence, a kind of spell: the presence of the Etruscans, who had in these lands many of their main centres. In the Etruscan period the flourishing of several settlements in our area is certainly to be linked with the role of hinge which it played between the territory of Vulci, one of the main Etruscan towns on the coast, and Chiusi, which, together with Orvieto, controlled trade in the area of the river Tiber. The region, crossed by thoroughfares linking the Tyrrhenian with the towns of inner northern Etruria, was subject to cultural influences of different kinds, which make the local evidence particularly interesting. In Proceno the influence of Chiusi shows in the peculiarities of certain archaeological findings, such as tombs with a partition wall, typical of the Chiusi area, and as far as the Hellenistic age is concerned, several sarcophagi sculpted with mythological scenes.

The influence of Vulci is also very strong, already in the VIIth century B.C.; from this important coast town came several kinds of Etruscan pottery, buccheri and vases of impasto (a particular blend). All this certainly due to the mediation of the flourishing centres of the Fiora valley, such as Castro, Poggio Buco, Pitigliano, Sorano and Sovana. Of this Etruscan presence, usually, only the necropolises remain:

ancient graveyards that, in the silence of their frescoes, tell the story of Etruscan civilization, its beliefs, arts and customs. The rock tombs in Tarquinia, together with those in Tuscania, are the most important testimony of daily life. But if you want to see what is considered to be the masterpiece of Etruscan tombs, you have to go to Sovana, where the necropolis is dominated by the monumental tomb of Ildebrand, built as a temple, where the pillars have capitals adorned with human heads. The journey in the Etruscan world of the beyond can go on indefinitely.

In one place or another, the mysterious charm is always the same; you discover a world where death is not dark, black, gloomy, but full of life, almost prodigiously bent towards life. "Here laughed the Etruscan, one day, lying down…". This is the beginning of a poem by the famous poet Vincenzo Cardarelli from Tarquinia. The verse could be the symbol of the Etruscans' idea of death: that is a passage into a world beyond this one where time never changes.