Necropolis of Monterozzi

On a long limestone ridge east of Tarquinia, the Etruscans buried their dead for the better part of a thousand years. Around 6,000 graves have been identified on the Monterozzi hill, from Villanovan cremations of the Iron Age to burials of the Roman period, and in the nineteenth century some six hundred earth mounds still broke the skyline. What makes the place singular, though, lies underground: roughly two hundred of the rock-cut chambers carry wall paintings, an unrivalled gallery of Etruscan life and belief.

The frescoes are anything but funereal. The Tomb of the Leopards has some of the best preserved colours of all; the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing opens onto a world of boats, nets and birds; the Tomb of the Augurs is given over to ritual and games; the Tomb of the Triclinium is all feasting, music and dance, and the Tomb of the Bigas to racing chariots. Later chambers turn darker. The Tomb of Orcus holds the only known painting of Tuchulcha, a beaked and snake-haired demon of the Etruscan underworld, and the Tomb of the Blue Demons fills its walls with figures from the world below. The Tomb of the Bulls, painted around the 530s BC, is one of the very few with openly erotic scenes.

Discovery came in waves from the early nineteenth century; the Tomb of the Baron, found in 1827, was copied for the Etruscan cabinet of the royal castle at Racconigi. In 2004 the necropolis was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List together with the Banditaccia cemetery at Cerveteri. A visit is best finished in the town itself, where the National Museum in Palazzo Vitelleschi keeps finds from the tombs and several frescoes detached for their protection.

Getting there

The necropolis sits just outside Tarquinia, on the hill above the old town. The nearest larger city is Civitavecchia, about 18 km away, and Rome–Fiumicino Airport (FCO) is about 64 km to the south. Tarquinia has a station on the coastal line from Rome, around 3 km below the town, with local buses meeting the trains; from the old town, shuttle and local bus lines run out to the necropolis entrance.