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Some Etruscan tombs at Rusellae

[A hole in the snow showing some rocks. It is an Etruscan tomb at Rusellae, near Roselle Terme, Grosseto province, Tuscany (central Italy).]

Even after Rusellae became fully Romanized, tombs, being sacred, were not altered: thus they are among the few remaining traces of the Etruscan settlement.

[A hole in the snow showing some rocks. It is an Etruscan tomb at Rusellae, near Roselle Terme, Grosseto province, Tuscany (central Italy).]

This is another Etruscan tomb. What you're seeing is a "chamber tomb" that is no longer a chamber because it's lost its roof. Either this one or, less possibly to my mind, the preceding, may very well be the lone tomb that George Dennis saw at Rusellae and reports on in his chapter on the Etruscan city in his Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria (1848).

[A small pointed ceiling made of large fitted stone slabs. It is an Etruscan tomb at Rusellae, near Roselle Terme, Grosseto province, Tuscany (central Italy).]

This is the inside of the third tomb I saw at Rusellae. Its roof has survived, and you're looking at it: the ceiling has been marked up in chalk by archaeologists. Notice that this isn't a true vault.

By the way, there's just barely enough room inside for a coffin and maybe one person carrying it. Not being a scholar, I'm free to wonder: did they push the sarcophagus in from the front or did they lower it from the ground and build the roof later?

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Page updated: 2 Dec 98

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