Tombs, Tufa and Tarquinia

Ciao! Week two of the program comes to an end and already the time is flying by. SLOW DOWN, let me savor every minute!

The program had its first day trip on Tuesday. All 25 of us piled into a bus at 8:30 and scooted down the Lungotevere and out of Rome. We headed north to commune with the spirits of Lazio's earliest inhabitants, the Etruscans. Not a whole lot is known about these people that were the contemporaries of the ancient Greeks and Assyrians. Their civilization seemed to have been systemically subsumed by that of Romans as the Latin hegemony began to spread through Europe and beyond. What we do know of the Etruscans, we have largely learned from their tombs.

Our first stop: the necropolis at Cerverteri. Here the tombs take the form of round mounds called tumuli with entrances that lead the living down a dromos (long hallway) and into the cavern below. Hobbits could live here - it's tempting to play LoTR, but I refrained.

Etruscans buried their dead by laying bodies or urns with ashes onto slabs that resemble beds. The interiors of these tombs are made up of a series of rooms of these stone beds - we believe that families were buried together. New rooms would be punched out of the living rock, tufa, when more space was needed for Grandpa Joe or Uncle Ed.

Walking through the necropolis at Cerveteri was beautiful. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, heck, butterflies were flitting about and landing on flowers. It could not have been more serene and pleasant. Pretty nice place to spend eternity.

Next we headed on to the town of Tarquinia. We had lunch at a lovely little trattoria that served mostly seafood. We headed on to the Etruscan museum, full of sarcophagi and breathtaking views of the sea, and then finally found ourselves at the necropolis of Tarquinia. The tombs here are vastly different than Cerveteri. They are far underground, single rooms, with remaining paint on the walls. This means we can view 2,000+ year old images! The scenes consist largely of figures enjoying symposia, wrestling, hunting, and some more lewd acts that I will not go into here. All in all it seems that the Etruscan perception of the afterlife is pretty bad ass.

We boarded the bus and headed back to Rome, arriving home at about 7:30. It was an exhausting 11 hour day, but we all agreed that it was so well worth it. Despite the dearth of knowledge on this civilization, any day spent with the Etruscans is going to be happy and satisfying one.

Over and out for now. Ciao.