Intrigued by the Etruscans

Before there was Rome, there was Etruria, the land of the ancient Etruscans. In their heyday, their realm not only included Tuscany but also stretched north to present-day Bologna and south to the region where the Eternal City would rise. Minerals, rich soil, thick forests and easy access to Mediterranean trade routes enabled them to become powerful people with a distinct language and culture. In the 7th century BC, they even ruled Rome.

Fascinated by these first Italians, my wife, Liet, and I made them the focus of a journey in June, the greater part of it spent wandering in a rented car through the hilly region named after its early inhabitants. For us, part of Tuscany’s allure is the mystery attached to the Etruscans: While inscriptions on their stone tombs can still be read, their fragile linen manuscripts moldered away long ago. Little is known of their history or literature and almost nothing of their origins. Some scholars theorize that they came from Asia Minor, or that perhaps the culture had local origins, but there is no definitive proof.

Luckily the Etruscans left relics behind in tombs and graves from the 9th century before Christ to 90 BC, when Rome declared them citizens of the empire. Among the objects that endured are gold jewelry and bronze armor and weapons, as well as household items such as votive figures, incense burners, mirrors, distinctive black pottery called bucchero and priceless Greek vases.

Our initial exposure to the Etruscan past came on the drive north from Rome’s airport. Tired from our flight, we spent our first two nights in the Umbrian town of Orvieto, just south of Tuscany. We had stayed at the Hotel Maitani before and liked the flower-lined terrace with an enchanting view of the gleaming white marble-and-gilt facade of the city’s cathedral. On the same street is one of our favorite restaurants, Trattoria Etrusca, where we had a bracing lentil-and-spelt soup, followed by salad and a plate of polenta, wild mushrooms and truffles, all complemented by a bottle of local white wine.

We awoke the next day ready to explore beautiful Orvieto, a flourishing Etruscan center two millenniums ago. While the city’s position high on a bluff provided a commanding view, it made obtaining drinking water difficult back then. As we would see, the ancient inhabitants went to great lengths to ensure a supply.

Orvieto stands over a honeycomb of about 1,200 man-made caves, many dating to the Etruscan era. In one dark and cool hollow, we looked at a well that had been dug through hundreds of feet of soft volcanic stone called tufa and through clay underneath to reach water. Just how this feat was accomplished no one can say precisely, but according to our cheerful guide, large bellows probably were used to pump air into the well during construction so workers wouldn’t suffocate.

More vivid evidence of Orvieto’s founders lay outside town on a slope beneath cliffs, a spot called Crocifisso del Tufo, an excavated necropolis that dates from the 6th to 5th century BC. The burial ground was like none we had seen before: narrow paths lined with stone tombs that looked like flat-roofed houses, the names of the dead carved over the doorways. All are about the same size, suggesting an egalitarian society. Round stone seats are outside many of them, good places for the spirits to sit and visit.

We examined more historical treasures--a collection of box-shaped marble and terra-cotta cinerary urns--in Orvieto’s recently refurbished Faina archeology museum, opposite the cathedral. Miniature effigies of the deceased recline on the lids of the urns, the ashes inside since removed. It was as though the figures were participating in a banquet--men and women eating lying down, propped up on one elbow, just as the Greeks and Romans did. Many of the figures hold bowl-shaped drinking vessels, and some of the men in their loose, toga-like apparel have plump, slack bellies, a proud emblem of the good life.

The museum also contains a large collection of painted Greek vases, extraordinary pottery that the Etruscans imported, used in life and carried with them into death. Some of the best examples of this Greek art on display in museums worldwide came from Etruscan graves.

Refreshed by our Orvieto stay, we drove north a couple of hours to a house we rented outside the tiny town of Panzano, halfway between Florence and Siena and the base for our daily adventures.

For an overview of Etruscan culture, we traveled first to Florence’s archeology museum. We were fascinated by the collection’s greatest treasure, the 4th century BC bronze Chimera, a crouching lion with a snake’s tail and a goat’s head sprouting from its back.

I was equally taken with a reconstruction of a circular 2nd century BC stone tomb from Arezzo under an earthen mound in the museum garden. Loosely clad figures lounge atop more than a dozen rectangular urns arranged side by side on a stone bench around the wall. They stare eerily into space, as though taking a break from a banquet to reflect on life.

If the Etruscans seemed still to haunt this space, it was in the countryside--and especially in the Tuscan hill towns--where they became most real to us.

San Gimignano was a sleepy backwater when I first visited in the early ‘60s, but thanks to its skyline of medieval towers, it has grown into a gorgeous tourist trap.

Here we found the Etruscan Mystery Museum, which honors the town’s Etruscan past by departing from the curatorial norm. The focus is on items used in daily life, such as artifacts in reconstructed scenes of an Etruscan kitchen and banquet hall (where I learned that most Etruscans ate but one meal a day). Other sections, such as “Cult of the Dead,” have objects related to healing and funerary rituals.

Etruscan women, we were surprised to read, could keep their surnames after marriage, participate in banquets as equals of the men and drink freely of the wine--all acts that were forbidden to proper Greek and Roman women. (In Greek and Roman society, only courtesans could attend feasts.) A favorite banquet food was roasted wild boar, still a Tuscan staple thanks to the endurance of extensive forests where the tusked beasts roam. For a taste of the ancient treat, we bought boar salami and a jar of boar pate at a meat shop. Both were zesty--not gamy but rich.

From San Gimignano we drove to Volterra, less than 20 miles to the west. The countryside can only be described as muscular, with giant rock outcrops flexed against the sky. Volterra possesses a stony strength that evokes the industrious, hard-living Etruscans who once lived here. A large arched gate dating to about the 3rd century BC still forms part of the city wall; it looks like a natural formation, the stone blocks worn and creviced by time and weather.

Volterra boasts one of Italy’s best Etruscan museums, the Guarnacci. Near the entrance, the contents of a recently unearthed nobleman’s grave, complete with bronze breastplate, helmet and weapons, speak eloquently of the courage these people displayed on the battlefield, especially in their wars with the Romans.

One of the Guarnacci’s treasures is an urn (“Gli Sposi,” which translates to “The Married Couple”), two millenniums old, with an aged couple depicted on its lid, their expressions resigned yet sad. Some scholars dispute the notion that they are man and wife and suggest that the woman is a demon escorting the man to the next world.

The museum’s real piece de resistance is a haunting figure, poetically called “Shadow of the Evening,” a thin, elongated bronze statue of a naked boy with his arms and hands pressed tightly to his sides. Though it dates from the 3rd century BC, it is so modern in appearance it easily could be mistaken for the work of the 20th century sculptor Alberto Giacometti. It was found by a farmer plowing his field; he took it home and used it as a poker before it was rescued and recognized for its artistic greatness. Scholars think it may have been placed in the ground in hopes of making the soil more fertile.

We soon realized that Etruscan museums and relics exist almost everywhere in Tuscany. Siena, Arezzo, Montepulciano and Cortona are just a few key towns.

Montepulciano has a house that features rectangular stone urns embedded in its lower story like building blocks. Cortona is the proud possessor of a round bronze lamp more than 2,400 years old. It’s suspended from the ceiling of a pergola that the local Etruscan museum created especially for the piece. The 16 cups for oil around the edge were cast in the shape of mythological figures’ heads; underneath, forming the bottom of the lamp, is the face of a monster.

We could not visit all the collections, and with time growing short, we sought out some of the tombs, many of which are decorated with wall paintings depicting scenes of daily life.

The first we entered lies just outside Chiusi, a city with deep roots in the Etruscan past. Three tombs here are open to the public. (Arrangements to visit them with a guide must be made beforehand at Chiusi’s archeological museum.)

The Monkey’s Tomb recently underwent a long, painstaking restoration. We climbed down a flight of stairs into the clammy semidarkness, our eyes adjusting to the dim image of a monkey hanging from a tree. Obscured for years, the painting is visible again thanks to meticulous cleaning.

Even though we found the work a bit anticlimactic, the tomb itself interested us as a prime example of state-of-the-art preservation. A lighting system featuring “cold lights” has been installed, and the humidity and temperature levels are controlled by computers connected to a lab in Florence, about 75 miles away. Except for the lights, none of the modern equipment is visible. A guide led us into dank chambers with couches for the dead carved from the stone lining the walls. Over everything hung a sense of eternity--and the pungent scent of moist earth.

Next door, in another tomb, we were startled to come upon a crime scene. The lid of a sarcophagus had been propped open by grave robbers. The instrument they used as a wedge was the lid of a cinerary urn, the head on top functioning as the prop. Archeologists left the makeshift tool in place. Looking closely at the face, I thought the features bore a striking resemblance to our guide, a reminder that while Etruscan culture may have been subverted by Rome, the Etruscans themselves never died out. They are, to a great extent, the Tuscans of today.

With our trip ending, we headed back to Rome. Before the flight home, we stopped at the city’s renowned Etruscan National Museum at Villa Giulia. It’s hard to think of such a magnificent collection being anything but astounding. I must say, however, that on our way south we had come across something even more striking: brightly painted tombs that we had seen previously only in art books.

Our first glimpse of these small chambers was in the National Museum of Tarquinia (which, by the way, displays enough erotic pottery from Tuscan graves to demonstrate just how life-loving the Etruscans were). The tomb paintings were transferred to canvas and removed from their original locations by conservationists who feared the effects of tourists and high humidity levels. Reconstructed within the museum behind glass, the wall paintings offer vivid glimpses of the Etruscans engaged in activities associated with funeral banquets, including dancing. I was surprised that some of the images--familiar to me from art books--were not life size, as I had imagined. A striding, caped youth in sandals blowing on double pipes--perhaps the most reproduced of all Etruscan paintings--measures only a few feet tall.

With advancements in preservation techniques, other Tarquinian tomb paintings discovered more recently have been left where they came to light, a couple of miles outside town. We reached them by long staircases carved out of the limestone and running deep into the earth.

Each tomb lies behind a locked metal door with a glass window. Conditions are tightly controlled. By pressing a button, we could light up the interiors briefly and see all the warm ochers, reds, greens, tans and oranges of the ancient paintings leaping out at us. For a few instants, there before our eyes were the Etruscans feasting, wrestling, fishing, swimming, hunting and boxing, before the lights went out and these lovers of life disappeared once more into darkness.

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Guidebook: Unearthing the Etruscans

Getting there: Most Etruscan sites lie north of Rome in Tuscany, Umbria and Lazio. From LAX to Rome, connecting service (change of planes) is offered on Air France, Alitalia, British Airways, Continental, Delta, KLM, Lufthansa, Swissair and US Airways. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $1,144.

Telephones: To call the numbers below from the U.S., dial 011 (international dialing code), 39 (country code for Italy), plus 0 and the local number.

Where to stay: Hotel Maitani, Via Lorenzo Maitani 5, Orvieto 05018; telephone/fax 763-342-011 (or -012 or -013), www.argoweb.it/hotelmaitani/maitani.uk.html. We have stayed here multiple times. Terrace overlooks town’s beautiful cathedral. Doubles start about $107 per night.

Hotel Restaurant La Badia, Localita La Badia 8, Orvieto 0501; 763-301-959 (or -876), fax 763-305-396, www.labadiahotel.it. Grand hotel is a former abbey and monastery that dates to the 8th century and has a 12-sided tower. I’ve seen it from a distance; friends who stayed there loved it. Doubles from about $186, breakfast and tax included.

Where to eat: Trattoria Etrusca, Via Lorenzo Maitani 10, Orvieto; 763-344-016. Down the street from Hotel Maitani. Good soup, local wine. Entrees $5-$12.

Etruscan sites: More than 70 museums, archeological sites and monuments are associated with the Etruscans, including:

Chiusi: National Archeological Museum, 93 Via Porsenna, 578-20-177.

Cortona: Museum of the Etruscan Academy, Palazzo Pretorio, 10 Piazza Signorelli, 575-630-415.

Florence: National Archeological Museum, 38 Via della Colonna, 55-23-575.

Orvieto: National Archeological Museum, Piazza Duomo, 763-341-039; Museum of the Foundation of C. Faina, 29 Piazza Duomo, 763-341-511; Necropolis di Crocifisso del Tufo, at base of Orvieto butte, 763-343-611.

Rome: Etruscan National Museum, 9 Piazzale di Villa Giulia, 6-322-6571.

San Gimignano: Archeological Museum, 11 Via Folgore, 577-940-348; Etruscan Mystery Museum, www.etruscanmysterymuseum.it.

Tarquinia: National Archeological Museum, Palazzo Vitelleschi, Piazza Cavour, 766-856-036 (includes admission to Necrop- olis of Monterozzi, east of city).

Volterra: Guarnacci Etruscan Museum, 15 Via Don Minzoni, 588-86-347.

For more information: Italian Government Tourist Board, 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles, CA 90025; (310) 820-1898, www.italiantourism.com and www.enit.it.

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Dale M. Brown is a freelance writer in Alexandria, Va.