Cerveteri: Etruscan City of the Dead

Cerveteri: Etruscan City of the Dead

The necropolis of Cerveteri is one of the most striking archaeological sites in Italy. The Etruscans chose the rocky outcrop of tufa stone to carve out a series of tumulus-like tombs to create a veritable city of the dead. The domes of rock, appearing like an invasion of flying saucers, contain rock-cut grave shafts, rooms, and platforms for the sarcophagi which held the bodies of the Etruscan elites. Created in the centuries between the 9th and 3rd centuries BCE, they attest to the accomplishments of Etruscan civilization in the pre-Roman period. This lecture gives an account of some of the more remarkable tombs—such as the Tomb of the Reliefs—and some of the luxury objects that were found in them.

Bio: Allan Langdale is an art and architectural historian, photographer, filmmaker, and travel writer who received his Ph.D. in art history from UC Santa Barbara. Allan has taught courses in Italian Renaissance, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Indian, and Islamic art and architecture and currently teaches art history at UC Santa Cruz. He has written the definitive architectural field guide to the little-known region of Turkish Cyprus, In a Contested Realm (2012) and also made the award-winning documentary The Stones of Famagusta: the Story of a Forgotten City (2008). His travel books include Palermo: Travels in the City of Happiness (2015) and The Hippodrome of Istanbul / Constantinople: An Illustrated Handbook of its History (2019). He also has a travel blog at Allan’s Art and Architecture Worlds.

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