Dennis, George: The cities and cemeteries of Etruria: in two volumes (Band 1) (London, 1848)

chap, xv.] SEPULCHRAL VARIETIES. 237

Only one tomb did I perceive which, in any striking
particular, varied from those already described. It is in
the narrow glen. On each side of the false door of the
fa9ade is a squared buttress projecting at right angles,
and cut out of the rock which formed the roof of the
upper and open chamber. These buttresses are sur-
mounted by cornices, and have a small door-moulding on
their inner sides, like that on the facade. The sepulchre
itself, in this instance, is of an unusual form — ellip-
tical. Orioli has described a singular sepulchre at Castel
d'Asso, which differs wholly from those already mentioned,
being a cavity for a body, sunk in the surface of the plain
and surrounded by an ornamental pattern, cut in the
tufo.3 I looked in vain for this ; but nearly opposite the
castle, I remarked a deep well or shaft sunk in the plain,
which, I have little doubt, was the entrance to a tomb,
such as exist at Ferento. There can be no doubt, from the
analogy of other sites, and from the excavations already
made, that sepulchres abound beneath the surface of the
plain.

In a country like our own, where intelligence is so
widely diffused, and news travels with telegraphic rapidity,
it were scarcely possible that monuments of former ages, of
the most striking character, should exist in the open air, be
seen daily by the peasantry, and yet remain unknown to
the rest of the world for many ages. So it is, however,
in Italy. Here is a site abounding in most imposing

Bull. Inst. 1839, p. 75. The best were found in the facaded tombs,
vases here found were two amphora? 3 Orioli, ap. Inghir. Mon. Etr. IV. p.

with black figures — one representing 189, tav. XXXIX. 3. The same writer

Hercules and the boar of Erymanthus, (p. 209) speaks of a tomb on this site,

the other Minerva in a quadriga. The which had two phalli scratched on its

former was in the possession of Thor- walls. I did not perceive such symbols

waldsen. Abeken (Mittelitalien, p. 256) in any of these tombs,
is mistaken in supposing these articles