DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0429
TARQUINIL—The Cemetery. [chap, xviii.
generally overgrown with myrtle, broom, and lentiscus;
tombs yawn around you at every step, once the resting-
places of the princes and merchants of Tarquinii, now the
dwelling of the fox, the bat, and the lizard, the shelter of
the shepherd from the storm, or of the homicide from his
pursuers ; the very pathway resounds beneath your tread,
and is full of chinks, which let daylight into the subterranean
abodes of the dead. Here you are stopt by piles of large
hewn stones, dug out by the peasantry from the sub-
structions of the tumuli, to be applied to the construction
of hovels or cattle-sheds ; there you cross a road hewn in
the rock, with tombs in its cliffs to attest its antiquity.
At the distance of more than two miles from Corneto,
you find yourself at the mouth of another painted tomb,
Geotta delle Bighe,
or " Geotta Stackelbeeg," or " del Barone," as it has been
styled from the gentleman who first copied and described
its paintings. I would rather call it the Tomb of the
Symposium, or drinking-bout—that being its distinguishing
characteristic.
Though the paintings in this tomb are in many parts
greatly injured, a glance suffices to show that in its original
state it must have been more richly decorated than any
other painted sepulchre in this necropolis. Walls and ceiling
must have blazed with colour. Like the Querciola tomb,
this has a double frieze of figures ; but here the arrange-
ment is reversed, and the smaller frieze is above the larger.
As in that tomb, the end-wall is here also occupied by
a banquet, and the side-walls by dances, of very similar
character.9
9 This tomb was discovered in the square, 6 ft. high at the sides, and 8 ft.
spring of 1827, It is about 15 ft. 6 in. from the floor to the eentral beam
generally overgrown with myrtle, broom, and lentiscus;
tombs yawn around you at every step, once the resting-
places of the princes and merchants of Tarquinii, now the
dwelling of the fox, the bat, and the lizard, the shelter of
the shepherd from the storm, or of the homicide from his
pursuers ; the very pathway resounds beneath your tread,
and is full of chinks, which let daylight into the subterranean
abodes of the dead. Here you are stopt by piles of large
hewn stones, dug out by the peasantry from the sub-
structions of the tumuli, to be applied to the construction
of hovels or cattle-sheds ; there you cross a road hewn in
the rock, with tombs in its cliffs to attest its antiquity.
At the distance of more than two miles from Corneto,
you find yourself at the mouth of another painted tomb,
Geotta delle Bighe,
or " Geotta Stackelbeeg," or " del Barone," as it has been
styled from the gentleman who first copied and described
its paintings. I would rather call it the Tomb of the
Symposium, or drinking-bout—that being its distinguishing
characteristic.
Though the paintings in this tomb are in many parts
greatly injured, a glance suffices to show that in its original
state it must have been more richly decorated than any
other painted sepulchre in this necropolis. Walls and ceiling
must have blazed with colour. Like the Querciola tomb,
this has a double frieze of figures ; but here the arrange-
ment is reversed, and the smaller frieze is above the larger.
As in that tomb, the end-wall is here also occupied by
a banquet, and the side-walls by dances, of very similar
character.9
9 This tomb was discovered in the square, 6 ft. high at the sides, and 8 ft.
spring of 1827, It is about 15 ft. 6 in. from the floor to the eentral beam