DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.785#0597
chap, xxvi.] EGYPTIAN-LIKE SEPULCHRES. 489
are brandishing harpoons or anchors, sometimes oars,
swords, or even snakes, like the Furies. They are com-
monly called Glaucus or Scylla, according to their sex;
but these terms are merely conventional, and it is possible
that they may have no relation to those beings of the
Greek mythology. Mysterious symbols of a long-forgotten
creed, thus prominently displayed, they cannot fail to stir
the imagination of the beholder.
In the same line of cliff, called Poggio Prisca, is a long
range of sepulchral monuments, in general form, size, and
character, like those of Norchia and Castel d' Asso, but
in their details differing from any others yet discovered in
Etruria. For, besides the Egyptian character of the out-
line and of the horizontal mouldings, which these tombs
have in common with those of the sites mentioned, here
we find cornices not receding but projecting, and actually
taking the concave form, with the prominent torus beneath,
so common on the banks of the Nile ; and this not in a
solitary monument, but repeated again and again, so as
to remove all suspicion that this striking resemblance to
Egyptian architecture was the result of accident. The
Etruscan character is seen in the moulded door on the
facade, and in the inscription within it; but the den-
tilled fillet below the torus, and the rock-hewn pedestal
which often surmounts the monument, are rather Greek
and Roman features.
The upper chamber, so common at Norchia and Castel
d' Asso, is unknown at Sovana, but there is some analogy
to it in a recess hollowed in the facade of a monument, and
having a bench at the back ; either for a sarcophagus, for
the cippus, or for the accommodation of mourning friends.
are brandishing harpoons or anchors, sometimes oars,
swords, or even snakes, like the Furies. They are com-
monly called Glaucus or Scylla, according to their sex;
but these terms are merely conventional, and it is possible
that they may have no relation to those beings of the
Greek mythology. Mysterious symbols of a long-forgotten
creed, thus prominently displayed, they cannot fail to stir
the imagination of the beholder.
In the same line of cliff, called Poggio Prisca, is a long
range of sepulchral monuments, in general form, size, and
character, like those of Norchia and Castel d' Asso, but
in their details differing from any others yet discovered in
Etruria. For, besides the Egyptian character of the out-
line and of the horizontal mouldings, which these tombs
have in common with those of the sites mentioned, here
we find cornices not receding but projecting, and actually
taking the concave form, with the prominent torus beneath,
so common on the banks of the Nile ; and this not in a
solitary monument, but repeated again and again, so as
to remove all suspicion that this striking resemblance to
Egyptian architecture was the result of accident. The
Etruscan character is seen in the moulded door on the
facade, and in the inscription within it; but the den-
tilled fillet below the torus, and the rock-hewn pedestal
which often surmounts the monument, are rather Greek
and Roman features.
The upper chamber, so common at Norchia and Castel
d' Asso, is unknown at Sovana, but there is some analogy
to it in a recess hollowed in the facade of a monument, and
having a bench at the back ; either for a sarcophagus, for
the cippus, or for the accommodation of mourning friends.