Dennis, George: The cities and cemeteries of Etruria: in two volumes (Band 2) (London, 1848)

chap. xlIX.] WHO CONSTRUCTED THESE TOMBS ? 321

vations have been made. Future research, either by
finding some of these rude tombs intact, or by discovering
others of a different character, may be expected to throw
light on the subject.9

Yet this form of sepulchre can hardly be indicative of
any one race in particular. The structure is so rude and
simple, that it might have suggested itself to any people,
and be naturally adopted in an early state of civilization.
It is the very arrangement the child makes use of in
building his house of cards. This simplicity accounts for
the wide diffusion of such monuments over the Old World ;
for they are found in different climates and widely distant
countries, from the mountains of Wales and Ireland to the
deserts of Barbary, and from the western shores of the
Iberian Peninsula to the steppes of Tartary, and the
eastern coasts of Hindostan. They are found on moun-
tains and in plains, on continents and in islands, on the
sea-coast and far inland, by the river and in the desert,
solitary and grouped in multitudes.1 That in certain

9 The quantity of coarse broken pot- gigantic proportions. The very similar

tery strewn over the plain, hints the tombs near Santa Marinella contained

character of their contents ; but Repetti articles like those found in the earliest

(V. p. 207) says that in the similar sepulchres of Etruria, of very archaic

tombs on the other side of Saturnia, character—some even purely Egyptian,

already mentioned, were found human > How numerous these monuments

bones alone, without any articles of are in the British Isles is well known,

sculpture, or urns, fictile vases, and They are found also on the continent

the usual furniture of Etruscan tombs. of Europe, particularly in the north

" Di tempi incerti e una specie di of France; and also in the Spanish

Camposanto che ci fu indicate ne' Peninsula, though to what extent they

campi sotto il poggio e presso il Bagno exist there is unknown, as the anti-

di Saturnia, dove furono trovate delle quities of that land have been little

ossa umane dentro fosse coperte da investigated. (See Borrow's Bible in

lastroni di travertino, senza alcun Spain, Chapter VII.). On the shores

oggetto di scultura, senza urne, senza of the Mediterranean they are parti-

vasi di terraglie e cose simili, facili a cularly abundant. Besides the other

scuoprirsi nei sepolcreti di etrusco two sites in Etruria, they are found in

nome." If the peasantry may be ere- Sardinia and the Balearics ; and it may

dited, the bones found here were of not be generally known that they exist

VOL. II. T