DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.786#0489
472 PERUGIA.—The Cemeteky. [chap, lviii.
lofty height on which the city stands. The keys are kept
at a house hard by the tomb.
You descend a long flight of steps to the entrance, now
closed by a door of wood : the ancient one, a huge slab of
travertine, which was placed against it—a mere " stone on
the mouth of the sepulchre,"—now rests against the rock
outside. You enter,—here is none of the chill of the
grave, but the breath of the scirocco,—you are in a warm,
damp atmosphere ; that is, in winter, when it is most
visited ; in summer it is of course cooler than the external
air. On one of the door-posts, which are slabs of traver-
tine, an inscription in Etruscan characters catches your
eye ; and so sharply are the letters cut, and so bright is
the red paint within them, that you can scarcely credit
this epitaph to have an antiquity of anything like two
thousand years.1
Daylight cannot penetrate to the further end of the
tomb; but when a torch is lighted you perceive yourself
to be in a spacious chamber with a very lofty roof, carved
into the form of beam and rafters, but with an extraor-
dinarily high pitch ; the slopes forming an angle of 45°
with the horizon, instead of 20° or 25°, as usual.2 On this
chamber open nine others, of much smaller size, and all
empty, save one at the further end, opposite the entrance,
where a party of revellers, each on a snow-white couch,
with chapleted brow, torque-decorated neck, and goblet
1 The inscription on the doorpost ignorance of the language, to give an
seems to he a general epitaph to the interpretation ; though analogies readily
tomb. It would be thus written in suggest themselves. The initial of the
Latin letters—" Arnth Larth Velimnas fifth and last words may possibly be a
Aruneal Phusiur Suthi Acil Phece." "Th."
It seems to imply that the sepulchre - The dimensions of this central
was made by the two brothers Arnth chamber are 24 feet long, 12 wide, and
and Larth Velimnas. Of the rest of the about 16 high—j. e., 10 feet to the top
inscription it were vain, in our present of the cornice, and 6 in the pediment.
lofty height on which the city stands. The keys are kept
at a house hard by the tomb.
You descend a long flight of steps to the entrance, now
closed by a door of wood : the ancient one, a huge slab of
travertine, which was placed against it—a mere " stone on
the mouth of the sepulchre,"—now rests against the rock
outside. You enter,—here is none of the chill of the
grave, but the breath of the scirocco,—you are in a warm,
damp atmosphere ; that is, in winter, when it is most
visited ; in summer it is of course cooler than the external
air. On one of the door-posts, which are slabs of traver-
tine, an inscription in Etruscan characters catches your
eye ; and so sharply are the letters cut, and so bright is
the red paint within them, that you can scarcely credit
this epitaph to have an antiquity of anything like two
thousand years.1
Daylight cannot penetrate to the further end of the
tomb; but when a torch is lighted you perceive yourself
to be in a spacious chamber with a very lofty roof, carved
into the form of beam and rafters, but with an extraor-
dinarily high pitch ; the slopes forming an angle of 45°
with the horizon, instead of 20° or 25°, as usual.2 On this
chamber open nine others, of much smaller size, and all
empty, save one at the further end, opposite the entrance,
where a party of revellers, each on a snow-white couch,
with chapleted brow, torque-decorated neck, and goblet
1 The inscription on the doorpost ignorance of the language, to give an
seems to he a general epitaph to the interpretation ; though analogies readily
tomb. It would be thus written in suggest themselves. The initial of the
Latin letters—" Arnth Larth Velimnas fifth and last words may possibly be a
Aruneal Phusiur Suthi Acil Phece." "Th."
It seems to imply that the sepulchre - The dimensions of this central
was made by the two brothers Arnth chamber are 24 feet long, 12 wide, and
and Larth Velimnas. Of the rest of the about 16 high—j. e., 10 feet to the top
inscription it were vain, in our present of the cornice, and 6 in the pediment.