- Simona Rafanelli –
Operationally assimilated to the “podia” of Marzabotto, altar “λ” (Lambda) of the
sanctuary in the southern area of Pyrgi seems to furnish a valid parallel to the so-called
“great” altar found at Populonia, in the area of the necropolis discovered very recently
on the Gulf of Baratti, below sea-level, along with other buildings dating from the fi nal
decades of the seventh century and the beginning of the sixth century bc, interpreted as
structures associated with cults honoring chthonic deities in whose sphere the dedication
of arms plays an important part.^39
If today the imposing altar/base for display of cippi erected in the cult space/stepped
theatral area of the Grotta Porcina,^40 near the monumental tumulus of the necropolis,
continues to represent a unicum in the context of Etruscan Archaic funerary architecture,
it is, on the other hand, possible to recognize within the funerary context, a sort of
thread of continuity in the implementation of a particular type of cult structure that, in
conforming to the same formal and conceptual principal, leads from the so-called terrace-
altars with stepped access in the Orientalizing and Archaic eras, related to the tumuli
of the Caeretan, Florentine, Cortona complexes, passing through the cultic platforms of
the Viterbo hinterland (Tuscania, Pian di Mola; San Giuliano, Tumulo Cima) and the
crowning structures of the cube-tombs of Etruria rupestre (the cliff-regions of southern
Etruria, Norchia, Castel d’Asso, Blera, Sovana),^41 up to that peculiar class of monuments
concentrated in the same areas as the rock-cut tombs, and variously defi ned as “pyramidal
stepped monuments,”^42 (Fig. 28.3) capable of combining in the same structural unit the
double value of funerary monument and structure for worship,^43 which can be deduced from
the considerable fi gural documentation, enriched in recent times by the latest evidence.^44
Figure 28.3 Funerary cippus in peperino. Graphic relief (plan and profi le to scale 1:5), made by
architect Marica Rafanelli. Vulci, Castello dell’Abbadia, Antiquarium.
First decades of third century bc (rilievo arch. Marica Rafanelli).