- chapter 6: Orientalizing Etruria –
and a porch, and called “the king’s house,” was abandoned as a prelude to the rebuilding
of a similar new structure. The event, perhaps a prelude to a change of leadership,
was sealed by a solemn libation of 100 individuals, perhaps representing the various
aristocratic families of Populonia. One hundred cups (kyathoi) and one olla (jar) were
found in the pit formed by a post-hole of the structure that was demolished.^43 By the
seventh century, we witness the building of fortifi ed circuit walls on stone plinths with
mud-brick superstructures as in the case of Roselle, a town in which was erected a sacred-
institutional building with rectilinear plan and a circular room covered by a tholos-roof
set in a large rectangular enclosure.
The “Palace,” the privileged site of the splendor of the prince, plays a central role in
relations between the great aristocratic families, both local and foreign. The interior of the
tombs, especially those at Cerveteri, of course, is a valuable refl ection of real architecture,
which evolves from the representation of the oldest thatched roofi ng to reproduce the carved
beams and coffers of a wooden roof covered with tiles. Above all, the vestibule, a large room
sometimes with pillars with Aeolic or Doric capitals, presents a profusion of carved pieces
of furniture such as beds, baskets, stools, thrones, and shields hung on the walls.
Roof-tiles are introduced around the mid-seventh century and the new structure of the
house is also commemorated by the production of urns with gabled roof and architectonic
decoration (Fig. 6.26). Towards the end of the century canonized in the tombs (and
perhaps in real homes), rooms (usually three) side by side are preceded by a vestibule and
porch. The rock-cut tomb at Tuscania, Pian della Mola, shaped like a house with gabled
roof decorated with acroteria and a portico, is a striking, “petrifi ed” example of a luxury
residence (Fig. 6.27).
An Orientalizing urban center is exemplifi ed in the Acquarossa houses, with side-by-
side rooms whose tiled roofs are decorated with painted, cut-out, or plastic terracotta
ornamentation. Peculiar is the case of the “Palace” of Murlo near Siena, a princely
residence ritually destroyed about 530, whose Late Orientalizing phase is articulated
within a colonnaded courtyard with decorative architectural terracottas, ambiguously
suspended between sacred space and the celebration of the noble family. The scenes
depicted on terracotta frieze-plaques are a succession of banquets, horse races, wedding
Figure 6.26 Cinerary urn in form of a house. Cerveteri, Monte Abatone necropolis,
tomb 426. 650 bc. Cerveteri, Museo Nazionale Archeologico Cerite Claudia Ruspoli.