- Maria Anna De Lucia Brolli and Jacopo Tabolli –
Figure 14.15 Reconstruction of Faliscan female and male dress based on tombs A36
(XXVI) and A38 (XXIX) La Petrina necropolis (by Jacopo Tabolli and Matteo Gennaro).Compared to Veii, the evolution of funerary architecture of the oldest tombs furnishes
different structures (for example, the pozzo type and well-shaped tomb built with a
rectangular stone lining) or the adoption of the sarcophagus of tuff not only for infant
burials, as at Veii, but for different age groups: at Narce the wooden coffi n appears in
a chronologically more recent horizon than the tuff sarcophagi, while at Veii the two
types are used simultaneously (Fig. 14.16). Thus the simple pozzi (well-pits) and
fosse (trench tombs) often simply denote later graves instead of being the starting
point of an evolution towards more complex forms, as happens in the Etruscan site
(for Veii see Bartoloni et al. 1997; for Narce, Tabolli forthcoming 2012). One of
the characteristics of Narce is the long duration of the rite of cremation that goes
beyond the chronological limits of the custom at Veii, and is attested in sectors of the
necropoleis specifi cally intended for cremation: Petrina B, Monte Li Santi, the South
Group of I Tufi (Baglione and De Lucia Brolli 1997) (Fig. 14.17). The similarities
and differences that accumulated in the eighth century bc in the funerary ideology are
reproduced between the end of the sixth and the beginning of the fi fth century bc, when
Narce looks towards Veii in adapting to local needs a particular type of tomb with burial
area open to the sky and niches (loculi) to hold the cinerary urns (Fig. 14.18). While
some of these tombs have a rich collection of goods that signals the higher social strata
of the population (Petrina B 89), others are relatively bare or have a set of offerings that
is reduced to essentials, illustrating in this a refl ection of the sumptuary laws that in this
period affected southern Etruria and Latium Vetus (De Lucia Brolli and Baglione 1997).
The small number of tombs in which this ideology is expressed is distributed
within the necropoleis (Petrina B, Monte Soriano), which belonged to the communities
established on the heights of Narce/Monte Li Santi. At the same time in the community
of Pizzo Piede the close relationships with the Etruscan cities are crystallized: evidence