- chapter 29: Tarquinia, Sacred areas and sanctuaries –
period. Its limits and setting coincide with the very beginning of the story of the site and
confi rm its continuity and memory through centuries, showing persistent relationships
between objects and sacred spaces, built or open air, to carry out the same cult practices,
until the era of Romanization.^5
More peculiar aspects are the marking of relevant areas of the bedrock of the
“monumental complex” with stabile and perishable structures and human burials. The
deposition of the child affected by the morbus sacer (epilepsy) near the natural cavity, which
is the focus of the whole “monumental complex,” belongs to the very core of the reasons
of its foundation (Fig. 29.1). Among human burials there are a number of sacrifi ced
individuals: for example the so-called seaman, who was probably a Greek man according
to the fragmentary vase found in connection with him, shows an articulated situation of
Mediterranean contacts and foreign presences. These are also unraveled by the technical
features of the subsequent Orientalizing phase inspired by eastern Mediterranean masonry
(pilaster-wall linked by sections of smaller stones). In this period its sacred and political
destination is demonstrated by the deposition of the three famous bronzes in front of
building β, the “altar temple” dedicated by a rex (“king”) at the beginning of the seventh
century bc to the main Etruscan goddess Uni (Fig. 29.2). Her presence has recently been
proven as will be described below.
In the Archaic period architectural devices, such as stone blocks and altars of raw
stones and earth, were positioned to keep ever present the memory of previous Villanovan
cultic spots. This happens for example in area γ where the Villanovan evidences are
Figure 29.1 Tarquinia, “monumental complex,” the natural cavity. Courtesy of Università degli Studi
di Milano, “Progetto Tarquinia” archive.