Just call me Indiana Jones

One of the great things about studying abroad is the free field trips. But, instead of going to a New York museum or park, here I get to clamber around a bunch of tombs and archeology sites and artefacts. I spent the whole weekend going to 4 different cities in central Italy (south of Florence, closer to Rome): Chiusi, Orvieto, Tarquinia and Cerveterai, and they all used to be city-states of Etruria. This is the second field trip I've taken with my Etruscans class, the first was when I went to Rome before fall break.

The Etruscans were early inhabitants of Italy- they were here even before the Romans, and they disappeared from Italy around 100 B.C.E. when the Romans conquered Etruria.  Many of the city-states then became Roman settlements, but a lot of the Etruscan artifacts were preserved underground, mainly in their tombs.

On Friday morning we left early in the morning and headed to Chiusi first. There we went to the archeological museum, which features a lot of Etruscan artifacts that became from Chiusi only. Then we went through tunnels under the main city square that were about half a km long, and emptied out into what used to be an underground water tank for the fire department. This was also at the bottom of what is now a tall tower at we climbed up and got a great view of the city.

the first time I'd seen real autumn leaves here!

the underground tunnels

Chiusi

From there we headed to the necropolis. The Etruscans maintained an extensive and organized city of the dead, but it was always separated from the city of the living- ideally by a river or stream. There we went into 2 tombs, one of which isn't normally accessible to the public called the Tomb of the Monkey. It's called that because of the image of a monkey painted on one of the tomb walls.

Inside the Tomb of the Monkey

oh Charles (Professor Ewell)

Etruscan tombs have a huge problem with tomb robbers who steal artifacts and then sell them on the illegal art market. In one of the tombs the evidence of them being there was left as a reminder– they used the lid of an urn to prop open a sarcophagus and steal what was inside.

After Chiusi we got on the bus and drove about an hour to Orvieto, where we got lunch- I had vegetable and bean soup, and a salad, if you were wondering. Then we went to 2 more museums where we only saw a few artifacts in each, before heading to the necropolis, which is still under excavation. A lot of tombs have been excavated and we had some time to explore the area. Professor Ewell's son was tagging along on the trip and has cultivated his own little game called "tomb and seek" or rather "hide and scare the shit out of college kids".

Orvieto necropolis

One of the "condo tombs" (for the middle class)

Orvieto Necropolis

After that we went to see the foundation of an Etruscan temple, but on the way stopped to climb down a well that went what seemed like a thousand feet into the ground. The spiral staircases along the walls were in a double helix pattern so that donkeys could climb down for water and back up without running into one another. I don't think I've ever been so deep underground in my life. (my camera had died at this point, so hopefully stolen pictures are forthcoming)

Then we headed to Tarquinia, where we stayed the night. I had pizza for the second night in a row- I'm really going to miss the Italian concept that whole pizzas are not for sharing, because I'm growing accustomed to having one to myself.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early and headed to our last museum of the trip, picked up sandwiches for a picnic lunch later, and then headed to the necropolis. When we got there, my professor discovered that some tombs not normally accessible by the public were available for us to tour that day, so we ended up seeing a lot of tombs that we'd studied in class that we hadn't expected to see in the flesh.

The covering over the Tomb of the Panthers

The coolest thing about going out to these tombs (they were about 5 km form the city) was that only a small fraction of the tombs have been excavated. Underneath the ground we were walking were literally thousands of tombs that have yet to be excavated. Archaeologists are waiting to excavate them to ensure they have the proper preservation methods in place, as a lot of wall paintings (frescoes) have been destroyed by the elements when they've been opened and improperly preserved.

There are thousands of tombs under the ground here

Tarquinia countryside

After this exclusive tour of the Tarquinian necropolis, we got back on the bus and headed to our last stop: Cerveterai. Here we were seeing the city of the dead we've discussed the most this semester, called "Banditaccia" This necropolis is unique, because the Etruscans carved the entire place out of the ground, which was made of tufa, or volcanic bedrock. Tufa is very easy to carve, it only hardens when it is exposed to the elements.  No additional stones were brought in, they simply just dug into the ground and sculpted a city. They even carved the walls of the tumuli to look like they were made of stone bricks, but it's all one piece of stone.

stray dog outside the Banditaccia

This is all one piece of sculpted tufa

Professor Ewell took us to a few tombs we wanted to explain to us, but then he let us lose for an hour to let us explore on our own. It was like one huge playground. It's an active archeological site, so there are no neat pathways, ie a lot of clambering was involved.

A tomb with a collapsed ceiling

kittenz errywhere

The entire weekend was an amazing experience. When else will I be able to say I explored tombs from B.C.E. times? It was also great being outdoors in literally ancient landscape, but it did make me miss the good old outdoors at home. But I'm definitely going to make the most of my last few weeks here, I can't believe it's almost over! Less than a month until I'm home.

New thing: Going to archeological sites in Italy (or anywhere)