Saw and did something today I had not done before. I visited the Etruscan necropolis at Cervetere. Necropolis is litterally city of the dead, and that it is exactly what it is. It was a long day. It is not that the viewing was so hard. It was the getting there. Cervetere is about 30 miles north of Rome proper--in the heart of the old Etruscan cities. Thirty  miles is good because it is reachable by local transportation. It is bad because most of the distance is through city traffic. Took over an hour and a half by city bus, subway, and then regional motor coach, COTRAL, with lots of on and off stops along the way.

COTRAL was convenient because it deposited me right in front of the museum. Without a car, this is the best way to find the museum. There is also a local bus from the museum to the necropolis, but it runs only every two hours, and I was too anxious to wait. So I walked the kilometer or so to the necropolis. The tombs open to the public--there are three massive cemeteries around Cevetere--are situated on a ridge across a gorge and along a pleasant shaded path to the site. The road goes up a slight grade, so returninng was mostly down hill, a saving grace after two or more hours on the huge site. I only walked about half of the site. A good deal of it is repetitous. A significant number of the tombs have been excavated, but there are still hundreds as yet unexploared. Because it is a huge task to maintain such a large area, tha tombs are overgrown, damp--some are filled with water--and hard to access. While there was a nice breeze from off the nearby f ields and olive groves, in the maze of tombs and tangle of vines it was hot, muggy and still. I would not want to be there when the mosquitoes hatch.

The site is not labeled well. That is at least consistent with the museum. From what I could determine there must be centuries of burials in the necropolis, which seems to have begun in rather helter skelter fashion with large tombs built irregularly above ground in huge round tumuli fashion with smaller ones carved out of the local tufa stone. In time, probably because of space needs, a regular city like planning took over with tombs arranged in appartment complexes. It is an amazing site, but I wish that I had known about the shuttle to the site before I went. It would have allowed me a great deal more time in the museum, which is an excellent local museum. The Villa Guilia still has the best Etruscan collection, but the objects in Cervetere offer a grander perspective on Etruscan life.