Vetulonia

Principal Etruscan city and, according to traditional sources, one of the confederation of twelve. The original settlement was probably early Iron Age (Villanovan) and it prospered between the 9th-6th centuries BC. There are Villanovan pits, biconical ossuaries (a type of circular tomb with a tumulus), and some monumental tholos-like vaulted examples. The grave goods are often rich, of gold, silver, and particularly bronze. From the Tomba della Pietrera have come the earliest examples of Etruscan stone statuary, which are flat, rectilinear figurines.

[Etruscan Vetluna]. A principal Etruscan city and, according to traditional sources, one of the confederation of twelve. Original settlement is perhaps early Iron Age (Villanovan), and it looks as if the city’s chief period of prosperity and influence came early, in the 7th and 6th centuries bc. The later Etrusco-Roman and Hellenistic periods are obscure. Most interest has concentrated with conventional emphasis upon the cemeteries, although there has been some investigation of the Hellenistic town (see the so-called scavi cittä), and some trial trenches dug. Among the necropolis evidence, we have Villanovan pits, and biconical ossuaries, a type of circular tomb with tumulus which seems to be characteristic of Vetulonia, and some monumental ‘THOLOS’-like vaulted examples. The contents have often been rich, including artefacts of gold and silver, and decorated bronze cauldrons. From the Tomba della Pietrera have come the earliest examples of Etruscan stone statuary. The traditional claim, made for instance by Silius Italicus, that the Romans took over such distinctive items as the fasces (an axe in a bundle of rods, symbol of authority) and the sella curulis (official ceremonial chair of high state officers) precisely from the Vetulonians, is perhaps given some support by the discovery of an axe bound in rods in one of the tombs.