Monumental Complex

From the beginning of the Villanovan period (from the late 10th to the 8th century bce), the area was intensively frequented and probably to a wider extent (a quarter of a hectare [over half an acre]).

Around a natural cavity produced by the calcareous nature of the Civita plateau, offerings were made to an unnamed divinity of Nature who starts as a natural force and over time accumulates new attributes, partly through contact with other peoples of the Mediterranean, and becomes increasingly recognizable as a divinity of the life cycle of the animal and vegetable realms.

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Figure 4. Tarquinia, map of the ‘monumental complex’, by Andrea Garzulino (UniMI-Archivio Etruscologia).

From the very beginning, there were the remains of huts, ovens, and pavements produced by crushing and pressing the local macco (calcareous stone) to obtain strata of stone of varying thickness for several purposes. This is the earliest evidence so far of a technique that continues to be used from this point on as one of the typical architectural features of the ‘monumental complex’.

From the start of the 9th century onwards, the centrality of the natural cavity within the area is made ever more evident by the traces of activities close to it. These are evident from layers of ashes and a series of small pits containing potsherds and animal bones, and the deposition of a child in a quadrangular area close to the cavity. This burial would come to be crucial for the site (Area A (area alpha)). Paleoanthropological analyses reveal that he was a boy of about 8 years old with encephalopathy and epilepsy (CAH 4² (1988), plate 295). He was clearly the object of prolonged subsequent veneration. That his memory was maintained over the centuries is shown by an Etruscan inscription dating three centuries later (end of the 6th century bce) found near the cavity: terela. This is the Etruscan word corresponding to the Latin prodigium and Greek teras, which are both terms indicating an exceptional phenomenon, immediately recalling the story of the prophetic child Tages. It could, then, be claimed that this real child is the inspiration for the legend of Tages or alternatively that his body was associated in antiquity with Tages.

From the mid-8th century bce onwards, the natural cavity continues to be surrounded by perishable structures and additional human interments, including sacrificed individuals, and votive deposits mark cultic areas.

The anthropological features of the skeleton of an adult man buried in an area north-east of the cavity carved deep into the bedrock around the mid-8th century bce suggest a foreigner accustomed to slippery surfaces, as has been proved by paleoanthropological analysis, and killed with a blow to the head; he was probably a seafarer and may have been from the Aegean, on the evidence of the fabric of a Geometric pottery shard found in connection with him. This discovery may point to coordinated overseas contact and the presence of foreigners, so far mostly detected in the funerary equipment of the necropolis (Poggi orientali).

Between the middle of the 8th century bce and the Orientalizing period (the first quarter of the 7th to the first quarter of the 6th century bce), area alpha and the surrounding zones were paved with various macco layers and equipped with a number of structures of circular or subcircular shape assembled with recurring layers of earth, clay, and charcoal. At the end of the 8th century bce, three newborns were buried here, and walls in blocks of local macco were built around them, showing the intent to render the previous perishable structures that probably surrounded area alpha permanent; in the vicinity, similar arrangements were found alternating with circular and subcircular areas directly excavated into the bedrock.

During the Orientalizing period, Mediterranean contacts continue to be evident in the technical features of the masonry (pilaster walls linked by sections of smaller stones influenced by Eastern models), particularly in Building B (edificio beta), which was built to the east of the natural cavity. Measuring 6.5 × 11.0 m (21 × 36 ft), the building was oriented 97°, and was divided into two axial rooms, the inner of which contained a bench/altar in one corner, delimited on one side by large stone blocks and by a channel carved in the soil to convey liquids into the natural cavity. Discovered in 1985, three bronze objects (an axe, a lituus (“wand”), and a shield), folded and placed one above the other, in front of the main entrance to the east, show the evident religious and institutional purpose of the ‘monumental complex’. A sherd of an impasto ware cup found in secondary deposition in the surroundings of the bench/altar of Building B, helps in establishing the status of the individual responsible for its dedication to the goddess. It, like the three bronze objects, is datable at the latest to the first quarter of the 7th century bce, and bears the Etruscan inscription, mi kalaṇ [---], which is a loanword from the Greek kallinikos. This epithet is ascribed to the Greek hero Heracles in his apotheosis and matches the attributes of the Phoenician Melqart in Thasos from the first half of the 7th century bce (Archilochus). This figure could, therefore, here be a consort to a goddess resembling Phoenician Astarte and Uni, the foremost female goddess of the Etruscans, whose name appears on a number of inscriptions at the ‘monumental complex’ from the second half of the 7th century bce onwards.

Between the end of the 7th and the beginning of the 6th century, the local pottery production of wares previously strongly influenced by Greek geometric styles circulating in the Mediterranean is now open to new techniques of production, firing, and decoration imbued with the so-called “international” (Mediterranean) band style. This is a direct consequence of the nearly contemporaneous opening of the emporion sanctuary of Gravisca, which hosted Greeks from Phocaea from its earliest days. Their presence probably inspired the need to give the natural force the name Uni, who is the foremost goddess of the Etruscans.

After the basic characteristics had been settled in its first crucial phases of foundation, the ‘monumental complex’ was permanently established in the Archaic period, when the goddess was addressed as Xiiati, which was inscribed on an impasto sherd, a name that reveals her chthonian aspect. The layout of the previous phases was kept intact, marked by the pilaster wall and architectural devices such as stone blocks and structures made of raw stone and earth which mark previous cultic Villanovan locations and preserve their memory.

The discovery of a mosaic floor and of the filling of a well (mid-2nd century bce) have augmented our knowledge of the Hellenistic period and of the final phases of the ‘monumental complex’ during the encounter with Rome before the independence of Tarquinia came to an end.

Ara della Regina Sanctuary

The sanctuary preserves the largest temple of the Etruscans known to date. One of the most impressive architectural accomplishments of the whole sanctuary is the enlargement of the hill by means of a high base of regular levelling courses of stone blocks (34 × 55 m (111 × 180 ft)) and the production of an even ground level. The temple was raised on top of this base in four main phases, built one on top of the other, from 570 bce onwards. Temple I, with one elongated cella (cell), was refurbished around 530 bce with two alae (wing) and incorporated into Temple II. Archaic terracotta remnants include fragments depicting Heracles’ deeds, as suggested by the plaque with the cattle of Geryon and a pedimental high relief that features the Hydra.

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Figure 5. Tarquinia, map of the Ara della Regina sanctuary (after Bonghi Jovino, Bagnasco Gianni, Tarquinia).

The area in front of the east entrance to both temples, roughly oriented east–west, had a similar layout, being delimited and contained at the same time by a wall built of blocks of rock of different colours. So far 40 m (130 ft) of it has been scanned by means of modern technology.³ Its purpose was also to support a stone chest with an orientation (340°) that differed from that of the temples (95°). It was located in front of the south-east corner of the area in front of the temples. Since excavations on the terrace in the first half of the last century yielded a fragment of an inscribed marble slab probably bearing the name of Tarchon, the stone chest has been interpreted as his cenotaph.

During the third phase of the sanctuary (beginning of the 4th century bce), the multicoloured wall was partially destroyed and covered by the south-eastern corner of the terrace, but it was left exposed in front of both its eastern and its southern edges. The stone chest was sealed under an altar built in front of the two archaic temples from blocks of local stone, sloping upwards at a constant 340° angle, and extending southwards out of the huge terrace. Given that the altar, together with an adjacent precinct built of red tufa located to the north, was enclosed by the temple’s terrace and had no dedicated access ramp, it could only have had a symbolic value. It probably represented Tarchon’s heroon, due to the presence of two holes connecting it with the stone chest underneath to receive liquid offerings.

According to the dating of its stylistic features, the famous terracotta plaque of the “Winged Horses Group,” adorned Temple III in this phase. The identification of the group with the story of Heracles’ apotheosis on Mt. Oeta, after he was burnt on the pyre, is supported by two more terracotta fragments showing the same style, technique, and ceramic composition, and by comparison with the iconography of two large vases (Attic and Apulian). According to their iconography, it is possible that the scene was similarly distributed over several levels within a “closed” pediment.

The orientation of the symbolic altar within the terrace at the Ara della Regina that preserves the memory of Tarchon could also be a result of the connections between Tarchon and Heracles, since Tarchon shared Heracles’ Lydian ancestry. The theme of the apotheosis of Heracles was introduced in the ‘monumental complex’ at Tarquinia in the first quarter of the 7th century bce, and continued in the city at least until the beginning of the 4th century bce when the pediment of Temple III in the Ara della Regina sanctuary was created.

The orientation of the main sacred areas at Tarquinia is unusual from an Etruscan perspective, since Etruscan temples are usually oriented along the southern sky arc that extends between the points where the sun rises and sets at the winter solstice and may express, in a physical and architectural way, some understanding of how the community at Tarquinia perceived their city’s position in space and time and conceived of their sacred topography.

Temple IV represents the final refurbishment identified so far; it is late Hellenistic, as can be seen in the last addition to it: the two arms flank the stairway to the terrace and the blocks of black stone (nenfro) frame its key points, which are the transverse altar built above the cenotaph and the cenotaph itself.

During the Roman period a series of rooms were built against the northern side of the temple. They contained the commemorative monument of one of the earlier famous families of Tarquinii citizens. It bears Latin inscriptions known as the Elogia Tarquiniensia describing the careers and exploits of its members and thus reflecting local Etruscan history.