One of Italy’s lesser-known UNESCO sites is located 45km northwest of Rome, near the town of Cerveteri.
The Etruscan Necropolis of Cerveteri has been part of the UNESCO heritage since 2004, along with the Etruscan Necropolis of Tarquinia, located 50 km further north.
What has always impressed me about this place, and what periodically draws me back, is primarily its monumental scale.
The site spans 20 hectares and includes about 6000 burials, covering a part of the Lazio coast that is rarely a destination for foreign travelers.
If you visit, you’ll also have the privilege of exploring an area off the beaten path. You’ll mostly meet locals like me who come here to delve into the mysterious Etruscan history or enjoy the refreshing waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea in summer.
In this article, I will tell you about the history of the necropolis, how it is divided into three main parts, and how to visit it.
A territory that may seem inaccessible will reveal itself as the perfect destination for history enthusiasts, just outside one of the most beautiful coastal towns near Rome.
The Etruscan Necropolis of Cerveteri: What to Know Before Visiting
Historical Overview
The Etruscans, to whom historians attribute the construction of one of the “city of the dead” in Lazio, were a confederation of tribes of almost unknown origin that flourished in Italy between the 9th and 3rd centuries BC. Their supremacy ended with the Roman conquest after a long war.
The Etruscans were skilled sailors, hydraulic engineers, and architects. They had their own religious rituals and language, the latter still not entirely deciphered and different from Latin.
“La Banditaccia” Necropolis, as locals call it, stands at the foot of ancient Caere, today’s Cerveteri, which sits on a flat tufa spur, like many other towns in this area, and extends towards the sea.
The common denominator of this monumental complex, which requires at least 6 hours to visit, is tufa. The volcanic tufa rock characterizes the territory following the eruptions of the volcanoes that once abounded in this part of Italy. Tufa is a rock that the Etruscans loved to use because it was locally available and they could sculpt it with relative ease using an axe.
This brings me to the second reason why I consider this site extraordinary: all the environments you will see here have been carved by hand into the existing rock, and they’re a work of incredibly precise and clean craftsmanship.
Modern archaeologists discovered the necropolis in the early 20th century but then abandoned the excavations for about fifty years, resulting in the loss of many treasures to looters. Official excavations resumed in the 1960s.
The Burials
The site hosts various types of burials, belonging to different epochs and differing mainly in complexity and beauty. Even then, as today, the tombs of ordinary people were stylistically far from those of the nobility.
The humblest tombs are holes in the ground where the typical Etruscan biconical terracotta vase containing the deceased’s ashes was placed.
The burials of the rich were true houses resembling mushrooms, with circular outer walls reinforced with stone blocks, while the interiors were carved into the rock, featuring corridors, rooms, beds with sculpted pillows, tables, and benches.
Area of the Great Burial Mounds
Historians divide the Necropolis of Cerveteri into three areas. The first you encounter as soon as you arrive at the site, on the side of the parking lot. Here are the most imposing burial mounds of the nobility, even surrounded by a moat.
This is the highest point of the necropolis, from where you can see the sea and the plateau where the acropolis of Caere once stood.
These architectural features can be freely admired. Some are closed and others can be accessed, though maintenance is almost non-existent, so expect grass growing on the stairs descending to the entrance of the mounds, or to find water in the rooms if it has rained.
The part of the Etruscan necropolis that receives attention and maintenance is the one you can access by paying an admission fee, which I am about to describe.
Necropolis of the Enclosure or Tombs of the Commune
This area is under the supervision of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage. It is a city with streets along which dozens and dozens of burial mounds line up, in a continuous sequence, in the shade of tall pines and surrounded by other trees and plants.
Walk calmly through these streets with your camera in hand: the mounds are all accessible, enter and admire the rooms. The most monumental still holds some pieces of funerary equipment, protected by glass.
It takes at least 3 hours to explore this area, if that’s enough for you. To access many of the tombs, you must go donw 20-30 steps. I wouldn’t recommend visiting if you have difficulty walking. Nor is it advisable if you are traveling with children in strollers; better to use a baby carrier.
Necropolis of the Pond and Way of the Underworld
For most travelers, the visit to the Necropolis of Cerveteri ends once they have toured the paid area. But that’s just a part. If you continue walking along the dirt road that surrounds the necropolis, after a few minutes, you reach two other equally fascinating areas.
The first, which you will find on the right, is called by archaeologists the “Pond Area.” There is a rock hill where about 500 tombs of the humblest people have been carved. If you reach the top of the hill, you will notice lines engraved on the rocky ground, these are the famous “cart ruts,” characteristic of many areas of the Mediterranean.
Now comes the part of the necropolis that I prefer and which is a periodic destination for my hikes near Rome.
Beyond the “Pond Area,” you immediately arrive at a road that cuts perpendicularly from the road you came from. This is the “Way of the Underworld,” so named because it crosses the Etruscan Necropolis of Cerveteri from east to west. The road has been dug into a thick and high rock wall.
Walking inside, on the right and left, you will find hundreds of burials carved into the tufa, on several levels. These tombs also belonged to the humblest people. Equip yourself with a headlamp and hiking shoes: climb and enter the rooms on the higher floors, they are all different from each other but provided with sculpted beds or benches. Only one appears more elegant because it has two small Doric-style columns.
How to Get to the Etruscan Necropolis of Cerveteri
You can reach this UNESCO site with a combination of train and local bus. From Roma Termini, take a train to Marina di Cerveteri (€3.60 for a 50-minute journey) and then a local bus that will take you to the entrance of the Necropolis in about 10 minutes.
Tickets and Schedule
To access the area of the Tombs of the Commune, adults pay a ticket of €10 which also includes entry to the Archaeological Museum Cerite located in the historic center of Cerveteri. The paid area of the necrpopolis is accessible from Tuesday to Sunday from 9 AM to 6:30 PM, with the last entry at 5:30 PM.
Best Time to Visit
Since it takes several hours to walk through this archaeological site and it is not possible to visit it with means other than on foot, I recommend avoiding the months of July and August, when the climate might be extremely hot.
