Acropolis and Shrines

The Etruscans were a highly advanced civilization compared to the other populations living in Italy in 900 BC. They could write, paint, and knew metalworking techniques, agriculture, and architecture.

They had a very complex religion with precise rituals. Even the founding of a city was a religious ceremony, so much so that the idea of the city was conceived long before it was built.

The wide streets intersecting at right angles, the direction they had to follow, the boundary, the wall that demarcates it, the access gates: an urban concept that the rough shepherds living in what was not yet called Etruria were seeing for the first time. Gone were the scattered huts! Here were dwellings resting on stone foundations, with wooden structures and terracotta decorations. A real revolution because they put an end to the nomadism of populations who moved when the land was no longer productive.

With the Etruscans, the idea of settled life was born, meaning living in a specific place for long, very long periods. And the idea of a community to which one belongs—well-regulated, organized, and modern—was born.

The Etruscan City was a true city-state, the seat of public authorities, places of worship, residence, and economic-commercial activities. Ruled by Lucumones, the Etruscan cities were confederated in groups of twelve (Dodecapolis) while each maintained its own political, legislative, and military autonomy.

From documents that have reached us via Roman historians, we know they were governed according to a rigid absolutist regime with a religious basis, a concept similar to other peoples like the Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Celts. From excavations of ancient Misa, present-day Marzabotto, we know that the city developed according to a very specific plan: the houses are aligned along wide streets that intersect at right angles, while the settlement is surrounded by powerful walls made of stone blocks. Generally perched on tufa spurs or on hilltops, they were well protected by natural defenses, with access provided by one or more gates. We know little or nothing, however, about the structure of the houses, of which only the stone foundations remain, but not the upper parts built with unbaked bricks or wattle, with perimeter poles firmly fixed and connected by crossbars, with infill of reeds and branches and a clay coating that easily deteriorated over time.

In Murlo (Siena), a team of American archaeologists discovered a building dating back to the 7th century BC, entirely dismantled and buried, rich in works of art, gold, ivory, complete with decorations, statues, terracotta sphinxes, and acroteria that adorned the roof, which provides excellent documentation of the architecture of Etruscan aristocratic palaces. The Etruscan cities, from the largest to the smallest, had one or more spaces dedicated to places of worship. Within the urban perimeter, in some cases, we find more than one sacred area, up to a maximum of eight (Orvieto), or a single sacred area that contained multiple temples (Marzabotto).

City State Reconstrution

Acropolis and Shrines

Unlike their Greek counterparts, Etruscan Cities did not have a true "center" recognized as such by collective memory. They developed from clusters of Villanovan villages in previously sparsely inhabited areas. Here, the temple, perfectly integrated into the settlement, is thus identified as the central place where the city's political and religious institutions were realized. Other shrines, dedicated primarily to Selvans, the god of boundaries, were located at the city gates or along the urban perimeter, serving a protective function.

However, sanctuaries were also found outside the cities, along the roads leading out of them. These were true meeting and resting points, often situated near watercourses and sometimes shared between multiple neighboring cities.

A site worthy of special mention is Acquarossa, near Viterbo. It is particularly useful for the study of Etruscan urban and domestic architecture. Next to some aristocratic residences stands a temple considered to be of little architectural significance. The Etruscan settlement of Acquarossa dates back to the 8th century BC. Unique in its kind, the site also contains traces of settlements from the Neolithic, Chalcolithic (between the end of the 3rd millennium BC and the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC), and the Apennine civilization. On the western side of the acropolis, a village of huts dating from a period prior to the Etruscan era was discovered.

Reconstrution of Etruscan Santuary

Acropolis and Shrines

When we speak of the Etruscans, we generally associate them with the Necropolises, vast and monumental sites. But in Etruria, there are other examples of Etruscan architecture that are no less important: these are the Etruscan Sanctuaries with their respective Temples. In the Cosmogony unique to the Etruscans, where reality emerges from chaos through the intervention of the god Tinia, the Sanctuary is first and foremost a portion of land, neatly delimited, which the community assigns to the gods for them to inhabit. It is defined by very visible boundaries (tular), marked by a wall, built with the same technique as the Temple, using unbaked bricks or dry stones. The limited exploration of this type of monument, the construction techniques used (wood and bricks), and more often the ravages of time or the boundaries being indicated only by marker stones, have made it difficult to identify these locations. We know, however, that the structure was oriented according to the Etruscan technique, with one or more entrance gates, one of which was the main one (porta carraia, or carriage gate). The true and proper house, first for the fetish and later for the simulacrum of the god, is the Temple, access to which was reserved for priests.

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