Sealed Etruscan sarcophagus found at Bisenzio

An excavation at the Etruscan site of Bisenzio in central Italy has uncovered a rare sealed stone sarcophagus with rich funerary furnishings and an intact skeleton dating to the 7th or 6th century B.C.

Founded near what is now the town of Capodimonte on the southwestern shore of Lake Bolsena, the Etruscan city of Vesnth or Vishnth held strategic, commerical and political importance at the heart of ancient Etruria as early as the Villanovan period (9th-8th century B.C.), Bisenzio grew to regional importance in the 7th century B.C. Orientalising period. It became a flourishing center of trade and communications with other Etruscan city-states like Tarquinia, Vulci and Orvieto and the wider Mediterranean, including Greece and Phoenicia.

The Bisenzio Project has been excavating the site since 2015, and their discoveries over the field seasons have revealed that the city-state had a dynamic aristocratic elite during the Orientalizing and Archaic eras (7th-6th century B.C.). Previous scholarship underestimated the wealth and importance of Bisenzio among the city-states of Etruria, but the recent excavations have found the remains of monumental public works, temples and ceremonial centers, and a rich complement of artifacts attesting to the extent of the city’s trade connections and deep pockets.

The 2024 field season unearthed a burial ground with tombs dating to between the 7th century B.C. and the late 6th century B.C. Unlike most of the tombs previously found at Bisenzio, these had never been subjected to the depredations of looters, giving archaeologists a unique glimpse into the city’s funerary practices and societal dynamics. One section of the necropolis was protected by a walled enclosure. Archaeologists believe the boundary line delimited a small family nucleus within the larger burial ground. The graves partially overlap each other, a possible indicator of familial relationships.

The oldest of the burials in the walled section contains a large, thick-walled tufa sarcophagus. It was still sealed when unearthed, and surrounded by grave goods including decorated ceramics, a bronze situla (wine bucket) and an assortment of jewelry in precious metals. The lid was so heavy, the team needed to deploy an excavator to remove it. Extremely rare for so old a burial, the sealed sarcophagus still contained the well-preserved skeletal remains of an adult buried with a small pot by the body.

Thanks to the exceptional conditions of conservation, the sarcophagus has returned a completely preserved skeleton, a rare and unique case. Through the osteoarchaeological, isotopic and archaeogenomic analyses already planned by the scholars of the Bisenzio Project, it will be possible to reconstruct the microhistory of the individual, presumably one of the eminent figures to whom we can attribute the planning and construction of some of the imposing structures built by the community at the time of Bisenzio’s greatest splendor that have been recently discovered.

* This article was originally published here