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TUSCIA
the land of the
ETRUSCANS |
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Here laughs the Etruscan, one day, as he lay, with eyes to the
ground watching the sea..." (V.Cardarelli).
That land that acted as Mother and foundation was covered by
him during the eight centuries of his civilization by an endless
series of monuments, the only tanigible sign of his human and
historical existence.
In the Tuscia region - the old name for the present administrative
reality  established
by the province of Viterbo - "the Etruscan mystery",
even if stirring in the atmosphere of abandoned cities and vast
and silent necropli its true identity is revealed more so than
in other Etruscan areas.
Long before the Truscans became a part of history with the acquisition
of writings, they were present in the numerous protovillanovian
and villanovian necropoli (X-VIII cent. B.C.) where the bronze
crested helmet and bowl that guarded the ashes already forecasted
this first Italic civilization. It was then that other great
cities (Tarquinia, Vulci, Velzna, Falerii), projected a new
economic dimension, released different activities and new social
turmoils; surrounded by the thousand by other centres strongly
castled on tufaceous bastions,
multiplied and used land wisely and rationally. In harmony with
the cities of the living the cities of the dead descended into
the bowels of mother earth to secure their roots, to guard and
to hand down through time a smile full of hope for the Etruscans
(VIII-I cent. B.C.) And the tomb became their immortal home
using rock again as they did for their terrestrial home where
they gathered a taste for beauty in jewels, ceramics, bronzes
and furnishings. The face and the name and the family name of
the man and the woman were handed down in the sarcophaguses
where paintings encaptured the colour of the countryside and
the sensual joy of life. Here in the Tuscia region, more than
anywhere else, when well-known destiny decided on their decline,
the Etruscan entrusted his breath of immortality in the rocky
monumental
necropoli by giving his rock friend and suggestive picture of
the Fake Door the distressing mystery of life and death(IV-I
cent. B.C.) Long bands unfold along the tufaceous slopes, in
places that are still protected by an eternal mystery, where
the bright green vegetation contrasts and enhances the dark
red tuff. And on this very same portion of happy Etruscan land
there are temples, chapels, aediculas, votive deposits belonging
to a population considered the most religious in antiquity.
Where incense no longer burns but in the splendid sun, where
the haruspex no longer reads the internal organs except within
the breeze, where sacrifices are no more except that of an entire
people. And on the shores of the blue seas, where they gave
its name, ports emerge from the waters and the earth where commerce
brought culture and technology, taste and art.
This is the Tuscia, a land to discover in the name of culture,
the first and greatest popoulation in Italy, aware in millenial
paths, to warn the knowledge of life in deserted homes and the
numerous necropoli, and in all areas that a deep human experience
has made sacred. |
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