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The Best Etruscan Sights
Volterra: One of Dodecapolis's ancient centers, Volterra has a medieval core still surrounded in places by the old Etruscan city walls. The best section encompasses the 4th-century-B.C. Porta all'Arco gate, from which worn basalt gods' heads gaze mutely but protectively over the valley. The Museo Etrusco Guarnacci here houses hundreds of funerary caskets and the Shade of the Evening, a tiny bronze youth of elongated grace.
Populónia (Tuscany's Coast): Once an important Etruscan center, the seaside town of Populónia today retains little more than bits of its predecessor's walls. Outside the walls, however, are some excellent tumuli and other tombs in several necropolises dotting either side of the road leading to Populónia's promontory. Though most of the best portable pieces were carried off to Florence, the town was able to scrape together enough to fill a small museum.
Grosseto: The modern capital of the Maremma has the region's best museum of Etruscan artifacts, collected from many sites across Tuscany's deep south.
Chiusi: The small but well-regarded archaeological museum here contains just some of the many finds from the dozens of tombs littering the valley floor between the town and small Lake Chiusi. Although the best tombs, including one with frescoes, have been indefinitely closed for restorations, you can arrange through the museum to visit a few, and there are others just lying open to you and your trusty flashlight. A few hundred yards of the old underground aqueduct systems carved into the rocky hillside by the Etruscans have been opened. Tours through it lead to a wide and deep cistern, atop which now sits the cathedral bell tower.
Arezzo: Though little remains of the Etruscan city Arretium -- the town's best artifact, the bronze chimera, got shipped to Florence long ago -- some of the Roman city it became peeks out at its museum. The collection of Etruscan ceramics sets you up for the corallino pottery display, which showcases the vast Arretium industry that eventually opened branches and workshops all across Roman Italy and France to mass produce the famous waxy red earthenware.
Cortona: Three significant tombs lie along the slope and valley of Cortona's mount, including the one where the biggest find in Etruria of the past century was only recently discovered: a sophisticated altar with a sphinx-flaked stairway jutting out of the "Melone II" tumulus. Up in town, a museum houses a bronze Etruscan oil-lamp chandelier, as well as documented findings and displays about the ongoing excavations of "Melone II."
Perugia: Umbria's capital still preserves its 3rd-century-B.C. Porta Marzia (Mars Gate), the only structure that compares to Volterra's mighty city gate. An Etruscan well still supported by its massive travertine trusses was discovered in the heart of town, and just outside of town is a tomb where the funerary urns have been left in place just as they were discovered.
Orvieto: Orvieto, Etruria's ancient religious center, contains three archaeological museums. Taken together, they make up one of the best collections of Etruscan artifacts outside Florence and include Umbria's only accessible tomb paintings, now detached, and works from the Etrusco-Roman period. The town has also started running tours of some of the tunnels and caverns under the city, parts of which, including wells and a possible temple, were carved by the Etruscans. On the edge of town are the grassy remains of an Etruscan temple, and around the edge of the city's walls is a tidy suburban-like necropolis of tombs, some still with inscriptions on the door lintels.
Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without
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