THE ELITE OF EARLY ITALY
Tombs in the new manner were much more elaborate and required a larger commitment of resources than was the case earlier. At Etruscan Caere in the sev-enth century, one family constructed a tomb, known today as the Regolini-Galassi Tomb, with a corridor over 120 feet long (36 m) and six feet (1.8 m) wide and a burial chamber on either side of this aisle. Its builders cut the lowest part of the wall into the underlying rock, and built the upper portion with large stone blocks that formed a vault over the aisle. Finally, they covered the entire structure with a large earth mound or tumulus about 150 feet (45 m) in diameter, and set up a low stone wall surrounding its base.
The contents of the tombs also served to distinguish the new burials from their predecessors and from those of their less fortunate contemporaries. Elite tombs often contain large quantities of metal objects and fine pottery, imported or of local manufacture. At Castel di Decima in Latium, mourners in the late eighth century buried a young man with personal ornaments of silver and bronze, iron weapons, a chariot, bronze tripods, other bronze vessels, and a range of Greek and Phoenician pottery. In another, later burial in the same cemetery, a young women was interred with over ninety bronzes and imported ceramics, while her body was covered with gold, silver, and amber jewelry. Most finds of Greek and Phoenician pottery, jewelry, and other metal work and of locally produced imitations too have been made in tombs of this kind. The new aristocratic tombs were not a single artistic or social phenomenon, nor were they restricted to only one ethnic or linguistic group. Instead, they attest to the formation of a broad central Italian elite culture. Burials on this pattern can be found along the west coast of Italy from the north of Etruria to the south of Campania, and later they can be found well inland too. The prac¬tice certainly crossed linguistic divides.
It is present in areas whose inhabitants spoke Etruscan, and in others where Latin was the dominant language. Under this broad diffu¬sion, there could be much local variation in funerary rites and practices, as well as in the layout and construction of tombs. Some were larger than the Regolini-Galassi, while many others were smaller. Some had many burial chambers, while others had only one. Funeral rites, whether cremation or inhumation, var¬ied from place to place (and sometimes from tomb to tomb), as did the wooden or stone coffins or sarcophagi in which bodies were buried, and the funerary urns in which ashes were placed. What these burials have in com¬mon are the prestige objects deposited in graves and many of the decorative themes on walls and on sarcophagi. Over time, much of this original unity would break down, as local elites each followed their own course of development.