Identifier: citiescemeterie02denn (find matches)
Title: The cities and cemeteries of Etruria
Year: 1878 (1870s)
Authors: Dennis, George, 1814-1898
Subjects: Tombs
Publisher: London Murray
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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rlier than thefoundation of Rome. Some of them are quite empty ; othersretain a. rude bench formed of slabs on which the corpse was laid.Though the block of sepulchres is apparently one mass ofmasonry, each tomb is really of distinct construction, and canbe removed without disturbing its neighbours. Each terminatesabove in a high wall of slabs, which fences it in like a parapet,and keeps it distinct, inclosing the roof as in a pit. Across thisinclosure stretches the masonry which roofs in the tomb, in adouble flight of stone steps meeting in the middle in the narrowridge which tops the whole. On this ridge or by its side, stooda stela or cippus of stone, shaped in general like a pine-cone ora cupola; some of them bore inscriptions, and it was observedthat when this was the case, the epitaph over the doorway wasalways wanting.1 The woodcut opposite, taken from a photograph,gives a general view of this necropolis. 1 These cppi are very numerous, and of various forms—not a few phallic.
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chap, xxxvu.) MANCINIS EXCAVATIONS. 15 The doors of the tombs are tall, narrow and without archi-tectural decoration, not having even the Egyptian or Doric formso common in other Etruscan cemeteries. The inscriptions are very peculiar, not so much in the form of the characters—although there are points in which they differ from those foundon better known Etruscan sites—as in the epitaphs themselves,which are written without the usual divisions into words, containfew proper names that are familiar to the student of the Etruscanlanguage, and fail to set forth in the usual manner the familyrelations and connexions, with the sex and age, of the deceased.The) have all, moreover, the peculiarity of commencing with theword Mi.2 I am not aware that, these inscriptions have been published,and I will therefore give some of them in Bom an letters.—In thestreet shown in the woodcut there are four epitaphs, viz :— MIMAMARKESTEETHELIES3 MILAUCHUSIESLATIXIES MIMAMARKESTRIASXAS MILARTHIASRUPI

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