Two Museums today! But then it’s Tuesday, so things are open…

Ciao!

Up this morning about 5:30 am and had a nice leisurely breakfast of baguette, salami and cheese with blood orange juice.  Have to say that today’s baguette was much better than the bread we first bought at Tigre Market.  I wanted to run a load of clothes and figured that I would get that done before we left for the day.  The washer runs now for 1 hour, which is fine and then I laid everything out on the large drying rack.  Today, though, as rain is in the forecast, I put it under the shade structure on the patio, which is open on the sides.  Seemed to work well!

A day for umbrellas, but it never rained!

Ancient bridge!

So ... what are pences again?

Etruscan foundation blocks of ancient Vulci gate

Roman town built over Etruscan Vulci

BIG Maremma cow -- note horns!

Younger cow; horns still growing!

11th Century Castle by bridge and river

Path over the bridge

Funerary urn based on house plan

Temple decoration

Poppies ... always!

Etruscan tomb at Viterbo museum

Temple roof tiles

Again, roof tiles, this time with ladies faces!

Smoke hole in Etruscan roof!

Stunning Etruscan artifact

Me and Etruscan Lion!

Courtyard with artifacts around the sides, Viterbo Museum

Then we were off, about 8:30 am and heading toward Vulci, another ancient Etruscan settlement in the area. It took about 45 minutes to get there, and we went first to the Archaeological and Nature Park that has been set up.  There are various walks of 2 – 4 km as well as a cycling path.  However, not having bikes, we opted to do a bit of walking. Well…it turns out that the park is right in the middle of a huge cattle ranch.  

These cows are called Maremma cattle, (and there are signs saying to respect all “pences” and do NOT go near the cattle!) and I am pasting information from the computer here:  “These magnificent animals are easily spotted for their great curved horns, their white coat and their proud, robust stance. These cows have grazed wild in the Maremma countryside for centuries. The Maremma cattle of today are descendants of the earliest example of European cows, the Plinio breed and in fact they go back as far back as the Etruscan era, when they were bred on this very same land.  The Maremmana cattle are tough and able to adapt well to the marshy land of the Maremma region. They nonetheless risked extinction in the past, firstly due to a land reclamation programme which took away their natural habitat and secondly because of the emergence of ever more specialized breeds that threatened to over run them.  Today, the cattle are lucky enough to be under the protection of the Slow Food organisation. There are currently around three thousand cows that live wild in the Maremma area and which are looked after by the famous Maremma cattle herds.”

So!  Who knew?! The only difficulty, though, were the FLIES that were EVERYWHERE! We thought we were back in Australia for a while there, and wishing either for the netting that goes over a hat, or the hat that has wine corks on strings in the front of it, so that they bounce when you walk and keep the flies away.  

One of the things that we had heard about continuously when we began researching Etruscans was that they had basically left only their temple and burial grounds behind them, which caused us to wonder:  Well, where did they live?  It turns out that there is a growing body of information concerning just this. But more on that in a bit.

We walked through one of the old Etruscan gates which are about all that remain of the original Etruscan settlement.  Instead, and rather disappointingly for us, when the Romans defeated the village, they basically stayed and built over the Etruscan city, as well as adopted some of the Etruscan buildings and temples.  Decided that as we really weren’t all the interested in the Romans at this time, and the flies were driving us BATTY, that we would hike back to the visitor center and proceed to the Vulci museum with original Etruscan and Roman bridge over the river.

The first bridge over the river Fiora had two red tufa building blocks, that were actually kept in place and use repeatedly over time as the bridge grew higher and stronger.  It’s beautiful!  The Vulci museum is in an old (11^thcentury AD) castle which was great fun to see.  It turns out that the original Etruscan settlements built round houses. The museum had several funerary urns that were the models for several of the houses.  However, around 600 BC, the house plans changed, and houses were leveled and rebuilt as rectangles.  There was a great deal of urban planning as far as drainage ditches and roads were concerned.  The houses were constructed of unglazed mud brick, which was mud mixed with straw, rather like adobe, and the rooves were made out of thatch.  (That is basically why there is so little information about Etruscan houses, as the weather would eventually wear down the thatch and mud bricks and leave nothing to find!)

From Vulci, we decided to head back to Viterbo, as I, for one, was definitely in need of a nap!

Stopped along the way for sandwiches, and got back to the apartment about 2 pm.  Turns out we both needed naps, and the next thing we knew, it was after 4 o’clock! Feeling pretty rested at this time, we decided it was time to visit Viterbo’s Etruscan museum which was about a 12 minute walk for us, and open until 7:30 each evening!

Lovely large city building, and it included some great artifacts.  Turns out that the Swedish Institute of Rome wanted to work on Etruscan remains in the 1950’s and 60’s – not the temples or the necropoli, but rather their housing and everyday life.   Great photographs and explanations in English! Turns out even the then King of Sweden came every summer to help excavate two sites, Aquarossa and San Giovenale.  While the houses were mostly with thatched roofs, the houses of the more important and wealthy residents had tile roofs, many decorated with faces or symbols, and these were excavated carefully.  We were able to see how the roof tiles changed over the years, with the addition of a “smoke hole” in the roof to let cooking fires vent to the outside! Someone would take a very long stick and move the attached tile “cover” from the inside of the house —a fascinating thing to discover!  Our Etruscans were very clever!

Back in the flat now, and getting ready to post.  We’re planning out tomorrow’s expedition; who knows what we will find!

More later!

m

xxx