Cerveteri Castle Complex

the town itself

Necropolis di Banditaccia

Showing different types of burial practices from the 9th to the 1st century BC, and bear witness to the achievements of Etruscan culture. Which over nine centuries developed the earliest urban civilization in the northern Mediterranean. Some of the tombs are monumental, cut in rock and topped by impressive tumuli (burial mounds). Many feature carvings on their walls, others have wall paintings of outstanding quality. The necropolis near Cerveteri, known as Banditaccia, contains thousands of tombs organized in a city-like plan, with streets, small squares and neighbourhoods. The site contains very different types of tombs: trenches cut in rock; tumuli; and some, also carved in rock, in the shape of huts or houses with a wealth of structural details. These provide the only surviving evidence of Etruscan residential architecture. (UNESCO site)

the pottery

these are the grave markers-the column for a male, house for a female

details of wooden architecture carved into the rock

cist graves

Little Labyrinth Cave

a natural cave system carved into a quarry by the Romans

Matala

the caves of Matala were (probably) first carved out during the Neolithic

in the Roman period, 1st&2nd centuries, they became rock cut tombs

but Matala is probably best known for being a huge hippie squat during the 60s (later expelled by the junta and church)

signs of fire

but it was also a port during the Roman period and supposedly where Zeus seduced Europa

but most know it for the hippies (Joni Mitchell's Carey talks about it)

though some of the Roman tombs are very complex