Introduction

The seventh century was a revolutionary century that transformed the funerary landscape of urban centres across Tyrrhenian Etruria. In the last three chapters, I closely examine the material culture of this landscape in order to sustain the main proposition of this book: the transformation of funerary ideology in elite burial ritual and the manipulation of funerary symbolism that was materialised in the tomb, its structure, and/or architecture and grave-goods, disclose the political underpinnings of the early city in Etruria.

On the premise that material culture not only reflects the sociopolitical relations of a community but indeed plays a key role in the structuring of these relations, I have argued that the tomb constituted the physical, material, and conceptual space where elite groups transformed their prestige into political authority; therefore it is at the tomb that political relations themselves within the early city were structured. A discourse of power centred on the merging of military prowess and the house unfolded through the recursive practice of banqueting and drinking, which were collective rituals for the elites and public events for the community at large. Significantly, I have argued that these political developments actively transformed the funerary space as this latter, in turn, contributed to the former: in time, the tomb evoked a domestic environment, in some cases such as Caere quite literally. At the same time, the funerary landscape transformed the physical landscape of the early city into a political one: the placing of tombs around the settlement and further away along strategic routes or locations not only ensured the political control of that landscape by the city but also broadened the choreographic space for the articulation of political authority, as the performance of funerary ceremonies began at the city and culminated at the tomb.