Looters and treasure hunters are usually the bane of archaeologists, but in the case of a treasure-filled Etruscan tomb recently uncovered—which likely belonged to a princess—looters played an unusually helpful hand in its discovery.
“We had no idea the tomb was there, but carried out an emergency dig last month after we noticed looters had excavated another tomb that was above the princess’s tomb,” a worker of the site in Vulci, Italy, Tecla Del Papa, told The Local.
View of the tomb from the outside.
“The robbers had revealed, but not entered, the tomb below, so thanks to them, we were able to quickly find the burial chamber and quickly excavate it.”
The tomb is actually located right in front of the ticket office for entrance to Vulci, an ancient Italian city—but is nearly 10 feet (three meters) underground. The tomb itself is nearly 3,000 years old, dating back to the eighth century BCE. It belonged to a member of the Etruscans, an ancient Italic people whose empire warred with ancient Rome from the city’s founding, according to Livy. Despite this antagonism, though, Etruscan culture had an enormous influence on Rome—and eventually their empire assimilated into the Roman Republic in the fourth century BCE.
Inside the burial, which is now being called the Tomb of the Golden Scarab, they believe they have found the remains of a princess: the bones, belonging to a young girl, were wrapped in precious, fragile cloth and were surrounded by various treasures—like a Phoenician amber necklace; two Egyptian scarabs made from gold, ivory, and silver; rare pottery; and beautiful pieces of jewelry like fibulae—large brooches used to fasten clothing.
Some of the jewelry found in the tomb.
“Certainly such items lead us to believe that she was a princess, if not someone very important in society,” said Del Papa.
The next step for the archaeologists is to figure out just who this girl was, and what her life was like 2,800 years ago. Meanwhile, more extensive excavations of the grave site are planned for early April.
Two of the artifacts discovered in the tomb
A silver artifact found in the tomb.
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All images credit of: Archeological site of VulciI
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