Il Gruppo Archeologico Romano a Cerveteri: ricerche di superficie e scavi

The Gruppo Archeologico Romano was founded in 1963 by Ludovico Magrini to increase the safeguard of the archaeological heritage by the participation of volunteers. In the Sixties and Seventies grave robbers (it. tombaroli) were very active in the main cemeteries in Southern Etruria at Vulci, Tarquinia, Cerveteri, Veii and they carried out an impressive number of excavations without any type of control. The members of the association begun to work on the field together with the Soprintendenza and Carabinieri: by the field survey any illegal archaeological digging was identified and notified to the authorities. In the Cerveteri area the GAR made project activities both as excavations and field survey. A several year long activity was the recovery by dig of the Via degli Inferi, the ancient road cut off in the natural rock connecting the ancient city area with the main cemetery of Banditaccia. Main discoveries at Cerveteri are concentrated in sites dating to Protohistory and to Orientalizing period. To the Final Bronze Age belong some crucial finds, both settlements and cemeteries, as the hut-shaped cinerary urns collected on the field surface in the Montetosto area. In the Etruscan period most important findings were the countless chamber tombs, containing also high-lights, such as the two male statues carved in tufa and dated to the 7th cent. BC in the Tomba delle Statue at Ceri. The two statues reveal a strong influence from near-eastern artists and craftsmen on Etruria. Other chamber tombs having rests of wall paintings such as geometrical and architectonical patterns belong to 7th and 6th cent. BC and yielded several components of the original funerary furniture.