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Italian archaeologists have discovered the first-ever intact Etruscan house, complete with furniture, bricks and terracotta tiles identical to the ones still used in Tuscany today.
Found at an archaeological site called Poggiarello Renzetti in the Tuscan town of Vetulonia, some 120 miles north of Rome, the 2,400-year-old building has been only partially excavated.Constructed in the Hellenistic period between the third and first century B.C., the house, about 33 by 50 feet, consisted of a basement to store foodstuffs and a residential area where the rather wealthy owner lived with his family.
Although only a storage room has been brought to light by a joint team from a local archaeological museum and the Archaeological Superintendency of Tuscany, the standing ruins have been already hailed as an exceptional find.
"It's the Pompeii of the Etruscans. We are not dealing with tombs, but with some vivid remains of daily life," Simona Rafanelli, director of the excavation at Vetulonia's Isidoro Falchi Archaeological Museum, told Discovery News.
Paintings and artifacts found in burial chambers have so far provided our best glimpse into the Etruscan world.
Rising from prehistory around 900 B.C., these fun-loving and sensuous people forged Italy's most sophisticated civilization before the Romans. First defeated by the Romans in the 4th century B.C., the Etruscans became Roman citizens in 90 B.C., and their culture virtually vanished.
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