Emergency Digging Near Rome Uncovers Etruscan Tombs With Carved Thrones and a Painted Jar

Archaeologists working on emergency repairs at an ancient burial ground north-west of Rome have found tombs with stone thrones, painted walls and a nearly whole decorated jar. The site is Monte Abatone in Cerveteri, Italy, and the finds were announced on the Facebook page of the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for Southern Etruria, the Italian state body that protects heritage in the area. ArtNews reported the discoveries on 9 November 2026.

The work began because the site was in danger. Several tombs at Monte Abatone had collapsed, so the authorities commissioned crews to stabilise the ground. Stabilising means clearing blocked entrances and removing the soil that had built up over the chambers.

That clearing revealed burial chambers that had not been recorded before. Every one of the newly investigated tombs had been looted in the past, according to the report. Looting is the illegal digging out of objects, often for sale, and it leaves tombs disturbed and their contents scattered.

Still, some of the rooms survived in striking condition. One chamber keeps a large part of its original vaulted ceiling, the curved roof shaped like the inside of an arch. Inside it are funerary furnishings, the objects placed with the dead, including thrones cut directly into the rock. The thrones are carved from tuff, a soft volcanic stone, Finestre sull'Arte reported.

The same chamber has traces of red paint on its walls. The team also found a stamnoid vessel, a tall jar with a wide mouth and two handles, that is almost perfectly preserved. Its surface is engraved with figures, including animals, and parts of it are decorated with red paint.

Authorities plan to clean and restore the jar before putting it on public display. No display date or venue has been announced.

Monte Abatone was one of the main burial grounds of Caere, an important Etruscan city. Caere sits about 21 miles (roughly 34 km) north-west of Rome. The Etruscans were a people who lived in central Italy long before the Roman Republic, and their cities left behind necropolises, or cemeteries, cut into the local stone.

For the people who look after the site, the immediate job is the same one that began the dig: keeping the tombs from falling in. The jar and the thrones now move into the slower work of cleaning and recording, and the chambers that were looted centuries ago still hold whatever the robbers left behind.