How Cerveteri was built and evolved over time

What was built at Cerveteri was mostly built for the dead, and it was built in the local rock.

The Banditaccia necropolis is cut out of tufa, the volcanic stone the whole plateau is made of, and most of the tombs echo Greek architecture. They are chambers rather than pits — rooms with carved ceiling beams, capitals and benches — arranged along streets and frequently covered by the characteristic round mounds that give the site its skyline.

The chronology is visible in the construction. The earliest tombs are simple pits holding the ashes of the dead, with potholes also present; the chamber tombs develop from the seventh century; and the sequence runs on to the later Etruscan period in the third century BC.

The named tombs show the range: the Regolini-Galassi, with rich gold finds from the mid-seventh century; the Tomba dei Capitelli and the Tomba degli Scudi e delle Sedie of the mid-sixth; the Tomba dei Leoni dipinti of about 620 BC; and the Tomba dei Rilievi, of the fourth to second centuries, where household objects are modelled on the walls.

Of the living city much less survives. Six temples are known from various sources and two have been excavated — one of Hera, one in the north of the city. Parts of the city walls are still visible, and excavation has opened a theatre.

The infrastructure was substantial: a road about 13 kilometres long and 10 metres wide ran from Caere down to its port at Pyrgi.