Etruscan Places

Tarquinia is a pleasant little city on the western coast of Italy that is home to the famous tombs of the ancient Etruscans. These tombs were detailed by D.H. Lawrence in his book Etruscan Places. Lawrence visited these underground treasures while in the advanced stages of tuberculosis, just a few years before his death. He knew he was a dying man, making his trip to the tombs seem slightly morbid. However, to those who have read his colorful description of this journey, his visit to the tombs seems hopeful, even inspiring. Although Lawrence begins his description with a note of fear, articulating how the first tomb "seems a dark little hole underground," he then goes on to illustrate the profound effect of the paintings he sees in these “dark little holes.”

Almost immediately after beginning his account, Lawrence begins to expound on the liveliness he sees in the figures of the paintings. He describes the people and objects in the images as "natural as life," and "full of life to the tips." He produces eloquent prose about the reds and blues and greens against the soft yellow walls, and laments only that the paintings are so damaged. He follows tangents about the way the ancient Etruscans would have thought about death based upon their lively funerary art. The Etruscans’ tradition of juxtaposing life and death by celebrating at funerals was promising to Lawrence;

"It is as if the current of some strong different life swept through them, different from our shallow current today: as if they drew their vitality from different depths that we are denied…To the Etruscan all was alive; the whole universe lived; and the business of man was himself to live amid it all."

This lesson given to us by the ancient people of Italy is not a lesson just for those near the end of their life as Lawrence was, but for anyone who cares to take it to heart.

Almost 100 years after D.H. Lawrence visited the ancient Etruscan tombs we made the journey to see them. Having read Etruscan Places shortly beforehand, I already had a strong image of the tombs in my head. Without ever seeing a tomb I could imagine "the dancers and the music-players, moving in a broad frieze towards the front wall of the tomb…where the banquet is going on in all its glory." Reading this traveler’s guide leaves a dominant impression of gay, dancing figures with long hands and feet, colored red against the yellow walls, feasting and celebrating and full of life. I was not disappointed upon actually seeing the tombs. The colors were just as vibrant and the figures just as full of movement as Lawrence had described. The photos I took could easily be used as illustrations to accompany Lawrence’s verbose accounts.

Not being seriously ill as Lawrence was, however, my most persistent memory of the tombs was not the liveliness of the painted figures, but rather the extreme age of the tombs. The cracked and peeling images preserved for so long underground were astounding to view. Being whooshed back into history just by descending a few stairs was enchanting, much more so than the images themselves. This shows a fundamental difference between the attitude of Lawrence and my own attitude. While the gravity of life and death is very important to Lawrence when he visits Tarquinia, more important to me is the profound antiquity of the place. I feel lucky to have seen this significant bit of the past, a window in to the history of the ancient people of Italy.