A necropolis hidden among the buildings
Leaving the Aurelia with the fork for Cerveteri, you proceed on a fast-flowing road (Via Settevene Palo) that leads towards the tuff plateau of the village of Cerveteri. Passing between the buildings that seemingly overlook the main road, you do not realize that you are passing a Necropolis. It would be difficult to imagine that one of the Etruscan tombs with particularly rich funishings was found among the buildings, currently preserved in the Vatican Museums.
The Sorbo necropolis has retuned, in addition to the typical Villanovan pit burials containing lithic houses and biconical cinerary ware in impasto, also pit depositions. The grave goods document, through imported objects, an initial contact with the outside world (coastal Etruria and Sardinia) starting from the second half of the 9th century BC. But the Sorbo necropolis is above all famous for the Regolini-Galassi tomb, a tumulus tomb of the orientalizing age excavated in 1863 by the archpriest Alessandro Regolini and the general Vincenzo Galassi. Of the same tomb, the grave goods composed of objects of extremely precious workmanship are striking, today exhibited at the Gregorian Etruscan Museum in the Vatican.
