nd at the foot of the wall, indicated either that the articles had
decayed, being of a perishable nature, or that they had been carried
off on account of their superior value. This last is the more probable
supposition. The Marchese Campana, who opened the tomb, was late in
the field, and had in all likelihood been anticipated by some previous
explorer. The work of plundering Etruscan tombs was begun, we have
reason to believe, in the time of the early Romans, who were
attracted, not merely by the precious metals which they contained, but
also by the reputation of their vases, which in the days of the Empire
were held in as high esteem as now. Many tombs have doubtless been
repeatedly searched. The very architects employed in their
construction, as Signor Avolta conjectures, may have preserved the
secret of the concealed entrance, and used it for the purpose of
spoliation afterwards. Indeed, an unviolated tomb is a very rare
exception. No modern excavations were made till about sixty years ago;
and yet during that short interval many tombs that were opened and
filled up again have been forgotten; and now they are being dug afresh
by persons ignorant of this, who spend their labour only to be
disappointed. There is little reason, therefore, to believe that the
Painted Tomb of Veii was so fortunate as to escape all notice until
the Marchese Campana had discovered it. Former visitors had robbed it
in all likelihood of any objects of intrinsic value it may have
contained, and left only the bronze utensils and armour and the rude
archaic vases.

On the roughly-hewn roof of this inner chamber of the tomb were
carved in high relief two beams in imitation of the rafters of a
house; and round the walls at the foot ran a low ledge formed out of
the rock, like a family couch, on which stood three very curious boxes
of earthenware, about a foot and a half long and a foot high, covered
with a projecting lid on which was moulded a human head. These were
sepulchral urns of a most primitive form, intermediate between the
so-called hut-urns found under the lava in the Necropolis of Alba
Longa, and supposed to represent the tents in which the Etruscans
lived at the time of their arrival in Italy, and the round vases of a
later period. On the same ledge were several vases painted in bands of
red and yellow, with a row of uncouth animals executed in relief upon
the rim. The form and contents of this chamber afforded striking proof
of the