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Rugged Necropolises

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The necropolises, with rugged facades very noted in Asia Minor and Near Eastern, in Italy are found solely in internal Etruria where ideal geo-morphologies exist like the presence of soft volcanic rock (tufa) and erosive valleys that make the passage of Alto (upper) Lazio unique and impressive.
The rocky necropolises haven't had a consistent development through time, one can, in fact, distinguish a group of tombs from the archaic age (6th -5th century B.C.) to the Hellenistic age /4th-2nd century B.C.)
The first developed on the meridional part of the region, in the water basins of the rivers Biedano and Mignone and concern the centers of Blera,San Giuliano and some minor sites like San Giovenale, Cerracchio, Grotta Porcina, and Chiuse Vallerani.
There are few settlements in the north sector where the documentation relative to the Archaic period is limited to Castel d'Asso, Norchia and Tuscania.
The architecture found in the mentioned places include sepulchres, called 'dado', with external monumental signs in the form of a cube, roofed tombs (giving it the aspect of a house), and tombs with a superior loggia (above the funerary urn which opens at street level, there is an open space in the rear with a sole central column).
After the social-economic crisis that hit the centers of the Etruria around the 5th century B.C., it wasn't until the second half of the 4th century B.C. that excavations of the rugged tombs was begun again but with substantial slipping towards the north; it was in this phase that the flowering of Norchia, Castel d'Asso (gravitating to the basin of the Marta River) and Sovana was assisted.
The development of these sites are related to that of Tarquinia and Vulci, noble townships, holders of political and economic powers which promoted the rebirth of the farmland centers considered safe refuges in the event of a peoples rebellion.
The typology of the sepulchres were in part renovated; besides the 'dado' tomb, where new variants can be noted, there are temple tombs, dating back to the beginning of the 3rd century B.C., and vestibule tombs.
The first one is demonstrated in Norhcia with two examples found in Sovana, as well. The first, temple, gets its name from the fact that the rock was cut in a way to reproduce the façade of a temple (columned, architraved, ornamented, pedimented) with particulars that could have been stuccoed and painted.
The vestibule tombs instead, were fewer, set in the necropolis' of Norchia and Castel d'Asso: the external setting consisted of a small space at the base of the rugged walls, different from common spaces of an under-façade being narrower and irregular.