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Necropolis of Monterozzi

Tarquinia's painted Etruscan tombs, antiquity's most vivid gallery of daily life.

  • Tarquinia
  • Archaeological site
Plan your visit
Where
Tarquinia
Best for
Painted Etruscan tombs
Allow
1 hr 30 min

Beneath the plateau outside Tarquinia, some 6,000 Etruscan graves spread across a burial ground that opens a rare window on how a vanished people wanted to be remembered. Around 200 chambers, cut from the seventh century BC through Roman times, were painted with banquets, dancers, hunters and mourners in colors still vivid after millennia underground, among them the celebrated Tomb of the Leopards and the Tomb of Hunting and Fishing.

UNESCO listed the necropolis alongside Cerveteri's Banditaccia in 2004, judging the frescoes a unique record of Etruscan daily life found nowhere else in such quantity. Many of the finest artifacts unearthed here now sit in the Tarquinia National Museum in town, a natural second stop after the tombs.

Four things worth finding

If you see nothing else, see these.

  1. Tomb of the LeopardsEtruscan, fifth century BCE

    A banquet with dancers and musicians and a pair of leopards guarding the gable, among the most cheerful scenes in the necropolis.Monterozzi plateau

  2. Tomb of Hunting and FishingEtruscan, late sixth century BCE

    Men in boats, birds in flight and dolphins leaping: a nature scene painted with a Greek-inspired freshness.Monterozzi plateau

  3. Tomb of the LionessesEtruscan, Greek-Eastern style

    Fresco with banquets and dancing set under a pair of lionesses, in a vivid Greco-Oriental palette.Monterozzi plateau

  4. Tomb of the AugursEtruscan, sixth century BCE

    Wrestlers, mourners and a hooded figure of ritual, a window into funerary games and belief.Monterozzi plateau

Plan your visit

Everything you need before you go.

Booking
No booking needed
Time needed
1 hr 30 min
Best time
Weekday mornings, cooler for the walk between tomb entrances
Getting there
The necropolis sits on a plateau a walk or short taxi ride from Tarquinia's old town and train station; a car is useful for combining the visit with the museum and the coast.

A combined ticket usually covers both the painted tombs and the Tarquinia National Museum in town; only a rotating selection of tombs is open to protect the frescoes from humidity and light damage.

Ask the ticket office which tombs are open that day before you set out across the plateau; the roster rotates for conservation, and the walk between entrances is longer than it looks on the map.

Official website
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Good to know

How long should you spend at the Necropolis of Monterozzi?

About 90 minutes is right for a selection of tombs plus the walk between them. Add time for the Tarquinia museum in town.

Is the Necropolis of Monterozzi worth visiting?

Yes, it is a UNESCO site with painted tombs you cannot see anywhere else in such numbers. Expect descents into small chambers viewed through protective glass.

Can you see all the tombs at Monterozzi?

No. Only a rotating selection is open at any time to protect the paint, so you may not see a specific tomb. Go for the overall experience, then see the finest removed fragments in the Tarquinia museum.

More to see nearby

Same city first, then the nearest across the region.

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