Livy also says that Roman merchants who travelled to a huge fair attached to the meeting acted as spies, reporting back on Etruscan affairs to authorities in the city-state of Rome.
[3] That the Fanum was somewhere in central Italy in the area between Orvieto and Viterbo is probable enough, but as Livy gave no clue to its locality, and as no inscriptions have thrown light on the subject, at the current time it can be but pure conjecture to assign to it this or that particular site.
In September 2006, Simonetta Stopponi, professor of Italic Archaeology and Etruscology at Macerata University (Italy), after extensive digs (begun in 2000 and financed by the Monte dei Paschi di Siena Bank, with ministerial permission) at a site near the hill town of Orvieto (esplanade Arcone, former Campo della Fiera, smallholding Giardino della Regina) announced that the site at the feet of the Umbrian town probably was the location of the Fanum Voltumnae.
[9] Before the discoveries in the Orvieto area, the archaeological site of Guado Cinto, a necropolis including the Tomb of the Queen near Tuscania, was one of the most credited locations of Fanum Voltumnae.
This hypothesis, presented in the 1950s by Mario Signorelli (1905–1990), an Italian music teacher, identified the sacred wood of the Etruscans in the peripheral areas of Viterbo named Riello and Macchia grande.
The works of Signorelli followed the writings of the fifteenth-century forger and friar of the Dominican order Annio da Viterbo (1432–1502), who devoted his life to collecting legends and traditions ascribed to the Etruscans, and to inventing documents to support his histories.
The British explorer George Dennis, though without any documentary evidence, supported Montefiascone as the sacred site where the states of the Etruscan league met periodically to discuss military and political affairs and choose a lucumo (the equivalent of Pontifex Maximus).
), known as Poggio Evangelista (commune of Latera), retains the ruins of a temple, visibly located on a strategic place, with a wide view over Umbria, Lazio and Tuscany (Berlingo and Timperi, 1995).
His idea is that Fanum Voltumnae was a large area centred on the ancient Etruscan, and later Roman town of Velzna, situated on the shore of Lacus Volsiniensis (modern Lake Bolsena).
Since, indeed, you aver that you have been annexed to Tuscia in such a way that by the established practice of ancient custom priests are created every other year in turn by you and by the aforesaid people of Tuscia, who exhibit stage plays and a gladiatorial show at Volsinii, a city of Tuscia; but that, because of the steepness of the mountains and the difficulties of the paths through the forests thither, you most earnestly request that permission shall be granted to your priest to abandon the necessity of going to Volsinii to celebrate the exhibition; and that we shall give a name from our cognomen to the community, which now has the name Hispellum and which you state is contiguous to and lying along the Flaminian Way and in which a temple of the Flavian Family is being built, of truly magnificent workmanship worthy of the greatness of its name; and that there that priest, whom Umbria selects annually, shall exhibit a festival of both stage plays and gladiatorial shows; and that this custom shall remain as regards Tuscia: that the priest created at Volsinii shall celebrate, as has been his wont, the observation of the aforesaid exhibitions at that place: our assent is gladly granted to your prayer and desire.
Thus, indeed, it will not appear that our actions especially derogate anything from old customs; and you, who are suppliants to us for the aforesaid causes, will rejoice that you have gained those things for which you have earnestly asked.This is the first document that allows one to situate the Fanum at Volsinii – or at least in the Volsiniese territory.
[19] New discoveries from ongoing excavations have been made in location "Alfina" and "Monte Landro"[20] by a team coordinated by Adriano Maggiani Archived 27 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine (teacher of Etruscology and Italic Archaeology Archived 27 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine at Ca' Foscari University of Venice), which may shed new lights on Etruscan culture at San Lorenzo Nuovo [e.g. Maccarino's tomb and other Etruscan tombs at San Lorenzo Nuovo[21]].
Within Lake Bolsena, the Bisentina island (commune of Capodimonte) is also regarded as a sacred isle of the Etruscans, possible site for the Fanum, and gate to the underground world of Agharti.
A sanctuary located on an island not situated at the sea would have been accessible to priests and kings of the 12 cities (with their closest entourages), their protection being granted during the religious and political meetings by a handful of armed men.
An Italian television program Voyager (1 October 2003) supported this hypothesis, suggesting for the Etruscans a parallelism to the Incas populations, who had also chosen one of Lake Titicaca's islands as their omphalos.
This hypothesis finds a type of confirmation in the poem the Theogony, by the Greek oral poet Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) : "They ruled over the famous Tyrenians, very far off in a recess of the holy islands".