Pyrgi
Excavations by Sapienza University of Rome since 1957 have focussed on the large sacred district, including the Monumental Sanctuary of Uni (Phoenician Astarte) and a Demetriac cult area, the most ancient so far known in Etruria, dedicated to the pair of deities Sur/Suri and Cavatha.
[4] The connection between the great Etruscan city of Caere and the coast was ensured by the Caere-Pyrgi road, an impressive work of engineering, 10 m wide and 12 km long, comparable to that between Athens and Piraeus.
Pyrgi's development was closely linked to its favourable position along the Tyrrhenian shipping routes,[6] and it became the main port of Caere and hosted its naval fleet.
The abundance of imported objects in the votive deposits highlights the role of Pyrgi as a gateway to the sea under the control of Caere and its openness to international contacts with the frequentation of the area by foreign merchants.
The city was raided by Dionysius in 384 BC who, landing his troops in the night, plundered the temple of Ilithyia[7] from which he is said to have carried off an enormous sum of 1000 talents in gold and silver.
[15] Later the town supplied fish to Rome, and became a favourite summer resort for rich patricians as did also Punicum to the north-west, where are many remains of large ancient villas.
Temple B was commissioned around 510 BC by the king of Caere, Thefarie Velianas and consisted of a single cella of Greek inspiration surrounded by columns on all sides.
[20] On the left of the temple a small precinct "C" with cylindrical altar contained a pit consecrated to the underworld cult of Tinia (the Etruscan version of Jupiter) who is mentioned along with Uni in one of the bronze inscriptions found in the same enclosure together with the gold sheets.
It had an Etruscan plan with cella and alae at the back, three rows of columns at the front, and was decorated with the magnificent mythological high relief of the "Seven against Thebes" in which Tydeus devours the skull of his opponent Melanippus.
On the left Athena backs away, queasy because of the scene, and holds in her right hand the cruet containing the potion of eternal life that Zeus had made for Tydeas.
The version of the saga which inspired the artist is not the one contained in the works of the great tragedians who related the stories of the Theban cycle in the fifth century BC; it is more likely the one recently attributed[22] to Stesichorus of Himera, the poet who lived between Sicily and Magna Graecia in the archaic period.
The most ancient structure, the sacellum "Beta" (530-520 BC), has a roof adorned with acroteria of busts of Achelous, a river divinity with a human head and bull's horns, ears and body, and female-headed antefixes perhaps representing the Nymphs.
[23] Following the Dionysian looting, the southern sanctuary was abandoned and ritually sealed and the activity moved to the northern sector, with the creation of a new square, at the ends of which are located the quadrangular building Alpha (a) and the aedicula Pi (p) originally adorned with votive statues.
