ALERIA, CORSICA—Reuters reports that an Etruscan tomb dating to the fourth century B.C. has been uncovered in Aleria, on the east side of the island of Corsica, by a team of researchers led by Franck Leandri of the French National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research. Chiseled into rock in a large Roman necropolis, the tomb held ceramic vessels resembling Etruscan pieces found in Tuscany, an object that may have been a mirror, and furniture that collapsed over the remains of a person who may have been a high-ranking official. Leandri said the tomb could help scholars understand the decline of Etruscan cities, which were absorbed by Rome by about 100 B.C. “It’s the missing link which will allow us to piece together Etruscan funerary rites, but it also reinforces the hypothesis that before the Roman conquest (in 259 B.C.), Aleria was a transit point in the Tyrrhenian Sea, blending Etruscan, Carthaginian, and Phocaean interests,” Leandri said. To read in-depth about another Etruscan burial, go to “The Tomb of the Silver Hands.”
