Akin to the Treasuries are such buildings as the so-called "Spring House " at Tusculmn, the pointed vault of which is also constructed of horizontal courses. Similar to this is the Mamertine Prison at Rome, the lower chamber of which—the so-called Tulliauum—has a vault of the same description. Many thousand cone-shaped towers called "Nuraghi," from ro to 15 metres (33 to 49 feet) high, exist in Sardinia. These contain one or several bell-shaped adjacent or superposed chambers, which were used as tombs and exhibit a similar construction.
Etruscan Etruria this corbelled construction obtains in many tombs, as in the very ancient ones of Reg,ulini and Galassi, in Caere. Tombs are the most important relics of Etruscan art, and a large number have been opened and examined. Some are hewn in tufa, or hard rock, in which several chambers frequently communicate, while others are inde pendent structures in which the tumulus-form is more or less preserved. The rock-hewn chambers have ceilings partly flat, partly sloping upward toward the middle, worked into beams and rafters, in imitation of wood construction. Up to the present day the numerous inscriptions found in these tombs have not been deciphered; still, though it is not possible to arrange them chronologically, we must consider those oldest which are nearest to the tumulus archetype.
The largest tomb of this_ kind is the Poggio Gajelle, at Chiusi, a natural mound about roo metres (32S feet) in diameter, hollowed out into several superposed series of labyrinthine passages and funeral-cham bers. The one called the Cucumella, near Volci, an artificial mound about 6o metres (nearly 20o feet) in diameter, walled around at the bottom and now about 15 metres (49 feet) high, bears upon its summit two tower like elevations, one of which is quadrangular, the other cone-shaped. Pliny describes the tomb of King Porsenna as square, and pierced below with a labyrinth the endless turns of which could not be threaded without a clue; five pyramids rose above the substructure. Five conical turrets still remain upon the wrongly-named Tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii, at Albano (1o1. 5, fig. 4). The interior of the rock-tombs at Cervetri (figs. 1-3) probably gives us a picture of the abodes of 'the living. Fig ure 5 gives an idea of an exterior façade which, though probably the work of a later date and constructed under Grecian influence, yet in many respects brings before us a picture of the Pelasgian Heroic Age.
Period of Etruscan art can be followed from early prehistoric times far into the historic. It ruled throughout Italy until the conquering Romans adopted the art of the conquered Greeks, but mingled with certain Etruscan elements, so that the boundary-line cannot exactly be determined. The Roman historians themselves briefly describe the advance of the art-culture of their people by saying that at first all was Tuscan, while later all was Greek. The most ancient build ings of Rome are of the Etruscan era, and so we have historic information and certain data concerning sonic Etruscan works.
The distinguishing features between Etruscan art and the later Grecian are especially hard to define in Rome, because Greek influence made an impression at a rather early period, its continued increase giving birth to the later native Roman art; so that what was Grecian in the Roman sense was vet not Grecian, since it could not be separated from the elements derived from Etruscan architecture.
But the elements which form the foundation of Etruscan art are so closely allied to those of the old Pelasgian that the Romans contrasted them with the later period of Grecian art, and thus furnish us with a rea son for seeing in the art of the Etruscans only the further development of the old Pelasgian. But whether the entire Etruscan life was but a con tinuation of that of the old Pelasgian or the religion alone was directly derived from the Heroic Age must remain undetermined, and it is still an open question to what extent the races were allied; yet as the older Asiatic culture was perpetuated by transference from one race to another and reached its highest point at a comparatively late period among the Persians, so Pelasgian culture and art in the course of their passage from one people to another were developed among the Etruscans. Even among these they survived the older Asiatic for a short time only, though, unlike the latter, they did not quite disappear, but continued to live on to a more perfect development in classical Greek culture.