ABSTRACT

The Monte Abatone necropolis is one of Cerveteri’s largest. In 1961 a rich tomb was excavated here, and numbered 610. There was no metalware or jewelry, but it contained a large variety of pottery dating to the late sixth and early fifth century bc, ranging from local bucchero to some striking Athenian black-figure ware together with a fine red-figure cup by Oltos with Herakles wrestling a sea-god (Moretti 1966; Beazley 1963: 1623, 66bis). In many ways MA 610 is not untypical of Etruscan tomb assemblages of this period, as often they consist of a mix of objects from different regions (metalware has usually been removed by earlier tomb-robbing), and in the late Archaic period the most important external source was Greece, especially Athens.