The great part of the knowledge that we have on the Etruscan civilisation comes from the tombs (inscriptions, paintings, sculpture, utensils etc.). Naturally all this materials gives the rites and us much information on how after life was considered reserved for the dead. We have therefore inequitable evidence of the beliefs defused in the Mediterranean. It was thought that the individuality of a person lived after the mortal remains, in the same area where the body was buried or cremated. In consequence, the need of helping this after life, by the part of the relatives. They refurbished the sepulchre like a house, surrounding the dead person with their jewels, clothes, eventually arms and supplied food and drink.
So forming a great collection of tombs, deposited in lines divided by roads, that they built real cities for the dead (necropolis) as demonstrates the example of
Caere (Cerveteri) and of Tarquinia. Imitating houses, revealing luxuries and artistic tastes of the Etruscan nobles often made the larger tombs.
At the origins they effectuated almost exclusively cremations, but in following only a few towns continued to practice it. They passed to the cult more orientated to the burial, in the cases of cremation the ashes were con served in urns the form of habitations or vases that attempted to reproduce the features of the dead person. But in a second period the bodies were spread out on bed directly dug in the rocks or inside sarcophaguses of terracotta or other material.
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