(S)proporzioni etrusche: i monumenti funerari di Grotta Porcina

The aim of this contribution, within the categories of scale and size that characterize the theme of this volume, is to compare the two main monumental structures in the site of Grotta Porcina, located in southern inner Etruria. The two structures, a sepulchral tumulus and a funerary altar, are carved directly into the rock. The altar, surrounded by a theatrical structure, seems to imitate, with its circular layout and the access bridge to the top spared in the rock, the shape of the large sepulchral tumulus, placed just 85 meters away and in visual contact with it. A series of comparisons both with the Ceretan tumuli, which influence the shape of the tumulus and consequently also that of the altar, and with the stepped structures present in the dromoi/vestibules of the orientalizing tumuli of Tarquinia, leads us to think about the function of the altar and the meaning of its shape, transposition on a reduced scale of the sepulchral tumulus.