SEPULCRETUM
the modern name given to the archaic necropolis found in
April, 1902, near the temple of Antoninus and Faustina. It consisted
of both cremation and inhumation graves (a considerable proportion of
the latter those of children) ; and the pottery is very similar to that which
is found in archaic cemeteries in the Alban hills.
MacIver comes to the conclusion (Villanovans and early Etruscans
73-93) that all the cremation burials in the forum belong to a people
of Villanovan stock, and in date range from the twelfth or eleventh to
the ninth century B.C.; that the inhumation burials are to be divided
from them racially, and not chronologically, assigning them to the
Picenes, i.e. the descendants of the local neolithic inhabitants, and,
while beginning at the same period, appear to run down late in the
seventh century B.C., the last tomb being G in Boni's list, which contained
an imported Greek lekythos with figures of running dogs. As to the
Esquiline cemeteries, which range from the ninth to the sixth centuries
B.C., and have yielded practically nothing but inhumation graves, he
treats it as still an open question whether the population is to be identified
as Picene or as Etruscan; while in regard to the Villanovans, he does not
accept the theory of Pigorini, Colini and others, who hold the Villanovans
to be direct descendants of the inhabitants of the ' terremare; and
prefers to derive both from the Central European and Danubian stocks
as distinct and parallel nations. Von Duhn, on the other hand (Italische
Graberkunde 415 sqq.), regards the cremation tombs of the forum as
a good deal earlier than the inhumation tombs, while later than and not
contemporary with the earliest tombs of the Alban hills; and Hulsen
(
Mitt. 1905, 95-115; HC 210-217) dates them from the ninth or eighth
to the sixth century B.C.
See
NS 1902, 96-111;
1903, 123-170, 375-427;
1905, 145-193;
1906,
5-46, 253-294;
1911, 157-190; Atti 499-514;
Mitt. 1902, 92-94;
1905,
95-115;
BC 1903, 33-42; Mon.
L. xv. 273-314; HC 210-218. For
other ancient cemeteries in Rome, cf. Mon. L. cit. passim; Modestov,
Introduction a l'histoire romaine, Rome, 1907; MacIver, Von Duhn,
opp. citt.
