CASTRO (Ischia di Castro)

Castro was dependent on the city-state of Vulci, and so its Etruscan name is ignored, perhaps it was Statonia. It stretches out onto rocky headland with overhanging rock walls on the Monache ditch in the north and on the Olpeta in the south the waters of which flow together more down hill into the Fiora. The continuity of the settlement under the Duchy of Castro, descendent of a powerful Farnese family lasted until the year 1649 when it was deliberately razed to the ground by Pope Innocenzo X, and so no Etruscan remains were found. Besides this, the plain today is covered in thick vegetation through which emerge romantic ruins from the R enaissance period. The necropoli scattered along the hills outline the history and importance of this stronghold during the VII and VI centuries B.C.
Even if repeatedly violated, tomb chests and chamber tombs have preserved pieces of great importance, a part from the different nenfro sculptures of mainly imaginary animals (horses, winged lions, rams, panthers and sphinxes) guarding the graves, monumentally at times. In the open vestibule of one of the tombs, archeologists from a Belgian school revealed a parade biga coated in bronze and the skeletons of two horses that were pulling it that were sacrificed on the burial of their master (end of VI cent. B.C.). From the same period there is a large rocky tomb with three chambers, 13 m long, with nenfro frames and protoms in the corners with lion and ram heads. This was dug in the tuff in front of the church of the Crucifix. A beautiful museum to visit is in Ischia di Castro where there are exhibits that date from the prehistoric period to the Roman period.