It is the Etruscan centre that has contributed more than any other to the knowledge of the first domestic and civil architecture of the Etruscan people and their daily life. Thanks to the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome with the presence and support of H.M., king, Gustav VI Adolph of Sweden, excavations were carried out in 1966 on thehill of Saint Francis otherwise known as Acquarossa. The inhabited plain is naturally strengthened by crags which rise from valleys of erosion from the ditches of Acquarossa (remains of an Etruscan bridge) and Francalancia; here, towards the end of the VIII, but mainly the VII and VI cent. B.C. a new dynamic town emerged that intelligently made the most of the fertile agricultural lands. They also used the iron ore deposits and made use of trade that linked the coastal towns with the internal part of the Italian peninsula. Politically speaking, it gravitated in the area of the lucomo of Velzna (Orvieto). Frentis, perhaps its original name, was destroyed towards the end of the VI cent. and in this vast area (32 hectares) nothing else was built and so its ruins remained sealed for 2600 years. The scattered inhabitants gathered together a century later on the parallel headland of Pianicara bringing about the Roman town of Ferento.
The excavations revealed the foundations of numerous buildings that show a transition in the plan and technical areas of construction from hut to house giving a sense to the intuition of archeologists on examination of the architecture of the Etruscan funeral. It is the Etruscans and their daily life that the remains of Acquarossa show us in the different areas examined. Apart from the individual homes clearly visible in their plans with a minimum front view, there is a complex of buildings (F zone) that are well articulated and rational where the religious, political and economical centre of the town is located. This gravitated around the local lucumon. A high wall of tuff blocks scientifically rebuilt encloses a group of buildings with arches and various surroundings. Slabs, acrocteriums and antefixes made of terracotta decorate the facade in a more consistent way than the other buildings in the centre. On the spot wells, tunnels, interred areas, stables and shelters for animals depict the real life of the Etruscans in the VI cent. and has been perfectly reconstructed with originals in the show rooms of the national archeological museum of Rocca Albornoz in Viterbo. The necropoli with chamber tombs sculptured in the ceilings and the deposition beds are not clearly visible, and can be found at Campo dei Pozzi, Casale Pierardi, Poggio Rotella and Macchia Carletti.