La tomba dei Velisina di Norchia e il suo corredo

The discovery of previously unpublished archive data from the excavation of the Velisina tomb in Norchia (VT) has made it possible to better define the chronological framework of the funerary assemblage and, of course, of the important inscribed sarcophagi found in the tomb, of one of the most important families of the site, published by Giovanni Colonna in 1981 and 1982. Vel Velisina, buried in the Velisina Tomb, was zilath no less than twenty-seven times, i.e. practically for life. In addition to archive data, such as the Journal of the Excavations, it was possible to find the five boxes containing the unpublished finds from the Velisina tomb, which are kept in the storerooms of the Etruscan National Museum of the Rocca Albornoz in Viterbo. The Velisina tomb, of the semi-cube rock type, was found in Norchia near the Biedano ditch in december 1977 already plundered by clandestine diggers. The finds preserved in the five boxes make it possible to establish that the oldest finds (probably coeval with the creation of the tomb) are from the end of the 4th to the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. and that it was in use, as is often the case in the Pile necropolis of Norchia, until the 1st century A.D. (in fact, between the Augustan and Tiberian periods and the early Flavian period). In addition to the red painted clay plate, bearing the inscription ve(lisinas) published by Colonna in 1981, three inscribed vases were found among the finds, two with symbols (* and X) and one with the letters cv, probably an abbreviation for c(ae) v(elisina), the deceased laid in sarcophagus A, probably the oldest in the tomb. That a branch of the Velisina family, documented in Norchia, originated from nearby Tuscania can be assumed on the basis of some elements, such as the incipit of the funerary inscriptions on the sarcophagi.