Stéphane GsellVULCI, 21 SEPTEMBER 2026 – For more than 130 years, it had remained almost invisible beneath the soil of the Polledrara. Stéphane Gsell (1864–1932), the great French archaeologist, had identified it in 1889, reconstructed its perimeter and searched for its main tomb, without ever managing to find it. But in the summer of 2026, the archaeologists of the international Retour à Vulci (Return to Vulci) team finally closed the circle: they identified the great Gsell Tumulus on the ground, which preliminary investigations suggest is considerably larger than previously believed, and inside it they brought to light what is in all probability the very princely burial that the French archaeologist had searched for in vain.
From left, C. Mazet, L. M. Michetti and A. Conti at the Conference held at Villa Giulia on the frescoes of Vulci’s François Tomb“This is the burial. We are absolutely certain of it,” says Christian Mazet of the British Museum, one of the mission’s three scientific directors together with Laura Maria Michetti and Alessandro Conti of Sapienza University of Rome. His tone is that of someone fully aware that archaeological caution remains essential, but that this time all the evidence points in the same direction. “We found weapons, the chariot, gold objects and high-quality ceramics of the kind found only in the princely tombs of the Osteria necropolis. “There is no doubt that this is a tomb of the very highest rank.”
The July 2026 excavationsThe discovery also changes our understanding of the scale of the monument. Gsell had described a large circular tomb with a circumference of 98 metres (322 feet) and a base faced with nenfro slabs. He also reported that he had suspended his investigations after several unsuccessful attempts to locate the corridor leading to the main chamber: continuing would have been too expensive.
In search of the crepidomaToday, using entirely different tools and methods, the mission has returned to precisely that question. “Last year we hypothesised that the tumulus had been constructed within the geological terrain,” Mazet tells Etruscan Times. “This year we clearly understood that this was indeed the case, because we found part of the circumference.” The stones of the crepidoma are no longer there, probably removed over time, but their imprint remains: “We found the negative trace.”
And it is precisely this trace that is forcing archaeologists to reconsider the dimensions traditionally attributed to the monument.
Initial calculations, which will still have to be verified during future campaigns, suggest a tumulus comparable to the Cuccumella, one of the greatest funerary monuments in Etruria. It could prove to be among the largest tumuli known in the Etruscan world, perhaps even the largest of all: a hypothesis that will require further measurements and, above all, completion of the survey of its perimeter.
“Everything tells us that it is one of the most monumental at Vulci,” Mazet explains, leaving the 2027 campaign with the task of establishing its circumference and structure more precisely.
Stéphane Gsell’s book (1891)
This is where the story begins to take on the rhythm of an investigation left open for more than a century. Gsell knew that he was dealing with an exceptional monument. But he stopped. “In the letters he sent to the director of the École française de Rome, he mentions the discovery of this ‘new Cuccumella’ as well as the difficulties involved in working in this area of the Polledrara.
“In his subsequent 1891 publication, he clearly says that he had been forced to stop excavating the tumulus because he no longer had the money or the time to find its main tomb,” Mazet explains. “He stopped. We found it.”
La “Tomba della Camera di Pietra”
The newly discovered burial has been named the Stone Chamber Tomb, recalling the designation Tombes de pierre, built or semi-built tombs known from the nineteenth-century excavations of Alexandrine and Luciano Bonaparte. It dates to the end of the seventh century BC, a period when Vulci was experiencing one of the richest phases in its history.
It consists of three chambers and displays a massive internal architecture, with walls constructed from large blocks of nenfro set into the natural deposits of sand, gravel and clay associated with the ancient course of the Fiora River.
But it is above all the objects that reveal the status of the tomb’s owners. Corinthian pottery provides a very precise dating; alongside it are bucchero wares, weapons, chariot fittings, gold and bronze sheets, and objects made of bone and ivory. In the side chambers, groups of objects have survived in their original positions despite the clandestine intrusions suffered by the tomb during the twentieth century.
Among them are a bronze tripod associated with a lamp made of alabaster gypsum, probably of Aegean origin, and a banquet service of exceptional importance.
Exceptional finds
This is the so-called Polledrara Ware, a rare local polychrome production already known from the objects discovered in the Tomb of Isis, most of which are now housed in the British Museum. “It was a prestigious type of pottery used by Vulci’s leading families,” Mazet explains. “We found a service of vessels made in this ceramic class.” It included dinoi for mixing wine and water, cups and other vessels for holding liquids.
Alongside them was a grater associated with the preparation of wine and a large polychrome ceremonial cup in the Ionian Wild Goat Style, with very close parallels in the grave goods from the Tomb of Isis.
Christian Mazet at Villa Giulia (September 2026)The point, however, is not simply that a rich tomb has been found. For Alessandro Conti, the discovery demonstrates the value of an archaeology that returns to previously excavated sites, to archives and even to old uncertainties. “Excavation for excavation’s sake is not an end in itself,” he observes. “Re-documenting contexts that have already been excavated allows us to gain a much broader perspective.”
“Good archaeology”, at least at Vulci, has a duty to bring old and new discoveries into dialogue, in order to arrive at a more accurate interpretation of the site’s history.
The Retour à Vulci team, July 2026 (© J. Ballu, Ritorno a Vulci 2026)This is precisely the method followed by Retour à Vulci. Launched in 2023, the project brings together the École française de Rome, Sapienza University of Rome and the British Museum, in collaboration with the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Province of Viterbo and Southern Etruria, the Regional Directorate of National Museums of Lazio and the Fondazione Vulci.
Directed by Michetti, Conti and Mazet, the mission combines excavation, archives, museum collections and new technologies, and forms part of the major 2026 revival of excavations in the Vulci area, now extended also to the port area of Regisvilla. Its work also intersects with Vulci nel Mondo, the project that virtually reconstructs Vulci’s dispersed heritage by cataloguing artefacts now held in museums and collections around the world.
The connection is particularly significant at the Polledrara itself: material from Gsell’s early excavations was also dispersed among several international collections.
Recovering a dispersed heritage
Presentation of the first results in October 2025 and the links with the Vulci nel Mondo project“And this is precisely the added value of our project,” says Laura Michetti: “bringing together in a large team scholars, researchers and museum curators working at different levels in different parts of the world, all of whom care deeply about recovering the dispersed heritage of Vulci — and potentially of all the cities of Etruria — and restoring to the community the possibility of knowing and experiencing contexts and artefacts that until now have remained anonymous.
“The ultimate goal for all of us is to be able to tell a new chapter in the history of a great city of the ancient world.”
From left, L. Allegrini, M. Eichberg, C. Mazet, S. Carosi, L. Toniolo, L. M. Michetti and C. Casi (July 15, 2026)On 15 July, the excavation site was visited by Luana Toniolo, director of the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia; Laura Allegrini, president of Fondazione Vulci; scientific director Carlo Casi; Superintendent Margherita Eichberg; and Simona Carosi. A few days later, Alfonsina Russo, head of the Department for the Enhancement of Cultural Heritage, also visited the site.
At that point, excavation was still under way and many of the scientific implications of what was emerging had yet to be understood.
From left, C. Mazet, L. Toniolo, L. M. Michetti, M. Bonadies and S. GrossoThe archaeological campaign, conducted under the supervision of Sapienza Etruscan archaeologists Manuela Bonadies and Simone Grosso, lasted just three weeks. “The wonderful thing is that we kept making discovery after discovery right up to the end,” Mazet recalls. The importance of the context also required precautions against possible further clandestine incursions.
The archaeologists excavated all three chambers completely, reaching layers that were still intact: “Tomb robbers always leave something behind.” Everything has now been covered over again for protection. In 2027, the mission is expected to continue in the peripheral area, search for any adjacent tombs and continue tracing the line of the crepidoma.
So, 137 years later, the question left unanswered by Gsell has finally found an answer. Yet that answer immediately opens up another, even larger question: how large was his tumulus really? It is one of those cases in which archaeology, by finding what it was searching for, discovers that there is still much more left to seek. (@EtruscanTimes)
