A new study uses artificial intelligence, architectural modeling and acoustic analysis to explore how people may have experienced two painted Etruscan tombs at Tarquinia, Italy, rather than treating their decorations solely as images to interpret.
The tombs date to the first millennium BCE and contain scenes associated with music, feasting, processions and the afterlife. Archaeologists Maurizio Forte and Jacqueline Ortoleva created detailed three-dimensional models of the Tomba del Gallo and the Tomba dei Demoni Azzurri. They also surveyed how sound traveled through the spaces by playing recorded handclaps at different locations and measuring reverberation.
For the visual analysis, the team used AI-based computer vision to identify features likely to attract attention, possible movement routes and areas where activity may have concentrated. The models simulated candlelight rather than torches, which the researchers considered more plausible for the small enclosed spaces because torches could have produced dangerous amounts of smoke.
The smaller Tomba del Gallo dates to between 450 and 400 BCE. Its burial chamber measures 3.31 meters by 2.50 meters and contains a banquet scene and an image of dancers and double-pipe players. According to the study, the entrance corridor offers relatively little visual stimulation, directing movement toward the chamber. Short reverberation times meant that sound did not accumulate strongly there, producing what the researchers describe as a comparatively clear, visually focused environment.
The Tomba dei Demoni Azzurri, dated to between 450 and 420 BCE, is substantially larger, with a burial chamber measuring 6.20 meters by 6.10 meters. Its paintings include banquet and procession scenes, as well as demons and a small boat carrying female and male figures. Acoustic testing found stronger and longer-lasting reverberation, particularly near the rear banquet scene, with sound able to move between the chamber and the outside area.
The study identifies a blue demon on the right wall as a particularly strong visual focus. Combined with low-frequency sounds that the researchers say could have produced bodily vibration and disrupted spatial orientation, the tomb may have offered a more intense and disorienting experience than the Tomba del Gallo.
The researchers emphasize that it remains unclear whether the builders deliberately engineered these effects or whether they resulted from the tombs’ architecture and materials. Their findings instead suggest that Etruscan painted tombs did not follow a single sensory pattern and may have affected the living as well as housed the dead.
