Model house as ash urn

The Roman architect Vitruvius describes the "atrium tuscanicum" as an interior courtyard without columns and a house-shaped limestone urn from Chiusi in the Berlin collection depicts an "atrium displuviatum" with its roofs slanting outwards. Vitruvius also recorded a description of the "classical" design of an Etruscan temple. For the most part, his description corresponds with the image of sacral architecture around 500 BC as derived from the excavations in South Etruria. Accordingly, the Etruscan temple was a construction of wood and clay bricks above stone foundations and featured a frontal outside staircase. The floor plan was divided into a columned porch with 2 x 4 columns and a subsequent cella or inner chamber usually divided into three rooms. The entire construction was covered by a sumptuously decorated fictile ridged roof with extensively projecting eaves. The walls and columns could be decorated with coloured terracotta facing.