The Etruscan cemeteries of Cerveteri and Tarquinia are rare and precious testimonies to the ancient Etruscans, who were the first people to establish an urban type of civilization in the western Mediterranean, a civilization that survived for about 700 years from the eighth to the first century BC, in the territories of central Italy, from Lazio to Tuscany.

This Unesco site, inscribed into the World Heritage list in 2004, includes the two necropolises of Banditaccia and Monterozzi, the main cemeteries of the ancient Etruscan city-states of Cerveteri and Tarquinia. Together, they provide most of the archaeological discoveries related to the Etruscan civilization over the course of nine centuries.