It is a huge site, known to few, of which there is no map and that you discover slowly rummaging through the dense vegetation. The ancient city of Norchia was located along the Via Clodia, an ancient Roman road between the Cassia and Aurelia used for the transport of goods to and from Rome, which is about 55 kilometers. According to historians, the city was founded in the fourth century BC. The period of maximum splendor was that of Etruscan domination until the third century BC. Testimony of this presence, that has made of Norchia the etruscan site more fascinating of all central Italy, are the thousand of rupestrian graves disseminated anywhere. The presence of an inhabited center until the Middle Ages is testified by some rests of the suburb, of a castle and of a church going back to the IX century A.D. and built on a pre-existing Etruscan-Roman temple. The remains of an access door and the route of via Clodia, which runs for about 400 meters among those buildings still standing, are also well visible. Those that once were tombs were used in medieval times as dwellings or as shelters. And under the present buildings there are constructions of previous eras that someone, sooner or later, will decide to recover.
