From a gloomy contemplation of supernatural matters the Etruskans turned their minds to extremely worldly and practical purposes. They wished to secure their towns and to protect them against real and imaginary monsters, and they constructed excellent walls and most comfortable houses. The ‘_cavœdium_’ (‘cavum œdium’), with the _impluvium_ and _compluvium_ (the one for collecting and the other for preserving water), was altogether an Etruskan invention, and was called by the Romans who adopted it, _Tuscanicum_. They constructed temples differing only in some details from those of the Greeks. The cella was generally _square_; sometimes they had more than one cella; one in the Postica and one in the Antica (the rear and front of the temple). The portico was often filled with columns. The architectural style was a rough and primitive Doric. They never attained the majestic simplicity which distinguished this order in Greece. The columns had a base, were more slender (about fourteen moduli), stood more apart, and supported a wooden roof with clumsily-protruding beams, an unwieldy cornice, and a high pediment. Cinerary chests they had in abundance with divinities on them, worked in reliefs of a decidedly Egyptian type. They used brazen tablets representing Osiris and Isis. Little clay figures were put into the graves to protect the dead. Amongst these has been found a winged Harpokrates or Horus, with the fore-finger of one hand on his lips, a lotus on his head, and a cornucopia in his other hand. Their ancient pottery is more in the Egyptian than the Greek style. Their jars represent sphinxes and women; their drinking cups are in the form of human legs, with human faces replacing the knee; some are in the form of Mercury with a pointed, attached beard, like those to be seen in Egyptian divinities. Some of the patterns of their ornamentation, in general as well as in detail, are perfectly Mexican. On one of their lamps we have a winged Kentaur holding a rabbit, whilst four rabbits running after one another, form the spirited ornamentation of the border, intermixed with triangles, rosettes, or solar circles. With their religious notions, it is not surprising that the Etruskans should have devoted the greatest care to their tombs and burial-places. These tombs were:-- 1. _Subterranean_; hewn into the tufa on plains. Steps led underground, where a vestibulum, consisting of several chambers, sometimes provided with columns, led into the vault. The ceiling of this was either horizontal or pointed, in imitation of a wooden roof. Many such tombs are found at Volci, Clusium, and Volaterra. 2. A second species of their subterranean tombs consisted of those _provided with tumuli_ above-ground; simple graves as found in Scandinavia and the north of the Western hemisphere, the corpses lying on simple stone beds.