Hypogaei by James Byres

Illustration from James Byres' Hypogaei, or sepulchral caverns of Tarquinia the capital of Etruria, 1842

Byres' great work on the Etruscans was published posthumously, more than half a century after he had made his first studies of Etruscan antiquity. This plate illustrates the operation of eighteenth-century archaeology: the guide with a torch leading the virtuosi into the subterranean tomb-chamber.