Discovering the Blue Demon’s Tomb

As a photographer fascinated with archaeology and the story of Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb, I had always dreamed of being the first person to view an ancient tomb. My dream came true a few years ago when I was in Italy photographing an article about the Etruscan civilization for National Geographic. Just east of Tarquinia, the Italians were planning to build a water main along a busy state road that ran through the middle of an Etruscan necropolis. Fearing that construction of the water main would destroy unexplored tombs, archaeologists decided to do some test drilling, which revealed the entrances to 29 underground tombs.

A friend of mine, an Italian journalist, notified me of the discovery. I rushed to the scene and was promptly enlisted to photograph the first entry into one particularly large tomb that lay beneath the road. One lane of the highway was closed, and corrugated aluminum walls were erected around the site. Within these walls, archaeologists dug a narrow shaft through the asphalt down to the entrance of the tomb. Though signs reading “Go Slow” were posted, these warnings had little effect on Italian motorists racing down the road’s open lane. The corrugated aluminum rattled violently as they sped by.