Praenestine cistae are sumptuous metal boxes mostly of
cylindrical shape. They have a lid, figurative handles, and feet
separately manufactured and attached. Cistae are covered with
incised decoration on both body and lid. Little studs are placed
at equal distance at a third of the cista's height all around,
regardless of the incised decoration. Small metal chains were
attached to these studs and probably used to lift the cistae. As
funerary objects, cistae were placed in the tombs of the fourth-
century necropolis at Praeneste. This town, located 37
kilometers southeast of Rome in the region of Latius Vetus, was
an Etruscan outpost in the seventh century B.C., as the wealth
of its princely burials indicates. Excavations conducted at
Praeneste in the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth
century were primarily aimed at the recovery of these precious-
metal objects. The subsequent demand for cistae and mirrors
caused the systematic plundering of the Praenestine necropolis.
Cistae acquired value and importanc