200-Feet TALLER than the Great Pyramid? The Enigmatic Tomb of Lars Porsena | Ancient Architects

This week I was shown a picture by David Hanrahan on Twitter and I have to admit I had never seen it before. Whilst I mainly discuss structures we’re already well aware of, David often posts about hidden gems of the ancient world, and this structure is exactly that. Follow him at It was a picture of the enigmatic Tomb of Lars Porsena, who was an Etruscan king who is believed to have built this incredible structure in 500 BC at Clusium, in modern-day Tuscany, central Italy. Some sources state that is actually stood 200-feet taller than the Great Pyramid of Egypt. But primary sources on the structure are limited to one, Marcus Varro, who was quoted in the works of Pliny the Elder. Pliny speculated the description of the Tomb of Porsena was a fable - it wasn’t real - but because of the amount of detail in the description, and because there apparently were Etruscan stories about the structure, many believe it did exist.