The building that houses the museum collection of Montecchio is located in the small and charming village of Tenaglie, situated in a scenic position over the Tiber Valley. In the early decades of the 1900s, the building was the seat of the city school, while in even earlier times it was an oil mill equipped with an olive press with animal-drawn millstones.
Since 2001 it has been housing the objects found in the Umbrian-Etruscan necropolis of the Vallone di San Lorenzo discovered in 1855 by the archaeologist Domenico Golini. Thanks to recent investigations carried out by the University of Perugia, which led to the discovery of a new necropolar area, installations were modernised through the display of new materials and the use of multimedia instruments.
The vast necropolis testifies to the presence of a strongly Etruscan Umbrian centre dating back to the Porsenna age, between the late 6th and 5th centuries BC, when a generalized use of chamber tombs dug directly into the natural rock was pretty common.
The variety of burials is found in the use of single or double coaxial chambers in which the second room was intended exclusively for deposing grave goods.
The ceilings of the main chambers are generally ogive and sometimes reproduce the wooden framework of the roof of the houses.
The type of materials appears to be of absolute quality, witnessing a social prestige characterized by high economic and cultural resources and places the necropolis within a chronological period that goes from the sixth century BC. up to the 4th century BC.