When archaeologists discovered the first ever Etruscan pyramid-like buildings under a city in Italy, they were at a loss to explain the mysterious structures.

The earliest Etruscan pyramid-like structure was in fact found very recently in the metropolis of Orvieto, Italy. Only about 3 years or so, based on the moment you’re scrolling through this article, was the spectacular building noticed buried subterranean.

What gave away the fact that it was built to mimic the Etruscan style is the fact that it had the stairs that were directly carved inside of the wall. In case you didn’t know already, that is one of their signatures right there.

In order to actually get inside of the pyramid though they needed to dig through the walls and floors.

After having done so the team actually stumbled across what appeared to be an ancient series of underground tunnels and cave systems which were way larger than anything they’d expected to find in this type of structure.

Claudio Bizarri, the co-director of PAAO and his colleague, David B. George from the St. Anselm College came upon this discovery after stating that they had officially known about an underground structure for over three years now, but they never guessed it to be this incredible, to say the least.

Despite the fact that they are incredibly popular for their underground architecture, very little is actually known about the Etruscans, to say the least.

We know that they were officially living in central Italy around 900 BC but that’s about it. They were amongst some of the world’s greatest at the artwork, metalwork, and writing, and yet they were completely decimated by the Roman empire that merged them to their own culture and forced them to adhere to their rules instead.