Besides the frescoes, archaeologists have uncovered decorated vases imported from Greece, a sword and metal spits used to roast meat for the prince's table. A two-wheeled bronze chariot was found standing in front of the rounded archway that leads into the burial chamber.

The recovery of elegant broaches, a wool spindle and other objects usually used by females suggests that at least one woman, possibly the prince's wife, was buried in the tomb, said Francesca Boitani, the lead archaeologist on the dig.

The urns containing the cremated remains of the tomb's owners, normally placed in one of the chamber's niches, are believed to have been taken by looters, Boitani said.

The images of birds and fang-baring felines remain the highlight of what experts are calling "The Tomb of the Roaring Lions."

Although decorated prehistoric caves predate by millennia the Etruscan tomb, experts say it is the oldest example in the Western world of a specially built funerary chamber decorated with mural paintings.

"Prehistoric paintings are something else," Boitani said. "Here we see used for the first time the techniques described in ancient texts and used in Western civilization in the following centuries."

Mural paintings have been found in some burial chambers in Turkey, but those date back to the 6th century B.C., while the Etruscan tomb is at least a century older, said Giovanni Colonna, an expert on the Etruscan civilization at Rome's La Sapienza University.

The architecture of the tomb, the style of the paintings and the images of lions _ an animal that didn't roam central Italy _ show the builders were influenced by art coming from Greece, Egypt and Asian kingdoms, Colonna said.

Although the same art is used on Greek vases of the time, no decorated tombs from that period have been found in Greece or elsewhere in Europe, he said.

The images in the Etruscan tomb were outlined in black and red with paints produced from minerals and archaeologist believe they were fixed on the wall using a compound created by crushing ancient fossils found in the area.

The birds are symbols of the passage into the afterlife, while the lions "represent the horror for what lies beyond life," said Anna Maria Moretti, the superintendent for antiquities in areas around Rome."