On the coast, between the mouth of the Marta river in the north and Le Saline in the south, behind the Clementino harbour, the port of Corneto named after Pope Clement XIII who had it restored in the 18th century, there was one of the ancient Tarquinia ports of which we do not know the old name and that seems to have emerged around 600 BC. On the ruins of the Etruscan settlement, by then abandoned, was founded, in 181 BC, the colonia maritima civium Romanorum of Gravisca (Livy, XL, 29, 1-2).

The Roman colony stretched for about 6 hectares with a regular urban plan perfectly oriented to the cardinal points. The Etruscan port site, only minimally investigated and of a wider extension than the colonial settlement, was developing parallel to the coast below the Roman colony and south of it in the direction of the salt ponds.
The excavations have shown that, in the Archaic period, the Tarquinian port was frequented by foreign merchants, mainly from Asia Minor.

At the southern edge of the Etruscan site came to light the so-called "Greek sanctuary of Gravisca", a group of sacred buildings centre of Greek cults and rituals. The sanctuary is characterized as an emporium, a trade centre where the local community, through the concession of a sacred space to foreign merchants who frequented the port, guaranteed them personal immunity, the certainty to exchange and the right to exercise their religious practices. Therefore, while in an earlier time (8th-7th centuries BC) the Tarquinian society, still fluid and in the middle of his structuring process, incorporated foreign elements, during the 6th century the town social structure, now organized in noble clans, rejects and marginalizes external groups.
In the sanctuary, shortly after 600 BC, was built a shrine consisting of a small rectangular building constructed of dry-stone walls and sacred to Aphrodite, goddess that was also protecting the navigation. After the mid-sixth century BC, as documented by the votive dedications, Aphrodite is flanked by other two goddesses: Demeter and Hera.

The excavation rendered an extraordinary amount of votive objects dedicated to the goddesses: precious ceramics, bronze statuettes, ivory items etc. These objects were offered not only by Greek sailors, including well-known personalities as Paktyes, perhaps the same treasurer of Croesus - the King of Lydia - mentioned by Herodotus (I, 153-161), but also by the Tarquinian population, as evidenced by the inscriptions in the Etruscan language with dedication to Turan, the local deity corresponding to Aphrodite.

Towards the end of the 6th century BC, with the Persian invasion of Asiatic Ionia, to east-Greek merchants are added in part those coming from other regions of Greece, particularly from the Aegina island. This is documented by a series of inscriptions, including the famous one dedicated to Apollo Egineta by Sostratos, a wealthy merchant also mentioned by Herodotus (IV, 152) because of the enormous richness gathered as a result of his trades. The dedication is engraved on a stone stock of an anchor, an object that was often donated to the gods to thank the ship's safe arrival. In the port is also witnessed the presence of Semitic merchants, although limited in number.

From the second quarter of the 5th century BC, in significant coincidence with the socio-economic crisis that affected the Tyrrhenian Etruria and therefore Tarquinia, in the Etruscan port the Greek merchants are no longer arriving and the amount and the quality of ex-voto decrease dramatically. In these years however (480-470 BC), the old shrine was replaced by a large rectangular building flanked by a paved square in which was inserted a tuff box linked to the cult of Adonis, the young oriental god disputed by Aphrodite and Persephone.

At the end of the 5th century BC, coinciding with the economic and political recovery of Tarquinia, the entire sanctuary is restored and the worship is consistently resumed, but now tends to satisfy the local population devotion. Along a major road with a north-west south-east direction, parallel to the coast, the shrine of Aphrodite, now dedicated to Turan, is restored, while to the west are rising the shrine of Vei (Etruscan deity corresponding to Greek Demeter) with two altars and the temple of Uni (corresponding to Hera) with courtyards on the front and on the sides. With the beginning of the 3rd century BC, following the Roman conquest, the life of the sanctuary reaches an end and, with the founding of the colony of Gravisca, the sacred area is in fact abandoned.

(from M. Cataldi, Tarquinia, Regione Lazio 1993)

At the south of Gravisca there are Le Saline, today an important natural reserve. Within the salt ponds, the archaeological researches have identified the remains of a large maritime settlement of the Villanovan period (9th-8th centuries BC) that precedes the Gravisca port. The oldest port of Tarquinia probably held a support function for the first Etruscan navy, already dominating the Tyrrhenian sea, and a large-scale production of salt, then traded to other Etruscan coastal and inland communities.