The Etruscans, about 700 BC, were the first people in northern and central Italy to build big buildings out of stone. They learned from the Greeks and the Phoenicians to build big stone temples for their gods. Not many Etruscan temples survive. This is probably because some of them were built out of wood and clay, and others were destroyed by the Romans when they conquered the Etruscans. But there are ruins of a big Etruscan temple west of Rome at Veii, and on the Capitoline hill in Rome, overlooking the Roman Forum, there are the foundations of a really big Etruscan temple