The Albegna Valley: production and mobility at the Northwestern border of Vulci's territory

Abstract

The Albegna basin, currently at the southern border of Toscana, was during the Etruscan period a dynamic space articulated along the course of the river and the coastline. This territory represents the borderline, visible through some landscape markers, between the territories controlled by the Etruscan city of Vulci (current Montalto di Castro) and those controlled by ancient Roselle (Rusellae). It also settles the boundary between Southern and Northern Etruria. However, the same lengthwise line of the river and the perpendicular routes opened by its tributaries and the coastal lagoon system allow communication between both areas, as well as it opens a natural corridor that connects the sea and maritime trade with the cities in the Etruscan hinterland, specially Chiusi (Clusium) and Orvieto (Volsinii), which were at the same time connected with the Tiber valley.

Since the 19th century there have been a series of surveys, excavations and studies that have made the valley one of the areas in Etruria with more information available at a territorial scale. In this article we propose a synthesis of the information acquired so far, focusing our attention on the natural resources and the agricultural activities carried out in the area (with special attention to wine production), as well as on the existing interregional communication routes by which people, animals and merchandise moved in Antiquity.

Finally, we will briefly discuss the export of local Etruscan wine amphoras. These followed the northern Mediterranean maritime itineraries that reached Languedoc and Ampurias (Emporion). These are the same routes that the amphoras produced in the ovens of Albinia, at the mouth of the river, would follow in the Roman late-Republican period