The Etruscans - Antonella Magagnini

The Etruscans are one of history's extraordinary casualties. For many centuries they flourished exuberantly in central Italy, only to be completely absorbed into the growing Roman state. Their power, at its height, extended well beyond their borders: they were known and feared by Romans and Greeks alike. Their arresting visual culture was second to none in the peninsula, embracing complex funerary and domestic architecture, tomb-painting, narrative art, and jewellery of great luxury and refinement. Their cities grew to notable size and sophistication. Until recently there has been little effort to relate the Etruscans to ancient Mediterranean society as a whole or to the physical landscape that sustained them.This book attempts both. Included are some of the more recent findings from landscape archaeology which help to explain in what kinds of settlement the Etruscans lived, how densely the land was peopled, and how the landscape was organized for agriculture.This book is a rich pictorial account of the development of the Etruscan cultural power.