VOLTERRA

VOLTERRA: translation

One of the most important Etruscan settlements of North Etruria. The site was occupied from the Late Bronze Age but more clearly from Villanovan times (settlements of Piano del Castello, Guerruccia, and Badia and cemeteries of Ripaie, Badia, Guerruccia, etc.). However, evidence before the fourth century BC is fragmentary. The Badia cemetery is typical in this respect in that evidence for the period between 600 and 330 BC is missing. The first walls were built probably in the sixth century BC. The city’s major prosperity was in the Hellenistic period, shown by the extensive production of alabaster cinerary urns. One estimate of the area of the city is as high as 260 hectares within the fourth-century BC walls.

See also DODECAPOLIS.