Spina was an Etruscan port city, established by the end of the 6th century BCE, [1] on the Adriatic at the ancient mouth of the Po.
Spina was an Etruscan port city, established by the end of the 6th century BCE, [1] on the Adriatic at the ancient mouth of the Po.
The site of Spina was lost until modern times, when drainage schemes in the delta of the Po River in 1922 first officially revealed a necropolis of Etruscan Spina about four miles west of the commune of Comacchio.
The fishermen of Comacchio, it soon turned out, had been the source of "Etruscan" vases (actually ancient imports from Greece) and other artifacts that had appeared for years on the archeological black market.
The archaeological finds from the burials of Spina were discovered with the help of aerial photography. Aside from the white reflective surfaces of the modern drainage channels there appeared in the photographs a ghostly network of dark lines and light rectangles, the former indicating richer vegetation on the sites of ancient canals. Thus the layout of the ancient trading port was revealed, now miles from the sea, due to the sedimentation of the Po delta.
Spina was founded around 525 BC, soon after Adria. Despite the Greek foundation story mentioned by Pliny the Elder, it had a predominantly Etruscan population, but also a significant Greek presence. [2] [3]
The population of Spina became significantly Hellenised. [4]
The city built a treasury in Delphi. [3]
Many of the goods imported through Spina were destined for the bigger Etruscan city of Felsina (ancient name of Bologna).
The city was at the southern end of the ancient Amber Road from the Baltic Sea. This trade was done through the Veneti, whose cities were to the north. They also traded in horses, for which the Veneti were famous. [5]
Etruscan hydraulic engineers managed to confine the wide Po river at Spina to its bed, by the means of constructing many canals to direct its flow. As a result the disastrous spring floods were mitigated. Much other evidence of Etruscan hydraulic engineering works remains in the area. They have drained the marshes and provided irrigation for dry lands. [6]
The Tyrrhenian Sea is part of the Mediterranean Sea off the western coast of Italy. It is named for the Tyrrhenian people identified with the Etruscans of Italy.
The Etruscan civilization was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in ancient Italy, with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
Adria is a town and comune in the province of Rovigo in the Veneto region of northern Italy, situated between the mouths of the rivers Adige and Po. The remains of the Etruscan city of Atria or Hatria are to be found below the modern city, three to four metres below the current level. Adria and Spina were the Etruscan ports and depots for Felsina. Adria may have given its name during an early period to the Adriatic Sea, to which it was connected by channels.
The Veneti were an Indo-European people who inhabited northeastern Italy, in an area corresponding to the modern-day region of Veneto, from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC and developing their own original civilization along the 1st millennium BC.
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures.
The province of Ferrara is a province in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna. Its capital is the city of Ferrara. As of May 2023, it has a population of 338,143 inhabitants over an area of 2,635.12 square kilometres (1,017.43 sq mi). The province contains 23 comuni, listed in the list of comuni of the province of Ferrara. Its provincial president is Gianni Michele Padovani.
In Ancient Greece, the symposium was the part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was accompanied by music, dancing, recitals, or conversation. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems, such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara. Symposia are depicted in Greek and Etruscan art, that shows similar scenes.
The Venetī were a Gallic tribe dwelling in Armorica, in the southern part of the Brittany Peninsula, during the Iron Age and the Roman period.
Chiusi is a town and comune in the province of Siena, Tuscany, Italy.
Comacchio is a town and comune of Emilia Romagna, Italy, in the province of Ferrara, 48 kilometres (30 mi) from the provincial capital Ferrara. It was founded about two thousand years ago; across its history it was first governed by the Exarchate of Ravenna, then by the Duchy of Ferrara, and eventually returned to be part of the territories of the Papal States. For its landscape and its history, it is considered one of the major centres of the Po delta.
The Via Popilia is the name of two different ancient Roman roads begun in the consulship of Publius Popilius Laenas. One was in southern Italy and the other was in north-eastern Italy.
The Po Valley, Po Plain, Plain of the Po, or Padan Plain is a major geographical feature of Northern Italy. It extends approximately 650 km (400 mi) in an east-west direction, with an area of 46,000 km2 including its Venetic extension not actually related to the Po river basin; it runs from the Western Alps to the Adriatic Sea. The flatlands of Veneto and Friuli are often considered apart since they do not drain into the Po, but they effectively combine into an unbroken plain, making it the largest in Southern Europe. It has a population of 17 million, or a third of Italy's total population.
Mainake, Menace was an ancient Greek settlement lying in the southeast of Spain, according to the Greek geographer and historian Strabo (3,4,2) and Pausanias of Damascus. Pausanias adds that it was a colony of the Greek city of Massalia. Maria Eugenia Aubet locates it at the site of modern Málaga. The first colonial settlement in the area, dating from the late 8th century BC, was made by seafaring Phoenicians from Tyre, Lebanon, on an islet in the estuary of the Guadalhorce River at Cerro del Villar.
Adria was a former channel of the Po river delta, passing by the town of Adria, that ceased in the 1st century BC.
The Este culture or Atestine culture was an Iron Age archaeological culture existing from the late Italian Bronze Age to the Iron Age and Roman period. It was located in the modern area of Veneto in Italy and derived from the earlier and more extensive Proto-Villanovan culture. It is also called the "civilization of situlas", or Paleo-Venetic.
John Peter Oleson is a Canadian classical archaeologist and historian of ancient technology. His main interests are the Roman Near East, maritime archaeology, and ancient technology, especially hydraulic technology, water-lifting devices, and Roman concrete construction.
In the 8th century BC, the Etruscans expanded their power to Northern and Southern Italy, specifically towards Emilia and Campania, where they founded Etruscan dominions that are modernly known under the names of Padanian Etruria and Campanian Etruria. Moving from the northern city-states of the Etruscan Dodecapolis they swept into the Po valley through the Apennine passes.
The Po is the longest river in Italy. It flows eastward across northern Italy, starting from the Cottian Alps. The river's length is either 652 km (405 mi) or 682 km (424 mi), if the Maira, a right bank tributary, is included. The headwaters of the Po are formed by a spring seeping from a stony hillside at Pian del Re, a flat place at the head of the Val Po under the northwest face of Monviso. The Po then extends along the 45th parallel north before ending at a delta projecting into the Adriatic Sea near Venice.
Etruscan architecture was created between about 900 BC and 27 BC, when the expanding civilization of ancient Rome finally absorbed Etruscan civilization. The Etruscans were considerable builders in stone, wood and other materials of temples, houses, tombs and city walls, as well as bridges and roads. The only structures remaining in quantity in anything like their original condition are tombs and walls, but through archaeology and other sources we have a good deal of information on what once existed.
The National Archaeological Museum of Ferrara is housed in Palazzo Costabili, in Ferrara, Italy. It holds various excavated artifacts from the Etruscan city of Spina, which flourished between the 6th and 3rd centuries BC. The ancient city of Spina, close to modern Comacchio was abandoned in the 2nd century BC, but was discovered by chance in 1922 and was excavated.
44°41′35″N12°06′04″E / 44.6930555556°N 12.1011111111°E
