CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ETRURIA AND CORSICA

Matteo Milletti

C

orsica (Fig. 13.1), the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily,

neighboring Sardinia and Cyprus, is located a short distance from the coast of

Etruria, so that it is directly visible from large parts of the northern Tyrrhenian coast.

It is therefore natural that the island nations have had, since the early days, preferential

relationships with the people of the territories of the future Etruria. However, the rough

and mountainous center of Corsica has fostered a certain isolation of the interior from the

south-western and eastern coastal regions, the latter, by contrast, fully integrated into the

framework of Tyrrhenian trade routes, certainly to an extent greater than what can yet

be perceived from the new study of island archaeology. This strong regionalism and the

archaeological knowledge of the rather “disorganic” area are certainly at the basis of the

signifi cant uncertainties in the periodization of the Bronze and Iron Ages. In particular,

the beginning of the latter is placed, depending on the area and the various opinions of

scholars, between the late ninth and early seventh century bc; even the canonical subdivision

of a First and Second Iron Age, to coincide with the arrival of Phocaean settlers at Aleria

around the mid-sixth century bc, does not seem valid if extended to the rest of the island.

This results in an objective diffi culty in reconstructing a reliable picture of the Corsican

civilization and of its contacts with other bordering areas, especially in the centuries

between the second and fi rst millennia bc; however, as we shall see, there is concrete

evidence of the relationship and common interests which bound Corsica to the territories

of the future Etruria, already in the full Bronze Age, and which serve as a prelude to the

consolidation of contacts between the two areas that occurred in the following centuries.

Corsica is also a meeting place between the main cultural facies of the peninsula and the

Nuragic environment; on the other hand, some of the main routes linking Sardinia, a

crucial junction of important seaborne Mediterranean trade routes, and the peninsula were

to affect the coast of Corsica. The strait that separates the two islands could be crossed

either at the Fretum Gallicum (today’s Strait of Bonifacio), still considered dangerous,

however, due to strong currents, or by drawing a route between a promontory of north-

eastern Sardinia and south-east Corsica; it is logical to think that navigation would follow

along the eastern coast of Corsica, with some provisioning stations located at the mouths