- chapter 15: Etruria on the Po and the Adriatic Sea –
Figure 15.10 Stele 168 from Bologna (Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna).Figure 15.11 Stele from S. Michele in Bosco of Bologna (Museo Civico Archeologico di Bologna).VERUCCHIOThe Etruscan center of Verucchio, in Romagna, perched on an easily defended hill and
just fi fteen miles from the sea, like many cities of Tyrrhenian Etruria was born with a
commercial vocation and developed through control of the Adriatic coast and the direct
connection to the hinterland and with the centers of the Tiber and southern Etruria. It
is very likely that Verucchio had its port near Rimini. The importance and precocity of
the Etruscans in the Adriatic is also indirectly confi rmed by the testimony of Livy on the
Etruscan domination of both seas of the peninsula, namely the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic.
The hill chosen for the settlement consists of a plateau of about 50 hectares, 300
meters above sea level, reminiscent of landscapes typical of Tyrrhenian Etruria (think
of the cliff-top city of Orvieto). At the foot of this hill and around it, were arranged the
necropoleis. In the town were found the remains of huts as well as houses with stone
foundations and roof tiles, and workshops are well documented. The tombs have yielded
materials of extraordinary importance and quality: raw and carved amber from the
Baltic (Fig. 15.12), for which Verucchio was a sorting and processing site; horse-bits;
weapons, which constitute an element of strong differentiation in Bologna; textiles of