Submitted by Bija Knowles on Wed, 12/09/2009 - 17:12
A precious Roman wall painting, stolen from the site of an ancient villa near Pompeii, has been returned to Italy, after 12 years circulating on the nebulous antiquities market.
The fragment of plaster fresco originally came from a Roman villa at Boscoreale, just outside Pompeii, and was reported stolen from an archaeological warehouse at Pompeii in 1997.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Thu, 11/19/2009 - 13:26
This week the film The Twilight Saga: New Moonis being released, fuelling vampire mania around the world. While teenagers go completely nuts over the film's hunky vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson) – one wrote 'bite me' on her face as she queued with 5,000 others to see him in London last week – other die-hard fans of the Twilight books, written by Stephenie Meyers, are also descending on the small hill-top town of Volterra, in Tuscany, where some of the action of the film is set (even though filming actually took place in Montepulciano, 70 miles away). As a result, hordes of teenagers have been visiting Volterra – a town with Etruscan roots and its own heritage of Etruscan demons, gods and goddesses associated with death, resurrection and the night.
Volterra was an important Etruscan centre, known as Velathri to the Etruscans. Situated on a Pliocene ridge 541m above sea level, it was a settlement since neolithic times and was then colonised by the Etruscan Velathri tribe during the 8th century BC, while the city wall (7km long) was built in the fourth century BC. The main industry there was based on copper and silver mining, as well as agriculture. It became one of the 12 important Etruscan city states but in the third century BC came under Roman control after the battle of Vadimone in 283 BC. During the 80s BC, the town now known as Volaterrae by the Romans supported Marius during the civil war between Marius and Sulla. After Marius's defeat the dictator Sulla inflicted a two-year siege on Volaterrae, after which the city was sacked. One of the town's important families, the Caecinae, were on good terms with Cicero, who persuaded Sulla to drop his sanctions on the city. An impressive Augustan-era amphitheatre, some fourth century AD baths as well as an Etruscan acropolis, are some of the important heritage sites in Volterra.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Thu, 09/10/2009 - 13:36
European Heritage Days are being held in all European countries during September as part of English Heritage's Heritage Open Days programme of events. In England, events run from 10th to 13th September, at sites across the country, including plenty of Roman sites. Italy has chosen the last weekend in September to make its splash with over 1,500 monuments and sites expected to attract thousands of visitors.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Thu, 08/27/2009 - 15:40
A new series of excavations is due to begin at the Etruscan necropolis at Tarquinia, 60km north of Rome. The site is home to Etruscan tombs dating from as early as 700 BC – many of them painted with lurid frescoes depicting exotic wild animals and scenes of Etruscans dancing, fighting and making love. While the locations of over 150 painted tombs are known (not all open to the public), it is thought that there are more to be discovered.
Six cartoonists were asked to go and spend a week in some of the most evocative Etruscan places in central Italy, such as the tombs at Tarquinia and Cerveteri. The result is a series of cartoons about the ancient Etruscan civilisation that lived between the Tiber and the Arno before the rise of the Roman empire. The six artists are Francesco Cattani, Marino Neri, Paolo Parisi, Michele Petrucci, Alessandro Rak and Claudio Stassi. A collection of their work for this project has been put together in a book, Etruscomix.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Thu, 07/23/2009 - 21:30
New research suggests that there is no genetic link between the inhabitants of modern-day central Italy and the civilised race who lived there well before the rise of the Roman empire. Despite the fact that the Etruscans were never physically wiped out by the Romans, experts have concluded that – for some reason – they are not the ancestors of the modern-day Tuscans.
Submitted by Bija Knowles on Fri, 07/17/2009 - 11:20
Resins from pine and cashew trees, and Egyptian moringa oil: these are the essential ingredients of a rich woman's beauty routine in Italy before the dawn of the Roman empire. The solid, yellow cream was found in an Egyptian alabaster vase belonging to an aristocratic Etruscan lady and is thought to be more than 2,000 years old. The results of a scientific analysis have just been published in July's edition of Journal of Archaeological Science.
The power and wealth of the elite Etruscans between Populonia and Vulci is the theme of an exhibition taking place at the Archaeology and Art Museum of Grosseto in Maremma, Tuscany. With over 200 exhibits that narrate the life and death of the upper classes of the Maremma, the exhibition takes a look at the lifestyles of the Etruscan princes and aristocracy during the seventh and sixth centuries BC – the era known as the Etruscans' 'Orientalising' period. Accompanying the exhibition is a series of itineraries that explore the archaeological sites of the region.
Resins from pine and cashew trees, and Egyptian moringa oil: these are the essential ingredients of a rich woman's beauty routine in Italy before the dawn of the 
