SALOTTO ETRUSCO

18 March 2024 – 6PM

Hampus Olsson
”The Blera Archaeological project. Unveiling the city: Investigating Etruscan urbanism through multi-resolution archaeology”

The South Etruscan town of Blera is located approximately 55 km north of Rome and was probably founded towards the end of the 8th century BC. Unlike many other ancient towns in its vicinity, Blera has never been abandoned and it has retained its ancient name for more than 2,500 years, albeit in a somewhat corrupt form. Blera survived into the Roman period and gained the status of municipium after the Social War, (91–87 BC). During Late Antiquity, Blera was elevated to a diocese and remained so until the early High Middle Ages, when it was merged with the see of Toscanella. The Petrolo plateau, located north-west of the medieval city centre, was the site of the Etruscan and later Roman town, but sometime during the early medieval period the original settlement was abandoned, with the population concentrated in what is today the Centro Storico, the medieval town. The purpose of the project is to investigate Etruscan urbanism in small-size towns and how these were affected by the later Roman expansion. This will be achieved by studying the ancient city plateau and surrounding landscape through a combination of non-invasive digital methods such as geophysical survey of the city plateau, LiDAR scanning of the the plateau and its slopes, and SLAM technology on the necropoleis.

Hampus Olsson is Senior lecturer in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at the Swedish Institute of Classical Studies in Rome. Olsson’s research focuses on the Etruscan culture, with particular attention to the political and cultural history during, and following, the expansion of Rome in Italy (about 400–100 BC).

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