Etruscans Flashcards
Learning more about the Etruscans Population
Fossils of Vitis Vinifera found in
Quaternary period
Vine cultivated in Italy prior 1000 BC by indigenous populations like:
Rhaeti Salassi Liguri Veneti Piceni Samnites
Etruscans populations prior 8 century develop in the modern areas of
Tuscany and Umbria
Peak of Etruscans 6 century BC
Occupied
Central Italy
Northern Italy along Po River (Lombardia, Veneto, Pie e Emilia Romagna)
Etruscans taughts local tribes :
Wine Making and preserve method
Etruscans learned the viticulture and wine making from
Greeks . But studies are saying that they develop by themslves
What is a PALMENTO
Large container with brik walls used for centuries. This makes hard to identifies who started the wine making.
Etruscans were
The firs population to:
- take the vine from the woods and cultivated it, with the vine growing system married to a tree. They develop a form of AUTONOMOUS viticulture, which became part of the Italian agricultural landscape for millennia and is considered a cultural frontier.
They also enrich their viticulture thanks to Phoenicians and Greeks
Vine
<p>Some thesis says that Vine started in Caucasus and then moved to Midlle East and Mditerrean area. Recent studies are saying that vine and wine has taken places in different areas independlty.</p>
3 populations whcih influence:
Greeks: Southern Italy and Mediterrean France
Etruscans: Central and Northern Italy, including Rome and Northern Campania
Romans: developed Central Europe, brining the vine where had never seen it before
PHASE 1: PRe Domestication
- ancestors gathered wild grapes (vitis vinifera sylvestris) in the woods
- there have been find seed since the Neolithic and maybe Paleolithic.
- at this stage not sign of vinification
- wild vine can still be find in the woods
- second Millennium BC (Bronze Age) the beginning of the viticlutre (phase of the lambruscaia)(period between spontaneous harvesting and agricultural form)
- Embrionyc viticulture that led to Para domestication
- Period where man became from passive to active (taking care of the vine)
- Vines become more abundance and available as it is protected. Probably in this period we have already a selection of the most pleasant on taste or more resistant
- We do not know the ancient name of the Etruscan Vines but we know that the Villanovian people (which Etruscans will develop in the 9 century BC) - Lambruscaia
- Lambruscaia from Labrusca (wild)
- do not confuse this with the vitis labrusca from America.
- Labrusca appear in written document by Virgil (1st Century BC)
- this term have been used till recent time to talk about the wild vines of the central part of Italy.
- names that recall some modern varieties like Lambrusco o Aprinio (Raverusto di Capua)
Virgilio ( first appearance of the word labrusca) - 42 -39 BC in the V Eclogue
The first appearance of the word labrusca, to indicate the wild vine, is in the V Eclogue (42-39 BC)by Virgil: “Aspice, ut antrum silvestris raris sparsit labrusca racemis“. ” Look, as the wild vine has covered the cave with rare bunches”. The reference is also present in one of his less known juvenile works, the Culex (Mosquito), where he describes a wild vine that is eaten by goats, climbing on the rocks. Here, however, he uses the term indicating the fruit (labruscum), the wild grape: “… pendula proiectis carpuntur et arbuta ramis, densaque virgultis avide labrusca petuntur“. Servius (4th-5th century AD), who wrote explanatory comments on Virgil’s work, tells us: “Labrusca = vitis agrestis, quae quia in terrae marginibus nascitur, labrusca dicta est a labri set extremitatibus terrae“, That is “Labrusca = rural vine that is born in the lands on the margins, labrusca is called that is at the out of the cultivated lands“
Bronze Age
Palmenti to crush the grapes (Etruscans and Roman production)
Pennato
Old utensil used in primordial viticulture (type of billhook)
Numana
New era for the vine, where leaves the wild and start entering the human settlements. this is when Etruscan Viticultre was born. In this perdio the vine was cultivated married with other trees. Wine grower work becomes complete including the instalment of the vine and the renewal. Period also of intensive selective pressure, the ancient winegrowers choose to plant and propagate the best vines, the hermaphrodite ones (I remember that the wild vine is instead predominantly dioic, with separate sexes), the most productive or the earliest one, those most resistant to weather or disease, etc. This is the proto-domestication.)
Etruria
Etruria (/ɪˈtrʊəriə/; usually referred to in Greek source texts as Tyrrhenia, Ancient Greek: Τυρρηνία) was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what are now Tuscany, Lazio, and Umbria.Etruria. / (ɪˈtrʊərɪə) / noun. an ancient country of central Italy, between the Rivers Arno and Tiber, roughly corresponding to present-day Tuscany and part of Umbria.