Arretium (Arezzo)

A comprehensive examination of the history and excavation of the Etruscan city of Arretium.

Beneath the Italian city of Arezzo lie the remains of Etruscan Arretium. This volume, the first comprehensive treatment of excavations at Arretium, gathers the most up-to-date scholarship on the city and delves into key archaeological discoveries and the stories they tell about life in the Etruscan world.

Chapters explore local history—including the city’s complex political exchanges with Rome—Etruscan religion, Arretium’s role as a center of the arts, and the challenges of excavation amid the bustle of European urban modernity. Editors Ingrid Edlund-Berry and Cristiana Zaccagnino have gathered chapters by expert contributors that detail Arretium’s material culture, including the city’s famed pottery, Arretine ware, which was known across the Mediterranean; terracotta pieces depicting gods and other supernatural beings; and exquisite bronze-work, most notably the piece now known as the Chimaera of Arezzo. One of the few Etruscan cities that continued flourishing after the Roman takeover, Arretium proves to be a trove of archaeological riches and of the historical insights they reveal.

Ingrid Edlund-Berry is a professor emerita in the Department of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the coeditor of The Chora of Metaponto 6: A Greek Settlement at Sant’Angelo Vecchio.

Cristiana Zaccagnino is a professor of archaeology at Queens University at Kingston. She is the coauthor of “Ora gli eroi sono fossili arguti”: Riflessioni iconografiche sui miti di Perseo e Bellerofonte.