POPULONIA
Tuscany, Italy.
A city on a
promontory 14 km N of Piombino. Inhabited from the
Bronze Age, it had its major floruit in the orientalizing
period (7th c. B.C.). The city encompassed the acropolis,
181 m above sea level, and to the E of it on a ridge a
coastal settlement, with a small harbor on the Gulf
of Baratti. Each had a fortified circuit wall. The name
is found only on coins of the 4th c. B.C. In the Hellenistic
period, when it mined the iron ore on the island of Elba
it became an industrial center. The city declined after
the Roman conquest, was sacked by Totila in 546, and
in 570 was nearly destroyed by the Longobard Gummaruth.
The archaic necropolis follows the curve of the gulf.
The tombs of the orientalizing period have square chambers with funeral beds; the mound sometimes rests on a
cylindrical base, sometimes directly on the ground. In the
second half of the 6th c., the architectural stone sarcophagus appeared and in the 5th c. the niche tomb, constructed
along the lines either of an architectural sarcophagus or
of a cult shrine.
The Hellenistic necropolis on a nearby knoll has rock-cut chamber tombs. Covered tombs of the late Roman period have been discovered at many areas.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. Minto,
Populonia (1943); K. R.
Maxwell-Hyslop, “Notes on some distinctive types of
bronzes from Populonia, Etruria,”
Proceedings of the
Prehistoric Society 22 (1956) 126ff; M. A. Del Chiaro,
“The Populonia Torcop Painter,”
StEtr 28 (1960)
142ff; G. Schmiedt, “Contribution of photo interpretation to the reconstruction of the geografic-topografic situation of the ancient ports in Italy,”
Papers for the X International Photogrammetry Congress (1964); A. De Agostino, “Scoperte archeologiche nella necropoli,”
NSc (1957) 1ff; (1961) 63ff; id., in
StEtr 24 (1956) 255ff; 30
(1962) 275ff.
A. DE AGOSTINO
