The true origins of Pompeii revealed: it was founded by the Etruscans, many centuries before becoming a Roman colony

A new extraordinary archaeological discovery arrives on Pompeii. The new excavations have revealed that the Etruscans would have founded it.

He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

Finally solved the mystery surrounding the origins of Pompeii. It would have been founded by the Etruscans, many centuries before the city became a Roman colony. The new discovery took place during the recent excavations carried out in the archaeological site of the city destroyed by the violent eruption of Vesuvius dating back to 79 AD

For many centuries the most accredited hypothesis remained that of the Greek historian and geographer Strabo, who attributed the origins of Pompeii to the Osci, an ancient population of Italic lineage from pre-Roman Campania. But the latest archaeological excavations have revealed a new truth, showing that Pompeii was an Etruscan city in terms of language and culture, even if built with a different style than that which characterizes its founders.

The ancient Etruscan people would have founded it, organizing its streets following the sky and the stars, as they had already done for Tarquinia, Veio, Cerveteri, and building its first sanctuaries, on the road that led from the city to the port, a hub for commercial traffic. To push towards the hypothesis of an Etruscan foundation were first of all objects: hundreds of amphorae, vases and ampoules including over 70 bowls with inscriptions found in the excavation of the sanctuary, built along the road that connected the city to the sea.

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The new extraordinary discovery that sheds light on Pompeii was presented at the Accademia dei Lincei, during a round table, by the director of the archaeological park Massimo Osanna and by the professor of classical archeology at the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli. 

The director Massimo Osanna clarified the hypothesis of a city that was founded within a few decades by a group of people, probably also freed slaves. To give rise to the city was therefore a community of Etruscan language and culture which, however, to build walls, houses and temples made use of "local workers", influenced by the various cultures that then animated the Campania region, from the Italics to the Greeks .

Thus, Pompeii would have been a rich and powerful city until 474 BC, the year of the naval battle of Cuma, in which the Etruscans were defeated by the Greeks. Pompeii, which in that international chessboard was lined up on the side of the motherland, in fact disappeared due to the political consequences of that defeat and was then probably also abandoned by its inhabitants for almost a century.

Source: Reuters

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