The large Etruscan settlement developed in a naturally defended position, but different from the more common ones, placed on not too wide spurs.
Here we are, in the province of Viterbo, 4 kilometers from the Cassia (and about a kilometer from the provincial roads of Teverina and Ferento), on a roughly triangular tuffaceous shelf of about 15 hectares; at a height ranging from 285 to over 305 meters, this is bordered by steep walls of a few tens of meters, albeit not at a precipice.
The site is defended by a meander of the Fosso dell'Acquarossa on the western and northern sides, and on the SW side by its tributary (Fosso del Fornicchio).
The water is about 60 meters below and is 200 to 400 meters as the crow flies. The climate is of the hilly Csa type, and the original wood cover has given way to cereal cultivation. The initial Etruscan building, from the seventh and sixth centuries BC, rested on traces of previous huts and even Eeneolithic remains from the third millennium BC.
It became a city of considerable proportions, whose fixed population probably reached over 6000 inhabitants, who had to abandon it in the fifth century, having had to cede the hegemony over the territory to Velzna (today's Orvieto).
In addition to agricultural activities, the inhabitants were probably dedicated to the exploitation of the iron deposits in the area. More than for the remains of large public buildings, the site proved to be of great interest for residential housing units, of great importance for the knowledge of domestic Etruscan architecture.
Remarkable is the "direction" which, as for the Romans, is both a private home and a public place of worship.
All around minor settlements and necropolis. About a kilometer NE, on a spur on the other bank of the Fosso dell’Acqua Rossa, are the ruins of Ferento, considered Roman, but whose first inhabitants were actually the exiled Etruscans from Acquarossa.
Etruscan city of Acquarossa
Address: Strada San Cataldo, 01100
Phone:
Site:
http://www.provincia.vt.it/gis/unituscia/html/Acquarossa.htmLocation inserted by
Simonetta Pacini