The year 2012 could easily be defined as the ‘year of Veii’. The year marked the publication of two important volumes on the archaeology of Etruscan and Roman Veii that revolutionise our understanding: G. Bartoloni and V. Acconcia (edd.), L'abitato etrusco di Veio. Ricerche dell'Università di Roma La Sapienza vol. 2, the result of the ‘Veii Project’ carried out by Sapienza University of Rome since 1996, and the volume under review.
The publication of John Ward-Perkins's Survey in the early 1960s at Veii constituted both an important arrival and a new starting point. It was an important arrival, because this book with its data was awaited for a long time, not only by the Italian academia but also by the experts of Etruscan and Roman archaeology worldwide. Additionally, it was a new starting point, because from that point forward, any research that was carried out on the settlement as well as the necropoleis of Etruscan and Roman Veii would find in this work an irreplaceable foundation.
The chapters of the Restudy of the Survey can be grouped into three main sections: introduction, catalogues and discussion of the data. The first three chapters address the historical introduction, the reconstruction of the methodology of the Survey, and the criteria used during the restudy and for the presentation of the data. The central part of the book is devoted to the topographical catalogue and mainly to the catalogue of finds. The third part of the book, ‘Veii in Context’, presents data interpretation throughout the different periods, from the Etruscan to the Roman Republican, and the Imperial, Late Antique and Early Medieval periods. Conclusions are followed by appendices.
The portrait of Veii as it is revealed by the South Etruria Survey published here shows a multifaceted archaeological record together with an extraordinary match of several different traditions of studies. Borrowing a truly well-fitting definition proposed by C. Smith who describes Veii as a ‘rather cosmopolitan’ town (p. 5), this book has at its core an open dialogue between disciplines. It starts with the inspired choice of publishing the most discursive sections of the volume in English, with only the catalogue and the detailed discussion of the material in Italian; and it is mainly while discussing chronology that the different authors suggest and compare different proposals. The synthesis proposed (in the fifth column of table 3.2) is extremely interesting, matching the three major proposals by J. Close-Brooks, J. Toms and A. Guidi.Footnote 1 This synthesis balances out the different proposals, resulting in a chronological scheme which can be considered to be a useful, balanced version.
The fascinating process of reconstructing the methodology of the Survey is reflected in the choice of preserving in this volume the ‘methodological process’ followed by the archaeologists, within the geographical division of the areas, corresponding to Ward Perkins's strategy. The combination of different sources allowed the authors to overcome the early sixties methodology, which appears to have been ‘spontaneous and unsystematic by modern standards’ (p. 16). At the same time, the longstanding problem of the reliability of the data collected during the Survey has been solved by understanding how the distribution of find-spots suggests that the majority of the walled area was surveyed in some form at least once, as were the surrounding cemeteries. Based on the assumption that ‘surface material does not represent an unproblematic reflection of the buried archaeology’ (pp. 17–18), the different percentages of finds collected (with an imbalance in favour of the Iron Age materials) are finally contextualised within the history of the Survey itself. As the authors suggest in the final section of the book, these data should be handled with caution.
The catalogue presents and discusses the impressive amount of fragments collected in the Survey, from the Iron Age coarse ware to the Late Antique productions. Considering the great chronological coverage, this part of the book constitutes the largest publication of material from the settlement as well as the necropoleis of Veii, an unparalleled assemblage in terms of size and coverage. Despite a system of codifying wares, productions, as well as topographical provenance, which at first may appear difficult or convoluted, a close reading reveal a simple and efficient search mechanism. Especially when searching for comparanda, the reader will easily identify by the drawings (which are in many cases exceptional) not only the form, but also the provenance from the different ‘areas’ of the survey. This process allows the reader to search the catalogue of the areas and to understand the exact location of the finds. The authors have devoted great effort to organising the different classes of material. Such a huge amount of data sometimes results in merging different classes (such as the red impasto with the red on white, pp. 194–5).
In the third section the dynamic evolution of the urban centre of Veii is clearly highlighted (p. 358). The historical sources presented by C. Smith in the introduction are here re-examined phase by phase combined with the archaeological data and especially the crucial question about ‘after 396 bc’. As part of the above-mentioned debate, the first two paragraphs by A. Schiappelli (Protohistoric period) and M. Rendeli, C. and M.T. Di Sarcina (Orientalising, Archaic and Classical) synthesise only apparently divergent data. The data from the Ward-Perkins Survey confirm for Veii, in analogy to the other proto-urban settlements, the Early Iron Age complete occupation of the plateau, but ‘with scattered huts linked by pathways and interspersed with animal enclosures, with open spaces for agriculture and pasture in an environment that still preserved patches of woodland’ (p. 336). Those ‘free’ areas were finally occupied during the Orientalising period; ‘the occupation of the plateau was the result of a gradual process that begun in the Iron Age and lasted throughout the seventh century bc’ (p. 349). The role of the Orientalising aristocracy becomes more and more clear in the process of defining the urban town. Therefore it is very interesting how the data from the Survey seem to reflect the adoption of the funerary laws and practices at Veii. As M.T. Di Sarcina stresses, only two fragments, datable exclusively to the Archaic period, were collected from the area of the cemeteries (p. 354).
One of the greatest contributions made by the Survey material to our understanding of the history of urban development at Veii is without doubt the recognition from at least the mid-Orientalising period of the birth of a potters' quarter in the area of Comunità, probably in this particular location because of the proximity of the main sanctuaries and important public places (p. 358). Even after the Roman conquest, Veii and Rome appeared to have followed a parallel history, as stressed by D.G., while discussing historical sources around the Gallic invasion in 390 bc. The process of contraction of the urban centre with ‘Rome (that) had wanted to start from the beginning again’ (p. 365) finds its premises and appendices in the archaeological data around the Municipium Augustum Veiens. Particularly appreciable is the discussion of cultural areas in the Roman period with a very useful and clear map (fig. 6.11), showing the urban cult areas in relation to the gates of the city wall, which was missing in literature. The book concludes with the evanescent data for the Late Antique period with no finds after the seventh century ad.
Even this very short discussion highlights the extraordinary complexity and abundance of new data presented in this volume, which at last makes them available to scholars.
