The Etruscan site I Monti in San Piero a Sieve

Description

In the Orientalizing and Archaic ages, Mugello and the Sieve Valley constituted a culturally homogeneous territory, located at the hinge between northern Etruria and Etruria Padana, occupied by small, scattered nuclei of people engaged in trade and agriculture. But the urban center to which the whole area referred was Fiesole. Thus between the late 8th and 7th centuries B.C., Etruscan princepes controlled the main road routes, as indicated, in fact, by the location of the sanctuaries of Poggio Colla and Monte Giovi. In the 6th century B.C., on the other hand, wealthy landowners, always engaged in trade, just as the princepes had done before them, used to mark their tombs with decorated memorial stones and stelae, the so-called Fiesole stones. The high ground on top of which the Medici Fortress of San Martino in San Piero a Sieve stands today once housed the Etruscan site I Monti, which consisted of three parts: a necropolis, a large dividing wall, and a district for the production of pottery, consisting of two kilns.