ruria There are two museums in Italy which house the principal Etruscan antiquities and everyone who visits Etruria should begin and end his journey in them. One is the Museo Archeologico in Florence with its infinitely attractive series of halls arranged according to the cities and their domains. This museum also encloses the Giardino Archeologico containing actual tombs collected from every part of the region. TheA Land of Rich Natural Resources This fortunate countryside, so varied in formation and vegetation, reveals its volcanic character to this day in numerous hot and cold mineral and sulphur springs, baths and delicious table waters. Formerly this soil produced good wine. The tuff1 area stretches south from Orvieto as far as Latium, with streams which carve canyon-like gorges through the plains, the crater lake of Bolsena sparkling like silver, and the forest-clad Ciminian mountains in their age-old solitude. This is the countryside in which the Etruscans developed their peculiar rocktomb architecture. In the cemeteries of Bieda, San Giuliano, Norchia, Castel d'Asso and of Sovana in the upper Fiora valley, are preserved hundreds of monumental tombs carved block-like out of the lava rock faces. The contours of northern Etruria on the other hand are for the most part softer, formed as they are by sedimentary deposits, while its rivers are laden with the soil and dissolved lime they wash down. Before they had access to Sicily the Romans relied on the land of the Etruscans for their reserve granary, from which they imported grain for bread whenever their own harvest failed or suffered damage. Additional sources of great wealth were mining and a famous metalworking industry, both made possible by Elba and the Monti Metalliferi, the ore-bearing mountains of the north-west, which were the basis of the prosperity of Populonia, Volterra and Vetulonia, and by the rich mineral deposits in the woodland...
