[MUSIC] The Etruscans developed a reputation for being the most mysterious of ancient Mediterranean peoples. Partly, of course, because we cannot read their language very well. And also because they had elaborate religious rituals. [MUSIC] The emotional, sensual D.H. Lawrence wrote in his Etruscan Places in 1929, Death to the Etruscans was a pleasant continuance of life with jewels and wine and flutes playing for the dance. It was just a natural continuance of the fullness of life. Everything was in terms of life. And of living, that's what Lawrence said. He disliked big museums and scholarly scientific investigation of the Etruscans. Preferring instead to value his own emotional response to them. But were they really always so full of love and life? To answer that question, we must visit Populonia in northwestern Tuscany. [NOISE] >> Mining and metallurgy in the ancient world is fairly uniform throughout the Greek, Roman and Etruscan civilizations. Mining is done in two primary ways. If it's a valuable metal, it's worth doing what's called deep vein mining, which means you dig far into the ground and deep shafts into the ground, and those are usually no more than a meter high. But that's fairly rare, especially because metals like iron occur so commonly and so close to the surface that what's called open cast lines. Which are just large pits in the Earth. Can be worked in and metals can be extracted from fairly close to the surface. We know this is what happens with the Etruscans. Especially around Populonia. Which from a very early period is a center of metal production in the Mediterranean. The area around the Etruscan center of Populonia is blessed with a mountain of metals. In fact that's actually the name of the range of hills near Papalonia. They're called the Colline Metallifere, the metal-bearing hills. Because they're just so rich and dense with metals. We know the Papalonia was a metalurigical-production center from a very early time in the Mediterranean and produced minerals like iron, but also lead and silver, some gold, and even some tin, which is actually really rare for the Mediterranean to have a tin production. >> The work was made principally by slaves because what they had and there was a lot of pollution in the air, in the industry of this job. The owner of the benefactor was a free man, but people who work in the process were principally slaves. [SOUND] To make iron, they need oven where cooking iron making a not too big circle or generally circular oven and put inside it a layer of urn called hematite in this case for Populonia and charcoal, hematite and charcoal. Then during the process of firing the hematite was divided and on the bottom of the oven came the iron and outside the iron, slag. Every time, they have to block it. The oven to take the iron to be sold and we archaeologists find other traces of irons melting the iron slug so the tress of the work. Koprahan is wonderful because it is the only city built on the sea. And if you come, and you want to visit the remains of the Etruscan civilization of Populonia, you can visit today the Necropolis, built starting from the 7th century B.C.E and the beginning of the romanization and so on in the 4th and 3rd century B.C.E. [MUSIC]
