Researchers have found strong evidence that ancient storage jars known as Etruscan amphorae, discovered at the Italian city of Vulci, were crafted close to home rather than shipped in from distant lands, even though the settlement thrived on Greek trade and other Mediterranean exchange.
The findings come from a new study led by Maja Miše of University College London, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
Vulci was one of the largest cities in ancient Etruria, built on a plateau above the Fiora River near the modern border of Lazio and Tuscany. Beginning in the 7th century BC, the city grew into a major agricultural and trading center, sending goods abroad while importing fine painted pottery from Greece that has turned up alongside local jars in its tombs.
To trace where the amphorae actually came from, researchers studied 48 fragments pulled from burial sites, a coastal harbor and residential areas across the Vulci region.
Kiln debris serves as a stand-in for Vulci’s clay
They compared those pieces to 12 samples of kiln debris, including broken pottery and loom weights, recovered from a furnace outside the ancient city walls. Because thick vegetation blocked access to natural clay deposits, the kiln waste served as the best proxy for local raw materials.
Using microscope analysis and a chemical testing method called ICP-MS, researchers sorted the amphorae into two major groups, plus a smaller third group made up of a single unusual sample.
Miše said jars in the first group carried higher levels of certain rare elements along with zirconium and hafnium, while the second group had more iron and related metals, along with volcanic pumice worked into the clay, a material common in the area’s geology.
The lone outlier, she added, may point to either a minor local clay source or a jar brought in from elsewhere, a question further testing could help resolve.
Etruscan amphorae show local roots despite Greek trade ties
Despite those differences, the chemical makeup of the amphorae closely matched the kiln debris, showing that potters were drawing from the same general clay sources near Vulci. Miše said the variation most likely reflects different workshops or techniques rather than jars arriving from separate regions.
The study also found no connection between where a jar was unearthed and which chemical group it belonged to, meaning amphorae made through different methods moved through the same trade routes and burial grounds.
Researchers say the results point to a decentralized, locally rooted production system that grew alongside Vulci’s expanding farm economy and its long-running Greek trade ties, offering some of the clearest evidence yet that Etruscan amphorae were largely homegrown products rather than imports from afar.
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