Arsenals and Cittadella

Una delle navi restaurate (Museo Navi Romane)

The first section of the museum of Ships is dedicated to the origins of the city, starting from the Etruscans, passing through the Romans, up to the Lombard period. Here history joins legend. There are those who hypothesise that the origins of Pisa may be Greek, Ligurian or even Celtic. The archaeological finds, however, tell us an Etruscan story that began from the ninth century BC, while the Etruscan writing practice started from 680 BC Even the toponym “Pisa” confuses us and does not provide any certainty about its origins: it is attested in ancient times both in Greek and in Latin, however it remains an unsolved mystery, given the variety of peoples, with as many linguistic varieties, who inhabited the Pisan territory. In Etruscan, Pīsae means estuary, in ancient Greek πῖσος, pisos, heavily irrigated place, prairie. In Sanskrit it can be translated with mouth, Pî (perhaps river), SA, Infinity, while for the ancient Ligurian peoples Pise meant sun among the waters. Each version is linked to water as the city was built around the two main rivers Arno and Auser and a network of canals in an alluvial terrain, very close to the sea. Should the origins be Etruscan, it would be the only Etrurian city built at the mouth of a river. The Etruria region, between the upper Lazio and Emilia Romagna, was at the centre of the trade traffic in the Mediterranean since 640-620 BC, with the export of local products, such as Etruscan wine, and exchanges with Greek artists and artisans who contributed to the cultural evolution of Etruria with an oriental flair. The main products imported to and exported from Pisa were the following.

Goods arriving in the ports of Pisa:

Between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC: wine, oil, preserved fish, fish sauce, fruit, honey, shellfish, resin, fish, ceramic pottery.
Between the 1st and 5th centuries AD: wine, oil, preserved fish, fish sauces, ceramic tableware, glassware, oil lamps.

The goods leaving Pisa from its ports, from the third century BC to the fifth century AD, were: wine, black glazed pottery, common pottery, sealed pottery, bricks, wood.