Contatti e interazioni culturali tra i popoli levantini e le comunità del Medio e Basso Tirreno tra IX e VII secolo a.C

This contribution presents some observations on the nature of cultural interactions between East and West in the Mediterranean, with a focus on the cultural patterns at work in the communities inhabiting the central and southern Tyrrhenian part of the Italian peninsula. The aim is not to survey all the orientalia in the Italian region; rather, the purpose is to track the underlying path, the so-called fil rouge, of the relations between the Tyrrhenian and the Levant, seen from a Tyrrhenian perspective, but in the background of the major events in the Levant s history. Particular attention will be given to the 8th and 7th century B.C. period, albeit through the necessary comparison with both the preceding phase (starting at least from the 9th century) and the subsequent phase (6th-5th centuries).