The Ligures (singular Ligus or Ligur; English: Ligurians) were an ancient Indo-European people who appear to have originated in, and gave their name to, Liguria, a region of north-western Italy.[1] Elements of the Ligures appear to have migrated to other areas of western Europe, including the Iberian Peninsula.
Map 2: Ethnolinguistic map of Italy in the Iron Age, before the Roman expansion and conquest of Italy. Ligurians are located in the upper left corner of the map.Map 3: Peoples of Cisalpine Gaul, 391–192 BC. among them showing the Ligures in the southern Alps and northern Apennines on the northern coast of the Ligurian Sea.Map 4: The Roman Regio IX Liguria.
According to numerous studies, this ancient population lived divided into tribes, counting dozens of them:[2]
May have been Celtic tribes influenced by Ligurians, heavyly Celticized Ligurian tribes that shifted to a Celtic ethnolinguistic identity or mixed Celtic-Ligurian tribes. They dwelt in southeastern Transalpine Gaul and northwestern Cisalpine Gaul, mainly in the Western Alps regions, Rhodanus eastern basin and upper Po river basin.
Map 6: Simplified map of the ancient tribes of Corsica
In the islands of Corsica and far northern Sardinia dwelt a group of tribes called Corsi (Ancient Corsicans or Paleo-Corsicans) that may have been related to the Ligures or part of them. The Rutuli were a people that some modern scholars think were related to the Ligurians
The Corsi were an ancient people of Sardinia and Corsica, to which they gave the name. They dwelt at the extreme northeast of Sardinia, in the region today known as Gallura.[4]
ARSLAN E. A. 2004b, LVI.14 Garlasco, in I Liguri. Un antico popolo europeo tra Alpi e Mediterraneo, Catalogo della Mostra (Genova, 23.10.2004–23.1.2005), Milano-Ginevra, pp. 429–431.
ARSLAN E. A. 2004 c.s., Liguri e Galli in Lomellina, in I Liguri. Un antico popolo europeo tra Alpi e Mediterraneo, Saggi Mostra (Genova, 23.10.2004–23.1.2005).
Raffaele De Marinis, Giuseppina Spadea (a cura di), Ancora sui Liguri. Un antico popolo europeo tra Alpi e Mediterraneo, De Ferrari editore, Genova 2007 (scheda sul volume).
John Patterson, Sanniti, Liguri e Romani, Comune di Circello;Benevento
Giuseppina Spadea (a cura di), "I Liguri. Un antico popolo europeo tra Alpi e Mediterraneo" (catalogo mostra, Genova 2004–2005), Skira editore, Genova 2004
External links
[1] - Source texts of ancient Greek and Roman authors
[2] - Strabo's work The Geography (Geographica). Book 4, Chapter 6, is about Liguria (that the author includes in Cisalpine Gaul).
