Edetani

The Edetani were an ancient Iberian people who inhabited the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula, in what is now the Valencian Community of Spain. Their heartland lay in the Turia valley, and their capital was the city of Edeta, identified with the modern town of Llíria north of Valencia.

As part of the Iberian ethnolinguistic group, the Edetani left inscriptions in Iberian script and organized their territory around fortified settlements known as oppida. Their lands encompassed inland and coastal zones in the eastern coast region, with neighbors including other Iberian communities. The Edetani engaged in agriculture, craft production, and trade across the western Mediterranean, maintaining networks with neighboring polities and with rising powers such as Carthage.

In the later 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE, Roman expansion into Hispania brought the Edetani under increasing Roman influence. Following the Roman conquest, their territory became associated with Valentia Edetanorum, a Roman civitas whose central urban center was Valentia (modern Valencia). The Edetani and their surroundings were gradually integrated into Roman provincial administration, with native institutions adapting to Roman rule.

Today, the Edetani are known primarily through classical sources and archaeological evidence from eastern Iberian sites. excavations in and around Edeta/Llíria and other Iberian-era settlements have contributed to understanding their urbanism, material culture, and role within the broader mosaic of Iberian peoples in what would become Roman Hispania.