The literary tradition says that around the 12oo BC, 20 ships with Trojan refugees headed by Eneas travelled the Mediterrenean Sea, facing dangers and storms sent by an angry Juno but only a few of them were able to approach the central italian coastline. There They met a friendly population, the Latins, whose king Latino offered Eneas to marry her daughter Lavinia, even though She had been already promised to Turno, king of the Rutuli population. All this caused Eneas and Turno's duel which led to the latter's death and to the foundation of a new city, Lavinium, in honor of the bride Lavinia.
Eneas, son of Venus and Anchises (who died in Sicily during the journey) had brought over the young son He had had with his first wife Creusa: Iulo Ascanius. Iulo or Julius is considered the ancestor of the IULIA Roman gens (family root) to which Caius Julius Cesar belonged, that represented the pride of the family members and their divine root (Venus).
A few years later, Iulo Ascanius left Lavinium and founded a new city a few miles inland, Albalonga (modern Albano), where centuries later a Vestal Virgin would have given birth to two twin brothers, Romulus and Remus. Since She was not supposed to have babies (on penalty death!), She put them in a basket on a river..
The modern archeological museum, inaugurated in 2005, shows the excavations held in the last years taking advantage of videos, easy records and audios. The ancient city had an important sanctuary dedicated to Minerva Tritonia (a little triton shows on her side), to whom the local women made offerings for marriage luck and fertility. Most of the objects found show women's tools such as looms, spindles and jewellery.
The city had its Necropolis (city of the dead) outside the walls where plenty of objects were found such as weapons and jars but its most sacred spot was the Heroon, the monumental tomb erected for the Trojan Hero Eneas, to whose population the Romans have often referred to as their ancestors.
