At the east of La Spezia, on the left side of the Magra river mouth, a few km south from Carrara, we find the Luni ruins.

The place was an etrurian spot in 177 B.C., than it became a roman colony.
It was conquered by the Goths and conquered again in 552 by Narsete, who made of it an important port of the Easter Empire. The place suffered the raids of the Saracens in 849 and then of the Normans in 860.
In 1016 the Saracens destroyed it.
In 1058 the few inhabitants of Luni left because of the malaria and the interment of the port and moved to Sarzana.

Nowadays, thanks to good archaeological excavations, it's possible to identify the squared plan of the town, its walls, the forum, the thermal baths, a theatre and a amphitheatre, two temples and many tombs.

They discovered a few remains of the Middle Paleolithic and many "Stele Lunigiane" or "Statue Stele", big stones on whose surface were summarely carved figures representing men and women.
Some scholars think that they can be connected to the menhirs of the Cinque Terre which could be their original models.
These stelae, with their magic and misterious beauty, were found in different places in this area and dated between 5000 and 3000 B.C., but the oldest ones could date back to 9000 B.C.. The youngest ones belong to the 600 B.C. The Civic Museum Formentini in La Spezia keeps nineteen original stelae and many castes. Many other originals are at the Museum of the "Statue Stele" in the Piagnaro castle at Pontremoli.