Liz Goring, the exhibition co-ordinator, tries on an Etruscan earring from the display. Picture: David Moir
Posted on 08/04/2004 11:39:04 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Yet even the catalog is wary of answering the question central to the "mystery" of the Etruscans: where did they come from? Did they migrate from Greece or beyond? Did they travel down from the Alps? Or, as their pre- Indo-European language might suggest, were they a people indigenous to today's Tuscany who suddenly acquired the tools for rapid development? Such are the pros and cons of each theory, the French historian Dominique Briquel notes in his catalog essay, that "the problem must be held to be unresolved." ...[T]hey spoke the same language, which also existed in a written form. Further, their religious rituals, military practices and social customs were largely similar. For their Greek contemporaries and Roman successors, the Etruscans were clearly a different ethnic group.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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Etruscans Emerge Slowly From ObscurityEtruscan was still being spoken at the time of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, and the most renowned patron of the arts of that age, Maecenas, was noted for his Etruscan ancestry. But the subsequent total extinction of the living language, the failure to bequeath to posterity any written literature, the final triumph of Christianity and the banning of the old-time augurs, relegated this once prominent culture to obscurity... At a symbolic level the Etruscans were the originators of the fasces - the ax bound in a bundle of wooden rods representing the power of the state to chastise and take the life of its citizens - and the sella curulis - the folding chair emblematic of magisterial dignity - both of which became classic insignia of Roman government. (The Etruscans also seem to have been the inventors of a typical form of "Roman" ceremonial trumpet.) ...In the middle of the last century B.C., in a spectacular coup de theatre, an eminent soothsayer interpreted the appearance of a comet as the signal of the final catastrophe, adding that the gods would surely strike him down for revealing this secret - and promptly demonstrated the unimpeachable reliability of his own prophecies by dropping dead on the spot.
by Roderick Conway Morris
International Herald Tribune
Saturday, January 20, 2001
some quotes at wood's lot
at Web Archive
Bodroghy spends a good chunk of the page taking a middle ground between autochthonous origin (in Italy) and migration from elsewhere.Etruscan OriginsAn upright gravestone with inscriptions was found in 1885 at Kaminia, on the island of Lemnos, in the Aegean Sea. This stele, which is dated as having been made in the 6th century B.C., is now in the National Museum in Athens, Greece. The inscription on the tomb-stone has 198 letters forming 33 words and is decorated with the profile of a warrior. The inscription is written in a western Greek runic alphabet phonetically adapted so as to match the same peculiarities of the Etruscan alphabet, the only difference being that the letter o is preserved... Some scholars assume that Lemnic and Etruscan are genetically or at least typologically related. As a matter of fact, the language of the inscription on this stele shows some morphologic and semantic similarity with Etruscan. This is particularly evident in the numerals and formulas indicating the deceased person's age: compare the Lemnic expression sialxveis avis "aged 40", as it appears on the stele, with the Etruscan expression avils maxs shealxlsc "aged 45".
by Gabor Z. Bodroghy
(I guess)
This guy has a separate paragraph, "problems with this theory", and is pretty dismissive of it. The "autochthonous" theory doesn't have a separate problems paragraph, but has data that contradict the idea. Those who resort to pottery types to claim that Etruscans didn't originate elsewhere have their heads up their asses. The "inthos" place names are distributed across Italy to the east, into Anatolia, and the Etruscan language is related to Lydian (a fact that is agreed on by all but the most nationalist researchers). The earliest burial practices were the same as those in the east.EtruscansOn the Aegean island of Lemnos was found an inscription of about 600 BC written in a language clearly similar to Etruscan. Thucydides, a contemporary of Herodotus, wrote that the pre-Greek population of the island was Tyrrhenian (=Etruscan). Perhaps on this island there was a holdover of the population from which the Etrucans emigrated to Italy, or perhaps the Lemnian "Etruscans" were left behind there during the migration. Certainly, the Etruscan practice of hepatoscopy (divination through examination of the livers of sacrificial animals) is alien to other Italian peoples but is common in the Near East. It is argued that these Etruscan immigrants were not mass invaders who supplanted the locals, but groups of males seeking land (and mineral resources?) who settled among the more primitive locals, intermarried with them, and provided leadership for them. Eventually, the locals adopted the language of these incomers.
by Christopher S. Mackay
Ancient Mediterranean Lingual "Incongruity"The Etruscan addition of Latin M for sh does not appear on the Lemnian stele. Massimo Pallottino recognized by 1973 inflec tional endings, roots, words, and double-word expressions in the Lemnian inscription agreeing with Etruscan. Mauro Cristofani noticed (1978) the same type of names and same numerals indicating tens, also Lemnian use of o but not u as against Etruscan u but not o. The Lemnian stele contains words not found in some 10,000 known, mostly short Etruscan inscriptions, and vice versa. Pallottino realized Pelasgian would more precisely designate than Etruscan--two dialects of the same language.
by Cyclone Covey
Text Could Shed New Light on Etruscan LanguageThe bronze tablet dates from the second or third century BC and is engraved on both sides with a total of 40 lines of text. "There are about 25 words never found in any other inscription," Angelo Bottini, the archeological superintendent in Florence, said in a telephone interview. "It will increase our knowledge of the Etruscan language." ...Bottini said the text probably documents a transaction between two families. It features some 20 names, a number, believed to be a price, and the name of the official who oversaw the transaction.
by Alessandra Rizzo
8 July 1999
Maybe your eyes are much better then mine.
Another old guy checking in on the font issue . . .
. . . it is hard for me to read also.
But then I may be about ready for the glue factory.
Oops, I forgot to add your name to the "to" box of the previous message. :')
The Etruscan Liber LinteusFrom the above clues, the only conclusion we can draw is: we must deal with a kind of Etruscan religious Calendar. But the content of Calendar still defies closer understanding. The first part of the Book, as we have seen, analysing the Text by method of auto-correlation, is repetitive, as a kind of poetry. Perhaps religious poetry. In that case, we must deal with a Book of Etruscan Prayers. But we are not sure at this moment.
by Gabor Z. Bodroghy
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Hi,
I have looked at this thread several times, but the font you have chosen is impossible to read. Large amounts of text should be posted or printed using a Serif font. The feet guide the readers eye.
Eating our own...Time to make a new start in Free Republic
896 posted on 07/31/2004 11:51:26 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Etruscan Engineering and Agricultural Achievements: The Ancient City of Spina
The Mysterious Etruscans
Last modified on Tue, 17-Aug-2004 15:36:27 GMT | editors
Posted on 08/17/2004 9:05:30 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1193229/posts
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Liz Goring, the exhibition co-ordinator, tries on an Etruscan earring from the display. Picture: David Moir
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