[Claud]

Etruscan is actually kinda readable in a limited sense—the majority of inscriptions are formulaic funerary dedications, and we’re able to understand those fairly well. Through ancient glosses and educated guesswork we’ve pieced together 200 or so words and a few tentative bits of grammar. The longer texts are the real sticking point.

This program might not crack Etruscan though. It sounds like it relies on comparative linguistic techniques and needs a better-known related language to work. We don’t have that for Etruscan.

Incidentally, Claudius’s wife Urgulanilla was Etruscan. And the last known mention of the language being used was when Rome fell in the mid-400s and Etruscan priests were called on to offer sacrifices. It was probably just a liturgical language at that point though.

We do have one scroll that was used to wrap a mummy. It’s the longest extant Etruscan text:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Linteus

[Henchster]

Thank you for that excellent info.

[BenLurkin]

Barić displayed the mummy at his home in Vienna, standing it upright in the corner of his sitting room

Oh my!

(The writings look like a teletype, the letter are so uniform.)