“Craniometric data from Etruscan tombs provide information that it was a non-Indo-European and non-Semitic people, and the typical inhabitants of the Eastern Mediterranean of the early Bronze Age. Like the earlier representatives of El Argar from Spain, the mesocephalic values of the cranial index dominate over the dolichocephalic and brachycephalic values, forming equal proportions with these extreme values. It is worth noting that metric specifications both series are very similar, but the Etruscan skulls are slightly larger, which is not surprising.
On the Etruscan turtles, the eyebrows are strongly smoothed; the walls of the cranium are not parallel, as in the classical Mediterranean forms, but widened at the back of the head and tapering in the front of the skull; forehead - narrow; the orbits are high and round; nose is narrow. The Etruscans, with a typically Near Eastern skull, resemble the Cappadocian type found in the Hittite period at Alishara and the planocyptal brachycephals found in the tombs of Cyprus. In Roman times, these two variations were mixed, resulting in various mesocephalic forms, which also included the Phoenicians.
"... The structural features of the face included the famous "Roman" nose, which may have been partly of Etruscan origin"
K. Kuhn about the population of north-central Italy
“In the population of Bologna, a significant predominance of the Alpine and Dinaric types is noticeable, especially in the past, but one third of the population is dolichocephalic. Among this third, the Nordic type is not uncommon, but a more significant element is the tall, thin-boned, dark-pigmented, long-faced type, with a thin, straight or prominent nose and thin lips. This is a variant of the Atlanto-Mediterranean type, with some Cappadocian features brought from Western Asia by navigators, including the Etruscans. This type is combined with the slope of the palpebral fissure, which is very long, high arched arched eyebrows ... The beauty of the Bolognese women, which has become a household name, is associated with the above type, which is responsible for this reputation. This type is common in other regions of Northern Italy, and was also often depicted in the paintings of Renaissance painters. This type is also found as an insignificant element in Tyrol ... "
The above Central Italian type:
An excerpt from work J. Sergi, "Mediterranean Race" (1895)
« Etruscans. The Etruscan question is a polyhedron of various aspects, including the question of the origin of civilization and physical characteristics, chronology, language origins, and Italic and extra-Italic influences. I am not going to solve this problem completely in a few pages, in which the Etruscans will be only briefly considered, and not considered as the main object of my work.
In the Italian version of this book, I designated the Etruscans as "Late Pelasgians", as a separate Asia Minor branch of the Pelasgians, who migrated by sea to Italy, similar to the Pelasgians who inhabited Greece and part of Italy. I fully accepted the traditional version of Herodotus, opposite to the opinion of the Germans that the Rassenes were Alpine Raets who moved to Central Italy. This later [Germanic] version was cast aside because of its absurdity, like the argument that the sun rises in the west. According to Brisio, who has collected considerable evidence for his theories, the Etruscans are of Eastern Mediterranean origin; another well-known researcher, Montelius, having considerable authority, confirmed the same theory. I do not agree with the chronology of Montelius, in which the appearance of the Etruscans dates back to the 11th century. BC. - I still support my old opinion that this event cannot be dated earlier than the second half of the 8th century. BC, with which Arthur Evans also agrees. Although the problem of chronology requires further discussion.
When studying, over the past time, the anthropological characteristics of the Etruscans, I noted that the presence of two racial types in the Etruscan graves is related to the mixing of the early inhabitants of Umbria, in the burials of which almost only Mediterranean types are represented, as well as late Aryan conquerors. I also noted that the "fat Etruscans" of Catullus refer to a foreign element that is not Etruscan. Interestingly, this element is still present among the population of Etruria, at the same time, as I noted, that the true Etruscan type absolutely predominates in images from older tombs and on some terracotta sarcophagi. The great tombs in the Chiusi region are undeniably Etruscan, and there we can find various scenes from life and many human figures. I did not find fat figures there, but only slender and delicate forms, with elongated faces of the Mediterranean type. The corpulent figures, with larger heads and broader faces, are a foreign element, not Etruscan.
The physical features of the Etruscans were Mediterranean, they were true Italics, and certainly they belonged to the Pelasgian branch.
Among other arguments supporting this position are inscriptions from Lemnos related to the Etruscans. I must say that the Etruscan language is Pelasgic and is a branch of the Mediterranean languages, now dead and, according to Brinton, related to the Libyan languages.
The surviving ideas of Corssen and the more recent Deccas and Latte, that Ario-Italic similarities exist, are called into question, due to the fact that the Etruscans lived apart among the Aryan population, and changes took place only in a few cases. Etruscan will always be a problem for Ariophile linguists who cannot find a way to interpret it.
It is worth noting that the Etruscan colonies that occupied the territory of Umbria could not be very numerous, but given their civilizational superiority, they dominated the surrounding population in a moral and material sense, and therefore could change the system of customs, including the method of burial, which almost always mixed, combining both burial in tombs and cremation, which I personally observed with the help of excavations of poor and traditional graves.
True Etruscan graves are divided into chambers and are more or less rich and spacious. Hollowed out in the rocks or dug into the ground, although divided into chambers, they still belong to the local people who were Etruscanized. Consequently, not all burials on Etruscan soil are Etruscan, and most of them must belong to the population that preceded the Etruscan colonization, although they were influenced by newcomers.
This influence, however strong it was, was still insufficient to transform the language of the conquered into the language of the conquerors; after the elimination of Etruscan dominance, the Etruscan language disappeared forever, remaining only on stone inscriptions, incomprehensible and undeciphered, despite the fact that they are sometimes bilingual.
The true primary influence of the Etruscans is the civilization that became the "starting point" for the development of Latin civilization, as well as the expansion of the Eastern Mediterranean civilization into Italy, and into Central and Northern Europe."
Etruscan skulls from the above book by Sergi:
Images from Etruscan tombs:
Summing up all of the above (descriptions of Kun and Sergi, as well as images from Etruscan tombs), we can distinguish the following anthropological features that were originally characteristic of the Etruscans (the original type of the Etruscans, later partially changed as a result of the assimilation of the autochthonous):
Height - medium / medium-high
Cranial index - mesocephaly/sub-dolichocephaly
Hair form - curly
Skull - long medium-wide
Build - thin-boned; long legs combined with a relatively short torso
The size of the skull - medium-large
The height of the vault of the skull - medium
Hair color - dark (brown or black)
The bridge of the nose is straight or convex; bridge - high.
Eyebrows - smoothed
Forehead - low, narrow
Eastern Mediterranean forms of modern Italy:
As a conclusion...
As already noted by Sergi, the ethnogenesis of the population of Etruria was closely connected with the Etruscanization of the autochthonous population of Tuscany, Umbria and Latium by newcomers from Asia Minor, as well as with the homogenization of the new population that appeared as a result of the above processes. The original Etruscan element could become dominant only in southern Tuscany (actually, Etruria). In northern Tuscany, Lazio and Umbria, the expansion of the Etruscans and the Etruscanization of the local population led to the formation of many new forms - both in anthropological terms (influence on the specifics of the racial genesis of the population of Central Italy) and in cultural and civilizational terms (formation of the civilizational basis of the Roman (Latin) civilization) .
P.S. An article confirming Sergi's conclusions (i.e., the theory of Herodotus) about the origin of the Etruscans:
"The mystery of Etruscan origins: novel clues from Bos taurus mitochondrial DNA"
Conclusions on the article:
“We assume that the end of the Bronze Age is a period that is closely associated with the arrival of new settlers from the east in Central Italy. These people, along with their cattle, sailed and settled in Tuscany. This may have been due to the consequences of catastrophic events such as the tsunami that occurred in the late Bronze Age in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean (Noor and Kline, 2000). The mixing of these people and their animals with indigenous Italic populations sowed the seed of Etruscan culture and also shaped the genome of local cattle breeds.”
Their borders converged in the area where Rome arose.
The Etruscans, who before the Romans were the most powerful tribe in Italy, lived in the country of the valleys and slopes of the Apennines, rich in olives and grapes, along the seaside of this region, and from the mouth of the Padus to the northern bank of the Tiber. They early formed a federation consisting of twelve independent cities (the Etruscan Twelve Cities). These Etruscan cities were: in the northwest of Cortona, Arretius, Clusium and Perusia (near Lake Trasimene); in the southeast of Volaterra, Vetulonia (which had Telamon as its harbor), Ruzella and Volsinia; in the south of Tarquinia, Caere (Agilla), Veii, Faleria (near Mount Sorakte, rising alone on the plain). At first, in all these states there were kings, but early (before the 4th century) the kingship was abolished, all spiritual and secular power became part of the aristocracy. There was no federal government in the Etruscan federation. During the war, some cities probably entered into alliances among themselves by voluntary agreement.
Etruria and the conquest of the Etruscans in the VIII-VI centuries. BC
The legend of Demarat testifies that the Etruscan federation was in contact with the commercial and industrial city of Corinth from an early time. She says that the Corinthian Demaratus settled in Tarquinia, that the painter Clephantus and the sculptors Eucheir (“artful-handed”) and Eugramm (“skillful draftsman”) came with him, that he brought the alphabet to Tarquinia. Written monuments and drawings that have come down to us from the Etruscans also show the Greek influence on this wonderful people. Their language shows no trace of kinship with either Greek or Italic; we have not yet learned to understand what is written on it, but we can reliably see that it did not belong to the Indo-Germanic family. The Etruscan alphabet was undoubtedly borrowed from the Greeks in very ancient times and, moreover, not through the Latins, but directly from the Greek colonists of southern Italy, as can be seen from the differences in the forms and meanings of the letters of the Etruscan alphabet from the Latin ones. Clay urns and other vessels with black drawings found at Tarquinius and Caere also show the connection of Etruscan painting and plastic art with Greek: these vases are strikingly similar to the Greek periods of the ancient style.
Etruscan trade and industry
The development of cities was facilitated by the fact that the Etruscans engaged in trade and industry. From a very old time, Phoenician, Carthaginian and Greek trading ships sailed to the Etruscan coast, which had good harbors; Agilla, standing near the mouth of the Tiber, was a convenient marina for the exchange of goods.
Judging by the shape of the Etruscan vases and the exceptional love of Etruscan artists for depicting scenes from Greek myths and hero tales, it must be assumed that the school of art that flourished in southern Etruria was a branch of the Peloponnesian school. But the Etruscans did not borrow the later more perfect style from the Greeks, they remained forever with the ancient Greek. The reason for this could be that the influence of the Greeks on the Etruscan coast then decreased. It weakened, perhaps because the Etruscans, in addition to honest maritime trade, were also engaged in robbery; their piracy made the Tyrrhenian name a terror to the Greeks. Another reason for the weakening of Greek influence on the Etruscans was that they developed their own commercial and industrial activities. Owning the seaside from Tarquinia and Caere to Capua, to the bays and capes near Vesuvius, which are very convenient for navigation, the Etruscans themselves soon began to export the expensive products of their country to foreign lands: iron mined on Ilva (Etaly, i.e. Elbe), Campanian and Volaterra copper, Populonian silver, and amber that reached them from the Baltic Sea. Bringing goods themselves to foreign markets, they had more profit than when trading through intermediaries. They began to seek to oust the Greeks from the northwestern Mediterranean. For example, they, in alliance with the Carthaginians, drove the Phocians from Corsica and forced the inhabitants of this poor island to pay tribute to them with its products: resin, wax, honey. In addition to pottery, the Etruscans were famous for foundry art and metalwork in general.
Etruscan civilization
Etruscan burial urn. 6th century to R. X
It is very likely that the Romans borrowed their instruments of military music and attire from the Etruscans, just as they borrowed their haruspices, religious rites, folk festivals, building art, land surveying rules from them. The ancient writers say that from Etruria the Romans took their religious-dramatic games, the games of the circus, the theaters of the people, in which actors, dancers and jesters played out gross farces; that they also borrowed gladiator fights from the Etruscans, magnificent processions of victors returning from the war (triumphs) and many other customs. These news of the ancients are confirmed by the latest research. The development of the building art of the Etruscan civilization is evidenced by the remains of huge structures, such as, for example, the colossal walls of Volaterra and other cities, the tomb of Porsena in Clusia, the ruins of huge temples, the remains of huge mounds, roads, tombs and others. underground structures with arches, channels (for example, the so-called Philistine ditches). The very name "Tyrrens", in the old form "Tyrsene", ancient writers derive from the fact that the Etruscans built high towers ("Thirs") on the seashore to repel enemy landings. Like the Cyclopean walls in the Peloponnese, the buildings of the Etruscan civilization are built from large blocks of stone, sometimes hewn, sometimes unhewn and lying on top of each other without cement.
The development of technical arts among the Etruscans was favored by the fact that their land had many good materials: soft limestone and tuff were easy to cut to build strong walls; greasy plastic clay well accepted all forms. The abundance of copper, iron, gold, and silver led to foundry business, to the minting of coins, to the manufacture of all kinds of metal tools and ornaments. The main difference between Greek and Etruscan art was that among the Greeks art aspired to ideal goals and developed according to the laws of beauty, while among the Etruscans it served only needs. practical life and luxury; remaining immobile in their ideals, the art of the Etruscans tried to replace their improvement with the preciousness of the material and the pretentiousness of style. It has forever preserved the character of handicraft work.
The social structure of the Etruscans
The Etruscan people were formed from a mixture of different tribes: the newcomers conquered the former population and put it in the position of a class subject to them; we can reliably see this from many facts that have been preserved in historical times. The heterogeneity of the population is evidenced in particular by the fact that the Etruscans had an estate of subject people, which the rest of the Italian peoples did not have; the subject people were, no doubt, the descendants of the former population of the country, conquered by the newcomers. The Etruscan cities were ruled by the aristocracy, which was both a military and a priestly estate: it performed religious rites, commanded the army, and conducted court; the owner of the estate was at the trial the representative of the commoner subject to him in his lawsuit; commoners were subordinate to the owners, whose land was cultivated, paid taxes to their masters or worked for them. “Without this enslavement of the masses of the people, it would hardly have been possible for the Etruscans to erect their huge structures,” says Niebuhr. About what kind of tribes were the estates of owners and subject people, scientists think differently. But in all probability the natives belonged to the Umbrian tribe, which in ancient times occupied a very wide area, or was closely related to them. It seems that the descendants of this former population remained especially numerous in the southern parts of the Etruscan land between the Tsiminsky Forest and the Tiber. The dominant, so-called Etruscan tribe, no doubt came from the north from the Po valley. The ancient writers had a very common opinion that the Etruscans moved to Italy from Asia Minor, it is also proved by modern research.
Aristocrats called lucumons ruled the cities of the Etruscans. Their general meeting, probably, decided allied affairs and, in cases of need, chose an allied ruler, who had an ivory chair, called a curule, and a toga with a purple trim, and who was accompanied by twelve police officers (lictors), who had bunches of sticks with an ax embedded in them (chamfers, fasces). But this elected head and high priest of the union had quite a bit of power over the cities and aristocrats. The Etruscans liked to give outward glamor to their rulers, but did not give them independent power. The twelve cities that made up the union were equal in rights, and their independence was little embarrassed by the allied ruler. Even for the defense of the country, they probably rarely connected. Early in the habit of the Etruscans, alien to the Italians, the custom of sending mercenary troops to war.
The Etruscans did not have a free middle class; the oligarchic social system had its inevitable affiliation of turmoil; therefore, in the Etruscan states, a decline in energy began early, resulting in political impotence. Agriculture and industry once flourished in them, they had many military and merchant ships, they fought with the Greeks and Carthaginians for dominion in the western Mediterranean; but the enslavement of the masses weakened the Etruscan states; townspeople and villagers had no moral energy.
The Etruscan aristocracy, which at the same time was a priestly class, left with its monopoly those astronomical, physical and other information on which worship was based. Lukumons performed public sacrifices and divination by sacrificial animals (haruspies), established the annual calendar, that is, the times of holidays, controlled military and peaceful public affairs. They alone knew how to explain the signs and learn from them the will of the gods; they alone knew the laws and customs that had to be observed when founding cities, building temples, when surveying land, when setting up a military camp. They spread the culture of the Etruscans across the plain of Pada, brought it to the mountains, taught the wild mountain tribes the simplest crafts, gave them an alphabet. In the early days of Rome, as Livy says, noble Roman youths came to them to study sacred knowledge. The interpretation of the will of the gods could be done by the Etruscans and women. The Romans had a tradition about the soothsayer Tanakvila, the wife of Tarquinius the Elder; in the temple of Sanka, the Romans kept her spinning wheel.
The culture of the Etruscans was at a fairly high level of development; the ruins of their buildings testify to the enormity and boldness of their architectural and engineering works; their painted vases, copper statues, beautiful dishes, elegant headdresses, their coins and carved stones surprise us with their fine technique; but Etruscan art and, in general, all Etruscan education did not have a folk character, they were deprived creative power Therefore, they did not have strength, they were alien to progressive development. The culture of the Etruscans soon stagnated, subjected to the numbness of a handicraft routine. Knowledge did not have a beneficial, softening effect on the Etruscans. public life. It remained the privilege of the ruling class, separated from the people by the right of birthright into a closed caste, was inextricably linked with religion and surrounded by the horrors of gloomy superstition.
The Etruscans loved to excess to enjoy the abundant gifts of nature in their country and early indulged in luxury. Twice a day they ate long and hard; this gluttony seemed strange and bad to the Greeks, moderate in food. The Etruscans loved pampered music, skillful dances, the cheerful singing of the Fescennin folk festivals, and the terrible spectacles of gladiatorial combat. Their houses were full of patterned carpets, silver utensils, bright paintings, all kinds of expensive things. The servants of the Etruscans were whole crowds of richly dressed slaves and slaves. Their art did not have Greek idealism and was alien to development; there was no restraint and simplicity in their way of life. The Etruscans did not have that strict family life, like the rest of the Italian tribes, there was no complete subordination of the wife and children to the will of the householder, there was no strict sense of legality and justice.
Etruscan painting. Around 480 B.C.
Etruscan colonies
The Etruscans founded colonies, the most famous of which were: in the north of Fezuly, Florence, Pistoria, Luca, Luna, Pisa; in the south of Capua and Nola. Etruscan names are also found on the southern bank of the Tiber. Tradition says that on the Caelian hill there was an Etruscan village founded by a stranger from Volsinia, Celes Vibennoy, and after his death, which had his faithful companion, Mastarna, as its ruler; in Rome, on the lowland adjacent to the Palatine Hill, there was a part of the city called Etruscan; this name shows that there was once a colony of the Etruscans. Some scholars even believed that the tradition of the Tarquinian kings meant the period of Etruscan rule over Rome and that Mastarna was the king whom the Roman chronicles call Servius Tullius. The Etruscan colonies preserved the laws, customs, and federal structure of their homeland.
Etruscan gods
Alien to the Old Italian tribes in origin, language, way of life, character, culture, the Etruscans also had a religion significantly different from their beliefs and rituals. Greek influence, which manifests itself in the entire civilization of the Etruscans and is explained by their commercial relations with Greece and with the Italic colonies of the Greeks, is also found in the Etruscan religion; it is obvious that the Etruscans from a very long time succumbed to the attractiveness of Greek culture and mythology, the spread of which among different peoples united different religions, introduced a cosmopolitan character into aesthetic ideas and into their poetry.
Etruscan painting. The feast scene. 5th century BC
The Etruscans had their own deities, which were highly respected in those cities in which they were objects of local worship. Such were in Volsinia the patron goddess of the Etruscan federation Voltumna and Norcia (Northia), the goddess of time and fate, in whose temple a nail was annually driven into the crossbar to count the years; in Tser and in the coastal city of Pyrgi, such were the forest god Silvanus and the benevolent "mother Matuta", the goddess of the day being born and every birth, at the same time the patroness of ships, leading them safely to the harbor. But besides these native deities, we find among the Etruscans many Greek gods and heroes; they especially revered Apollo, Heracles and the heroes of the Trojan War. The Etruscans respected the Temple of Delphi so much that a special treasury was built in its sacred enclosure for their offerings.
The Etruscan king of the gods, the Thunderer Tina, whom the Romans called Jupiter, corresponded to Zeus; the Etruscan goddess Cupra (Juno), the goddess of the citadel of the city of Veii, the patroness of cities and women, corresponded to Hera, and her service was accompanied by the same magnificent games and processions. Menerfa (Minerva) was, like Athena Pallas, the divine power of the mind, the patroness of crafts, the female art of spinning wool and weaving, the inventor of the flute, the game on which was accompanied by worship, and the military trumpet; the goddess of heavenly heights, throwing lightning from them, she was also the goddess of military art. Apollo (Aplu) was also among the Etruscans the god of light, the healer of diseases, the purifier of sins. Vertumn, the god of fruits, who changed his appearance according to the seasons, the correct change of which was produced by the rotation of the sky, was among the Etruscans, like the Greek Dionysus, the personification of the course of annual changes in vegetation and in field labors; the changing colors of the fruits and the variety of vegetation are expressed by the fact that Vertumnus takes on different types and different emblems. Its main holiday, called by the Romans vertumnalia, took place in October, at the end of the harvest of grapes and fruits, and was accompanied by folk games, amusements and a fair. The Etruscans borrowed from the Greeks, and other Italic peoples borrowed from the Etruscans, the system of six gods and six goddesses, which was generally accepted in the colonies of the Greeks, as in Greece itself. These twelve deities formed a council, and therefore among the Romans, who borrowed such an idea of them from the Etruscans, were called consentes "co-sitting"; they ruled the course of affairs in the universe, and each of them was in charge of human affairs in one of the twelve months of the year. But they were lower deities; above them, the Etruscans had other deities, the mysterious forces of fate, "covering gods", not known either by name or by number, who lived in the innermost region of the sky and grouped around Jupiter, the king of the gods and ruler of the universe, who questioned them; their activity manifested itself to the human spirit only during great catastrophes.
Spirits in the religion of the Etruscans
In addition to these "protective" and lower deities, who were independent personal beings, separated from the infinite divine power, the Etruscans, other Italic peoples and later the Romans, like the Greeks, had an innumerable number of spirits whose activity, indefinite in size, supported the life of nature and of people. These were the patron spirits of clans, communities, localities; for a family, city, district, who were under the protection of famous spirits, serving them was of the greatest importance. Among the Etruscans, whose character was gloomy, prone to tormenting thoughts, the activity of these spirits, and in particular its terrible side, had a very wide scope.
The cult of death and ideas about the underworld among the Etruscans
The Etruscan religion, equally far from the clear rationalism of the Romans and from the bright, humane plasticity of the Greeks, was, like the character of the people, gloomy and fantastic; symbolic numbers played an important role in it; there was a lot of cruelty in her dogmas and rituals. The Etruscans often sacrificed slaves and prisoners of war to angry gods; the Etruscan realm of the dead, where the souls of the dead (manes, as the Romans called them) roamed and the mute deities, Mantus and Mania, ruled, was a world of horror and suffering; in it the dead were tormented by ferocious beings who had the form of women, called furies among the Romans; there, to suffer from beatings with sticks and being bitten by snakes, Harun, a winged old man with a big hammer, took away the souls.
Chimera from Arezzo. An example of Etruscan art. 5th century BC
Divination among the Etruscans
The Etruscans were very disposed to mysterious teachings and rituals; state divinations (divinatio, as this art was called among the Romans) developed strongly among them and passed from them to the Romans: divination by the flight of birds (auguria), by the brilliance of lightning (fulguria), by the entrails of sacrificial animals (haruspicia); the art of fortune-telling, based on superstition and deceit, was developed by the Etruscans and gained such respect from the Romans and from the Italians in general that they did not undertake any important state business without questioning the gods by means of auguries or haruspices; with unfavorable signs, rites of reconciliation with the gods were performed; extraordinary phenomena of nature (prodigia), happy or unfortunate omens (omina) influenced all decisions. This feature of the Italians came from their deep faith in fate. Borrowed from the Etruscans, the belief in oracles, in omens by which the gods give advice and warnings, was in the Italic folk religion and then in the official religion of Rome as strong as in any other, and the service to the deities of fate, Fortune and Doom (Fatum) did not was nowhere as common as in Italy.
The Romans adopted many types of divination from the Etruscans. Auguries were called fortune-telling about the future, about the will of the gods by the flight or cry of some birds, and especially eagles. The augur (“bird-reader”) stood in an open place (templum), from which the whole sky was visible, divided the sky into parts with a crooked rod, (lituus); the flight of birds from some parts foreshadowed happiness, from others - misfortune. Another way to find out from the actions of the birds whether the intended business would be successful was to give food to the sacred chickens and see if they were eating; the rules of this divination were to be known in Rome not only by the priests, but also by all the patricians who wished to hold government posts. The fulgurators observed the appearance of lightning (fulgur), by which the gods also proclaimed their will; if the lightning was unfavorable, then rituals were performed that softened the wrath of the gods; - The Etruscans considered lightning the most reliable of all heavenly signs. The place where the lightning fell was sanctified; a lamb was sacrificed on it, a tire was made on it in the form of a well covered with a log house and surrounded by a wall. Most often, the Etruscans performed divination through haruspices; they consisted in the fact that the fortuneteller, the haruspex, who produced them, examined the heart, liver, other internal parts, sacrificial animals; the rules of these divinations were worked out in great detail by the Etruscans. The art of divination - auspices, as the Romans called them, was taught by the Etruscans Tages, a dwarf with a child's face and gray hair, which came out of the ground near Tarquinia in a plowed field; having taught the lukumons (priests of the Etruscans) the science of divination, he immediately died. The Tages books, containing the doctrine of lightning, divination, the rules that must be observed when founding cities, and land surveying, were the source of all Etruscan and Roman guides to the art of divination. The Etruscans had schools in which the art of auspices was taught by the lucumons, who knew this science well.
Etruscan literature
Zalessky N. N. Etruscans in Northern Italy. L., 1959
Richardson E. The Etruscans: Their Art and Civilization. Chicago, 1964 (in English)
Mayani Z. The Etruscans begin to speak. M., 1966
Hampton C. The Etruscans and Antiquities of Etruria, London, 1969 (in English)
Burian Yan, Moukhova Bogumila. Mysterious Etruscans. M., 1970
Pallotino M. Etruscans. London, 1975 (in English)
Kondratov A. A. Etruscans - the number one mystery. M., 1977
Nemirovsky A. I. Etruscans. From myth to history. M., 1983
Sokolov G. I. The art of the Etruscans. M., 1990
Brendel O. Etruscan Art. New Haven, 1995 (in English)
Vaughan A. Etruscans. M., 1998
Haynes S. Etruscan Civilization. Los Angeles, 2000 (in English)
Nagovitsyn A.E. Etruscans: Mythology and Religion. M., 2000
Reimon block. Etruscans. predictors of the future. M., 2004
Ellen McNamara. Etruscans: Life, religion, culture. M., 2006
Robert Jean Noel. Etruscans. M., 2007
Bohr, Tomajic. Veneti and Etruscans: at the origins of European civilization: Collection of articles. M. - SPb., 2008
Ergon J. Everyday life Etruscans. M., 2009
The Etruscan problem is very old. It also appears among the Greeks and Romans. In ancient tradition, three points of view on the origin of this mysterious people have been preserved. The first is represented by Herodotus, who tells (I, 94) that part of the Lidians, due to hunger, went by sea to the west under the command of the royal son Tyrrhenus. They arrived in Italy, in the country of the Umbrians, founded cities and live there to this day.
Herodotus' opinion became almost canonical in ancient literature. Roman writers, for example, call the Tiber the Lydian River (Lydius amnis). The Etruscans themselves stood on the same point of view, recognizing their kinship with the Lidians. This was referred to, for example, by the deputation of the city of Sardis in the Roman Senate under the emperor Tiberius.
The second point of view was defended by Hellanicus of Lesbos (apparently, somewhat earlier than Herodotus). He argued that the Pelasgians, the most ancient population of Greece, being driven out by the Hellenes, sailed into the Adriatic Sea to the mouth of the Po, from there moved inland and inhabited the region now called Tirrenia.
Finally, we find the third hypothesis in Dionysius of Halicarnassus (I, 29-30). He proves that the Pelasgians and Etruscans are completely different peoples and that they also have nothing in common with the Lidians: their language, gods, laws and customs are different.
“Closer to the truth,” he says, “those who believe that the Etruscans did not come from anywhere, but that they are a native people in Italy, since this people is very ancient and does not resemble any other either in language or in customs” .
The testimony of Dionysius stands completely apart in the ancient tradition.
The further history of the Etruscans after their arrival in Italy is drawn by ancient historiography as follows. They subjugated the Umbrians, an old and powerful people who occupied Etruria, and spread along the river valley. By founding their cities. The Etruscans then move south to Latium and Campania. At the end of the 7th century The Etruscan Tarquinian dynasty appears in Rome. At the beginning of the VI century. the Etruscans found the city of Capua in Campania. In the second half of the VI century. in a naval battle near about. Corsica, they, in alliance with the Carthaginians, defeated the Greeks.
It was the highest point of Etruscan power. Then a gradual decline begins. In 524, the Etruscans were defeated near Kum by the Greek commander Aristodem. Tradition dates the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome to 510. And although the Etruscan king Porsenna defeated the Romans and imposed a difficult treaty on them, Porsenna's troops soon experienced a defeat near the city of Aricia from the Latins and the same Aristodem. At the beginning of the 5th century there was a big naval battle near Cum, in which the Syracusan tyrant Hieron inflicted a heavy defeat on the Etruscans. Finally, in the second half of the 5th c. (between 445 and 425) the Etruscans are expelled from Capua by the Samnites. By the beginning of the III century. The Etruscans were finally defeated by the Romans, and the Etruscan cities lost their independence.
Such is the historiographic tradition about the Etruscans. Let's see what the original sources give us. About 10 thousand Etruscan inscriptions are known. Most of them are located in Etruria itself. Separate inscriptions are found in Latium (in Preneste and Tusculum), in Campania, in some places in Umbria, near Ravenna. A large group of them is located near Bologna, Piacenza and in the area of Lake. Como. There are even in the Alps near the Brenner Pass. True, although the latter are Etruscan in alphabetical order, there are many Indo-European forms in them. Thus, the widespread distribution of Etruscan inscriptions seems to confirm the ancient tradition of Etruscan "expansion" in the 7th-6th centuries.
The alphabet of the Etruscan inscriptions is very close to the Greek alphabet of Campania (Kum) and is probably borrowed from there.
The Etruscan language is still a mystery. Above, we indicated that only individual words are read (in particular, proper names), and in rare cases it is possible to catch the general meaning. In any case, it can be considered established that the Etruscan language is not Indo-European, not inflectional, but rather approaches the agglutinating type. Back in 1899, Wilhelm Thomsen suggested that the Etruscan language was close to the group of Caucasian languages. This hypothesis was supported and developed by N. Ya. Marr, who attributed the Etruscan language to the Japhetic system.
The connection of the Etruscan language with the Italian dialects, in particular with Sabine and Latin, is very interesting. There are many Latin and Sabine words of a clearly Etruscan character. Etruscan origin Roman male names on a: Sulla, Cinna, Catilina, Perperna (Etruscan name Porsenna). A connection can be made between Etruscan personal names and some early Roman names and terms. The names of the three old Roman tribes - Ramnes, Tities and Luceres (Ramnes, Tities, Luceres) correspond to the Etruscan generic names rumulna, titie, luchre. The names "Rome" (Roma) and "Romulus" (Romulus) find a close analogy in the Etruscan rumate, the Etruscan-Latin Ramennius, Ramnius, etc.
However, the connections of the Etruscan language are not limited only to Italy, but go to the East, as if confirming the hypothesis of Herodotus. In 1885, on about. In Lemnos, an epitaph (tomb inscription) was discovered in a language that is very close to Etruscan. There are points of contact between the Etruscan language and the languages of Asia Minor.
Turning to the archaeological material, we see that the first Etruscan images appear in the graves of the early Iron Age (Villanova culture) - at the end of the 8th or beginning of the 7th century. In these graves, one can trace the gradual evolution of burials both in the type of graves (from the so-called shaft graves to luxurious graves with a crypt) and in the method of burial. There are also no leaps in the development of utensils, weapons and ornaments, which proves the internal nature of evolution without any intrusions from outside.
Among these early burials, one grave appears in Vetulonia (Etruria), on the stele of which for the first time an Etruscan epitaph is found and a warrior is depicted in a metal helmet with a huge crest and holding a double ax in his hands (images of a double ax are common in Asia Minor and in the regions of Crete-Mycenaean culture). The tomb in Vetulonia is considered the first clearly expressed Etruscan burial. In the future, the Etruscan style reaches its full development in the graves with crypts of the 7th century.
Herodotus (I, 94) tells about the origin of the Etruscans (Tyrsens = Tyrrhens) as follows: “Under King Atis, the son of Manes, a severe famine occurred throughout Lydia [due to the shortage of bread]. At first, the Lydians patiently endured the need, and then, when the famine began to intensify more and more, they began to seek deliverance, inventing various means ... The Lydians lived like that for 18 years. Meanwhile, the disaster did not subside, even intensified. Therefore, the king divided the whole people into two parts and ordered to cast lots: who should stay and who should leave their homeland. The king himself joined those who remained at home, and put his son named Tiersen at the head of the settlers. Those who had the lot to leave their country went to the sea in Smyrna. There they built ships, loaded them with all the necessary utensils and set sail in search of food and a [new] homeland. Having passed many countries, the settlers arrived in the land of the Ombrics and built a city there, where they live to this day. They renamed themselves, calling themselves after the name of the son of their king [Tirsen], who led them across the sea, tirsens” (translated by G. A. Stratanovsky).
Dionysius of Halicarnassus lived several centuries after Hellanic and Herodotus. He was well aware of all the information of his predecessors about the Etruscans. Therefore, in his essay “Roman Antiquities”, Dionysius to some extent generalized all the theories of the origin of the Etruscans that existed in antiquity and proposed his own hypothesis: “Some consider the Tyrrhenians to be the original inhabitants of Italy, others consider them aliens. About their name, those who consider them a native people say that it was given to them from the type of fortifications that they were the first living in that country to erect in their own country:
among the Tyrrhenians, as among the Hellenes, walled and well-covered tower structures are called tyrsi, or tyrrs. Some believe that their name was given to them because they have such buildings ... Others, who consider them settlers, say that the leader of the settlers was Tyrrhenian and that the Tyrrhenians got their name from him. And he himself was by origin a Lydian from the land formerly called Maeonia ... Two sons were born to Atys: Lid and Tyrren. Of these, Lid, who remained in his homeland, inherited the power of his father, and after his name the land became known as Lydia, while Tyrrhenus, standing at the head of those who left for the settlement, founded a large colony in Italy and assigned the name derived from his name to all participants in the enterprise. Hellanicus of Lesbos says that the Tyrrhenians used to be called Pelasgians, but when they settled in Italy, they adopted the name that they had in his time. The Pelasgians were expelled by the Hellenes, they left their ships at the Spinet River in the Ionian Gulf, captured the city of Croton on the isthmus and, moving from there, founded a city now called Tyrsenia ...
But it seems to me that everyone who considers the Tyrrhenians and Pelasgians to be one people are mistaken. That they could borrow a name from each other is not surprising, since something similar happened among other peoples, both Hellenic and barbarian, such as, for example, the Trojans and Phrygians, who lived close to each other ... No less, than in other places where there was a mixture of names among peoples, the same phenomenon was observed among the peoples of Italy. There was a time when the Greeks called the Latins, Umbrians and Auzones and many other peoples Tyrrhenians. After all, the long neighborhood of peoples makes it difficult for distant inhabitants to distinguish them accurately. Many historians assumed that the city of Rome was also a Tyrrhenian city. I agree that there is a change of names among peoples, and then a change in way of life, but I do not recognize that two peoples can exchange their origin. I rely in this case on the fact that they differ from each other in many respects, especially in speech, and none of them retains any resemblance to the other. "After all, the Crotons," as Herodotus says, "do not speak the same language with anyone living in their neighborhood ... It is clear that they brought with them the peculiarities of the language, moving to this country, and protect their language." Does it seem surprising to anyone that the Crotonians speak the same dialect as the Placians living in the Hellespont, since both were originally Pelasgi, and that the language of the Crotonians does not resemble the language of the Tyrrhenians, who live in close proximity to them ...
Based on this evidence, I think that the Tyrrhenians and the Pelasgians are different peoples. I also do not think that the Tyrrhenians come from Lydia, because they do not speak the same language, and even about them it cannot be said that if they do not speak the same language, they still retain some turns of speech of their native land. They themselves believe that the gods of the Lydians are not the same as theirs, and the laws and way of life are completely different, but in all this they differ more from the Lydians than even from the Pelasgians. Closer to the truth are those who claim that this is a people who did not come from anywhere, but of native origin, since, moreover, it turns out that this is a very ancient people, having neither a common language nor a way of life with any other tribe. Nothing prevents the Hellenes from designating it with such a name, as it were, because of the construction of towers for housing, or, as it were, by the name of their ancestor. The Romans designate them by other names, namely: by the name of Etruria, the land in which they live, they call the people themselves Etruscans. And for their experience in the performance of sacred services in temples, in which they differ from all other peoples, the Romans now call them the less understandable name of Tusks, they used to call them, clarifying this name by its Greek meaning, Tiosks ... But they themselves call themselves exactly that but ... by the name of one of their leaders - Rasennas ... ”(translated by S. P. Kondratiev).
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Konstantin Milyaev
As a boy, reading a children's encyclopedia, I drew attention to the history of the mysterious people - the Etruscans. And when I read that the Etruscan language still cannot be translated, despite the numerous examples of writing that have survived, I already thought: “Etruscans ... The root of the word is Russian ... This is very similar to the word “Russians.” Why not try to decipher And already as an adult, having become acquainted with the works of the writer Vladimir Shcherbakov and a number of other Etruscan researchers, I returned to this topic again.
Descendants of the sons of the leopard
The Roman historian Titus of Livy wrote about the Etruscans of the first millennium BC as follows: “The Etruscan Empire before the Roman Empire covered significant areas by land and sea ... They dominated the upper and lower seas that wash Italy ... One of them is called Tussky by the Italian peoples , by the name of the people, the other - by the Adriatic, from Adria, the colony of the Etruscans ... ".
Fifty-oared Etruscan ships 25 meters long plowed the Mediterranean expanses both near Etruria and very far from it. The Etruscan warships were equipped with an underwater metal ram, which the Romans called the rostrum (the word is undoubtedly the Etruscan "sprout").
On the coins of Vetulonia and other Etruscan city-states, you can see the image of an improved anchor with two metal paws. It is not difficult to understand the advantages of such an anchor: before its invention, anchor stones, baskets with stones were used.
The most famous of the Etruscan cities - Chatal-Gyuyuk and Chayenu-Telezi - were found by archaeologists in Asia Minor. The inhabitants of Chatal-Gyuyuk built houses from raw bricks in the 7th millennium BC. They knew 14 species of cultivated plants. Scraps of fabrics of that period cause amazement even among modern weavers. The technique of polishing obsidian mirrors was unique. Holes in beads made of semi-precious stones were drilled thinner than the eye of a needle. The craftsmanship and artistic taste of the ancient Etruscans far surpass anything known to other regions of our planet. Judging by some signs, this most ancient of human civilizations could compete with the legendary Atlantis in many ways.
Sanctuaries and temples were found in Chatal-Guyuk, and a whole priestly region of this ancient settlement was found. The mother goddess, who gives life to a child (one of the main deities of Chatal-Gyuyuk), sits on a throne, the handles of which are decorated in the form of two leopards. Eastern Atlantis, as Etruria was called, is millennia older than the pyramids and other ancient monuments, including the Sumerian ones.
One of the oldest Etruscan frescoes depicts a leopard motif. Two lead the horse by the bridle. On a horse is a boy, behind him is a leopard or a cheetah. The beast trustingly put its paw on the boy's shoulder. The fresco was found on the territory of modern Italy, but the homeland of the Etruscans is still Asia Minor. In the language of the Khatgs, who inhabited Asia Minor five or six thousand years ago, one can find the root "ras" in the name of the leopard. The Etruscans called themselves races.
In ancient times, a single proto-language developed in the Eastern Mediterranean. Its bearers are the most ancient tribes who worshiped the leopard - the race: races, russes, rusits. It was they who at one time withstood the blow of the great Atlanteans, who intended to enslave the entire Mediterranean.
The mystery of Etruscan letters
Unfortunately, there are still many difficulties with the decipherment of Etruscan letters. One of the reasons for this is the use of Latin transcription to "sound" Etruscan inscriptions. But the Latin alphabet cannot convey the features of the Etruscan language, and therefore cannot lead to a correct understanding of Etruscan words. This was and is the main obstacle that did not allow Western specialists to approach the goal. Most translations from Etruscan are incorrect, only a small part of them conveys the approximate meaning of individual texts. And even the found parallel texts in the Etruscan and Phoenician languages do not help the cause.
If we proceed from the fact that the Russian language retains an organic relationship with the language of the Rasen-Etruscans, we finally get the key to deciphering the ancient inscriptions.
The Etruscans, figuratively speaking, are a large branch of the Hitto-Slavic tree. In this regard, we can recall the Ruthenians who lived in the south of France. And in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" it is not Venetians, as the translators interpret, but "Veneditsi" - Venedichi, Wends. Evidence of this can also be found in the Book of Veles, which speaks of the Wends who went west. The Etruscan verb "vende" - to lead, to lead away - confirms this. Lamentation for "take away the princes to Rostislav" is also an Etruscan trace. The name of one of the goddesses of Etruria is Una, "young". Then they said "unosha", not "young man". This root has left a deep mark in the modern Russian language. The suffixes "onok", "yonok" owe their origin to him. The little lynx is literally "young lynx".
"Mini muluvanetse avile vipena" - this is how one of the Etruscan inscriptions looks like. The inscriptions on the products of ancient masters often begin with the pronouns "I", "me". In the given example, the translation into Russian should be as follows: "The artist Avil (performed) me." Muluvanets (muluvanets) is an artist, something like the corresponding verb sounds in modern Ukrainian. However, in special works one can find a different translation: "I was initiated by Aulus Vibenna." But this translation contradicts the already established norms of the Etruscan language itself, in which the verb always completes the phrase. So "muluvanetse" can't be a verb.
Here are a few Etruscan words (some of which are known to Etruscologists): una - young; tour - a gift; turutse - gave; turan - giver; spur - collection; tes - tes; avil - year - oval; date, goodbye - date; glory - glory; torna - road; venev - a wreath; tum - thought, thought; lepo - beautiful; rosh - rye, wheat, bread; ade, yade - poison; strength - strength; zhinace - reap, chest; tel - do; zhisi - life; tablecloths - bedspread, tablecloth; zusle - must; rastoropevi - quickness; apex - vigilance; ais, yais - the beginning, god, egg; puya, poya - wife; puin, puinel - intoxicated, violent; karchaz, karchazhe - wild boar (cf. "uproot" from the habit of wild boars to pull out roots from the ground); titmouse - titmouse; arel - eagle; ali - or; ita—this; an, en - he; mi - I; mini me; ti - you; eni - they.
There is a difficult word "lautni" in the Etruscan language. Its translation means a dependent group of people, slaves for example. There are other interpretations of this term: a household member, a freedman, a family member, etc. Let's pay attention to the sound of the word. Lautni - laudni - people - people. Much later, this word, as it were, returned in the expressions "people of the count such and such", "human", etc. Zilak in Etruria is an official. The chain helps to understand its sound: "zilak - strongman - strongman". The meaning of the word itself is: "powerful", "strongest", "leader".
However, another analogy is also possible. "Sun" in Etruscan sounds like "strength". One of the most ancient roots, preserved in the word "shine", must be hidden in it. “Strength”, “asserted”, as it were, bring together strength and radiance.
In the complex term "zilak mehl rasenal" one can catch already familiar consonances. The translation, apparently, should sound like this: "leader of the Rasen force."
Tin - the main god of the Etruscans, the god of day, light. It sounds the same Russian word"day".
The sons of the leopard were once a force capable of overturning the Atlanteans.
The catastrophe, which the Earth did not yet know, destroyed all the cities of Eastern Atlantis - the birthplace of the universal proto-language. Only after a millennium did the first settlements begin to rise - mainly on the continent, away from the coast. This is how Chatal-Gyuyuk (modern name), Jericho, arose.
But even four thousand years later, the coastal areas have not reached their former prosperity. ancient tribes only partially recovered from the terrible losses. They preserved the language and the cult of the leopard. Later they were called Pelasgians. In the ancient Phoenician, Cretan, Asia Minor, Aegean settlements, they spoke the same parent language. At the turn of the second or third millennium BC, the Achaean Greeks came from the continental regions, whose tribes in ancient times suffered less from the catastrophe, since their habitats were not connected with the sea and were not devastated by the elements.
Genuine barbarian Greeks seized the territory of present-day Greece, destroyed the cities of the Pelasgians, their fortresses, razed the Pelasgikon fortress to the ground, on the site of which the Parthenon was built only one and a half thousand years later. Many of the Pelasgians crossed over to Crete to escape the invasion. Before that, the cities of the Pelasgians-Minoans flourished in Crete. Their writing has been read, but still not understood. Their language is unknown to linguists, although this is the parent language spoken by the Lydians, Libyans, Canaanites, Cimmerians, Trypillians, Etruscans, the inhabitants of Troy and many, many others.
In the middle of the second millennium BC, the Greeks reached Crete. The full-blooded art of the Minoans-Pelasgians gives way to a dry and lifeless stylization. The motifs traditional for Minoan painting - flowers, starfish, octopuses on palace-style vases - disappear or are reborn into abstract graphic schemes.
And yet the Achaean culture of the Greeks was able to borrow a lot from the Minoans. Including linear syllabics, religious rites along with the gods themselves, plumbing, fresco painting, clothing styles and much more.
Approximately seven hundred years later, the Achaean Mycenaean culture flourished. But a new invasion of the Greek barbarians, known as the Dorians, fell upon the lands of Greece and the surrounding regions. After it began new period Greek history- Homeric, as it is customary to call it. The Dorian conquest set Greece back several centuries. Palaces, citadels and entire cities lay in ruins.
The Philistines were also Pelasgians (from their name comes the very word "Palestine"). The Philistines arrived on the Palestinian coast at about the same time as the first nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes from the East. The Pelasgians and the Philistines are the closest relatives of the Etruscan Rasenians.
Much of their culture became the property of other peoples, including the Greeks, nomads who came to Palestine, etc. Both the Pelasgians, and many tribes of the so-called peoples of the sea, and the Trypillians - the creators of the Trypillian culture on the Dnieper - were ultimately the sons leopard, that is, the Russians, the Russians of Asia Minor.
Etruscan "qi" means "three". "Tsipoli" literally means "three pains". That's what they called the onion. After all, his throat hurts, his nose hurts, his eyes hurt.
The Ukrainian "cibulya" and the Italian "cipollo", "cipollino" testify to the Etruscan roots. And the Russian word for "chicken" is literally "three-fingered".
There is evidence that at the turn of our era, Etruscan was still spoken in the Alpine valleys. Later, the rutens made the transition to the Dnieper, "to their homeland." Perhaps the descendants of the Etruscans from the northern regions participated in this campaign.
What did Etruria give Rome? Here is a short list: musical instruments, anchor, theatre, mining, ceramics and metalworking, herbalism, land reclamation, cities in Italy, the art of divination, the Capitoline she-wolf. The first kings of Rome were the Etruscans. The eternal city of Rome itself was founded by the Etruscans. Almost everything that the Etruscans built in the eternal city, the Romans later identified with the epithet "greatest." The Etruscan canal system is still part of the urban economy of Rome today.
In the city of Nikonia (Dniester region) a figurative vessel was found, on which one can read the Russian inscription in Greek letters: "Keep your wife with agodos." Translation: "Keep yourself a wife with his daughter (dosh - daughter)." The figurine vessel depicts a man and a woman. The woman's face is wrapped in a scarf, under the scarf is a child. It matches the inscription. It turns out that Russian texts are a common phenomenon on the Black Sea coast of the first millennium BC. e. and first centuries AD. e. The inscriptions from Nikonia are more than two thousand years old, Al-Khwarizmi once named the Black Sea cities in his book: Rastiyanis, Arsas, Arusinia. Now we can say with confidence: these are the cities of the Rus, the descendants of the legendary sons of the leopard.
Since the Roman conquest plunged the mysterious Etruscans into oblivion, their language has become an impregnable fortress for linguists. However, in recent decades, "the people who refuse to speak" reluctantly began to reveal their secrets ...
VITALY SMIRNOV
CRADLE OF IMPERIAL ROME
“... I saw a young warrior in full armor - in a helmet, with a spear, shield and leggings. Not a skeleton, but the warrior himself! It seemed that death had not touched him. He lay stretched out, and one might think that he had just been laid in the grave. This vision lasted for a fraction of a second. Then it disappeared, as if dispelled by the bright light of torches. The helmet rolled off the ancients noted the modesty, simplicity and masculinity of the Etruscan men, but accused them of cruelty and deceit during the wars. But the behavior of Etruscan women seemed to foreigners, to put it mildly, strange. In contrast to the subordinate position of the Greeks and Romans, they enjoyed great freedom and even engaged in public affairs. Aristotle himself descended to gossip, accusing Etruscan women of dissolute behavior, which, according to the philosopher, was the norm in the Tyrrhenian right; a round shield was pressed into the armor that covered the chest; the leggings, having lost their support, were on the ground. From contact with the air, the body, which had lain undisturbed for centuries, suddenly turned to dust, and only dust particles, which seemed golden in the light of torches, still danced in the air.
So the Roman antiquarian Augusto Yandolo tells about the opening of an ancient Etruscan tomb, which he attended as a child. The scene he described can serve as a symbol - greatness, almost instantly turning to dust ...
The people, which the Romans called the Etruscans or Tusci, and the Greeks the Tyrrhenians or Tersenes, called themselves Rasnas or Rassenes. It is believed that he appeared in Italy in the XI century BC. e.
This is followed by a break of several centuries, when nothing was heard of the Etruscans. And suddenly by the VIII century BC. e. it turns out: the Etruscans are a people with developed agriculture and crafts, their cities conduct extensive overseas trade, exporting grain, metal, wine, ceramics, dressed leather. The Etruscan nobility - lukumon - builds fortified cities, seeks fame and fortune in continuous campaigns, raids and battles.
Two peoples are fighting at this time for dominance of the sea - the Greeks and the Carthaginians. The Etruscans take the side of the Carthaginians, their pirates dominate the Mediterranean - and the Greeks are afraid to go even into the Tyrrhenian Sea.
In the 7th-6th centuries BC. e. cities arise in Etruria: Veii, Caere, Tarquinius, Clusius, Arretius, Populonia. Etruscan influence extends from the Alps to Campagna. In the north they found Mantua and Felzina (now Bologna), in Campania twelve other cities. The Etruscan city of Adria in the northeast of the Apennine Peninsula gave its name to the Adriatic Sea. By the VI century BC. e. The Etruscans control an area of 70 thousand square kilometers, their number is two million people. They dominate the ancient world.
Much of what we consider primordially Roman was born not on the hills of Latium, but on the plains of Etruria. Rome itself was created according to the Etruscan rite. The ancient temple on the Capitol and a number of other sanctuaries in Rome were built by Etruscan craftsmen. The ancient Roman kings from the Tarquinian family were of Etruscan origin; many Latin names are of Etruscan origin, and some historians believe that it was through the Etruscans that the Romans borrowed the Greek alphabet.
The oldest state institutions, laws, positions, circus games, theatrical performances, gladiator fights, the art of divination, and even many gods - all this came to the Romans from the Etruscans. Symbols of power - fasciae (bundles of rods with axes embedded in them), which were carried in front of the king, a senatorial toga trimmed with a purple border, the custom of triumph after defeating the enemy - and this is the legacy of the Etruscans. The Romans themselves admitted that triumphal and consular decorations were transferred to Rome from Tarquinia. Even the word "Rome" itself is of Etruscan origin, as well as other words considered purely Latin - tavern, cistern, ceremony, persona, letter.
How did it happen that the more developed Etruria was defeated by the almost barbarian Italic tribes?
The reason is that the Etruscans, like the Greeks of the Camedon era, were unable to create a single state. Only a federation of self-governing cities emerged. The heads of cities, who gathered in the sanctuary of the goddess Voltkumna, alternately chose from their midst the chief, who could only conditionally be considered a king, and the priest-high priest. For the Etruscan, the concept of homeland was limited to the city walls, beyond which his patriotism did not extend.
The power and influence of the Etruscans reached their zenith in 535 BC. e. Then, in the battle of Alalia in Corsica, the combined Carthaginian-Etruscan fleet inflicted a crushing defeat on the Greeks, and Corsica passed into the possession of the Etruscans. But just a few years later, the Etruscans began to suffer defeats from the Greeks and the previously conquered Italian tribes. Around this time, Rome was also freed from Etruscan domination. In the 5th century BC e. the territory of Etruria is greatly reduced, the connection between the cities, already fragile, is collapsing. Cities don't come to each other's aid. Experienced farmers and builders, skillful metallurgists, cunning inventors of anchors and sea rams, fearless and ferocious warriors were powerless before young Rome and its close-knit allies. Having subjugated the whole of Etruria, the Romans continued to remain under the spell of the Etruscan culture, which slowly withered as the Roman civilization flourished. By the middle of the 1st century BC. e. the Etruscans in the culture of Rome lost all meaning. Soon, only a few amateurs remembered the Etruscan language, one of whom was the emperor Claudius I (10 BC-54 AD). He wrote an Etruscan history in Greek in twenty volumes and ordered that every year fixed days readers publicly read it from beginning to end in a building specially built for this purpose. Alas, the work of Claudius has not come down to us. However, some researchers believe that it is unlikely that the emperor knew more about the Etruscans than the learned men who preceded him.
What was known about the origin of the Etruscans by ancient scientists?
Herodotus claimed that they arrived in Italy by sea from Asia Minor under the leadership of King Tyrrhenus. The famous geographer Strabo agreed with him. Another historian of antiquity, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, considered the Etruscans to be the original inhabitants of the Apennines, autochthons. Neither in antiquity, nor at the present time, he wrote, not a single people had and does not have a language and customs similar to the Etruscan ones. The third historian, Titus Livy, saw the similarity of the Etruscans with the Alpine tribe of Retes and therefore believed that the Etruscans once descended from the Alps.
Despite the past millennia, official science cannot offer anything new, except for these three versions or their combinations. And yet, even without mastering the language of the Etruscans, modern archaeologists and historians know not so little about the Etruscans. Their way of life, way of life, religion, partly laws and state institutions are known.
Historians of antiquity noted the modesty, simplicity and masculinity of Etruscan men, but accused them of cruelty and deceit during wars. But the behavior of Etruscan women seemed to foreigners, to put it mildly, strange. In contrast to the subordinate position of the Greeks and Romans, they enjoyed great freedom and even engaged in public affairs. Aristotle himself descended to gossip, accusing Etruscan women of dissolute behavior, which, according to the philosopher, was the norm in Tyrrhenian society.
At the same time, they were a more religious people than the Greeks and Romans. But unlike the rational, state religion of the Romans and the major religion of the Greeks, almost inseparable from myths, the Etruscan faith was gloomy, harsh and saturated with the idea of sacrifice. The most influential were: Tinia - the supreme god of the sky, Uni and Menrva. Among the Romans, they turned into Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. But there were many gods themselves. The sky was divided into sixteen regions, each of which had its own deity. And there were also the gods of the sea and the underworld, the gods of natural elements, rivers and streams, the gods of plants, gates and doors; and deified ancestors; and just various demons. The gods of the Etruscans demanded propitiation, cruelly punishing people for mistakes and lack of attention to their persons.
In an effort to comprehend the will of the gods and predict the future, the Etruscans developed a complex system of observing natural phenomena, divination by the flight of birds, the entrails of animals, and lightning strikes. Later, the Romans adopted the art of divination from the entrails of animals from the Etruscan soothsayers haruspices.
The Etruscans constantly made sacrifices to the gods, and the greatest was human life. As a rule, these were criminals or captives. Apparently, this is how the custom arose to force prisoners to fight to the death during the funeral of a noble person. The rationalist Romans turned this religious, albeit bloody, ritual into a spectacle for the mob. However, at critical moments for the homeland, the Etruscans, without hesitation, sacrificed their own lives to the gods.
It was religion and language that most of all distinguished the Etruscans from neighboring tribes; they were an absolutely alien element among the peoples surrounding them.
Much less is known about Etruscan science, with the exception of medicine, which was admired by the Romans. It is no coincidence that the ancient Roman historian wrote about "Etruria, famous for the discovery of medicines." Etruscan doctors were well aware of human anatomy. They achieved great success as dentists: in some burials even dentures are found.
About the secular literature, scientific and historical works of the Etruscans, only vague hints from antiquity have been preserved, and the probability of finding such texts is zero. The Etruscans did not carve them on stone or metal, and a papyrus scroll cannot physically survive for thousands of years. Most of the Etruscan texts that scientists have are funerary and dedicatory inscriptions. That is why many researchers believe that even if the Etruscan language is deciphered, this will slightly increase the knowledge of modern scientists about ancient civilization. However, work on deciphering the Etruscan language continues ...
GERMAN MALINICHEV
ETRUSIAN IS ANCIENT RUSSIAN!
Almost five hundred years have passed since the first attempt was made, if not to decipher the Etruscan language, then at least to establish its origin. During this time, experts managed to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs, Sumerian cuneiform writing, find the key to the writings of the Hittites, Lydians, Carians, ancient Persians, and Etruscology is still marking time. Moreover, about thirty years ago, Italian scientists said: this language is encrypted in some mystical way and is generally inaccessible to the understanding of modern man.
At the same time, the writing of the Etruscans is well known. Because they used Greek alphabet, perhaps slightly adapting it to transmit sounds other than Greek own language. Scientists will read any Etruscan text without hesitation, but no one can understand what they read. Researchers cannot even complain about the absence of Etruscan texts. Over 10 thousand Etruscan inscriptions on sarcophagi, urns, grave steles, walls of tombs, figurines, vessels and mirrors have come down to our times. True, 90% of these inscriptions are of a funerary or dedicatory nature and are very short - they contain from one to four words. However, the longest Etruscan inscription, found on the shrouds of a Ptolemaic mummy, contains one and a half thousand words. But, despite this, the successes of Western European linguists over the past century have been very modest.
And what was the situation in Russia?
Our etruscology originates in the 18th century, when many Russian scientists visited Italy in order to study ancient antiquities. In 1854, a generalizing work by E. Klassen “New materials for ancient history Slavs and Slavo-Russians in general. Klassen became the first researcher in the history of Etruscology to propose using the Old Russian language for the translation of Etruscan inscriptions, more than a hundred years ahead of linguists who returned to this idea only by 1980. It was then that the Rasen Etruscans began to be called Proto-Slavs, and a little later several popular articles appeared that proved the actual identity of the cultures, religion and language of the ancient inhabitants of the Apennines and the Slavs. official science did not recognize this hypothesis, declaring it a dead end. At the same time, academic scientists referred to publications in the foreign press, which proved that Etruscan writings cannot be deciphered using Hungarian, Lithuanian, Phoenician, Finnish and other languages. A strange argument: after all, this list did not include the Old Slavic language, these articles did not refute the Slavic version.
In 2001, Valery Osipov, a candidate of philological sciences and lexicologist, published a pamphlet titled The Sacred Old Russian Text from Pyrga as an appendix to the Russian Miracle magazine.
In 1964, forty kilometers northwest of Rome, in the ruins of the ancient port of Pirgi, which was part of the Etruscan state of Pere, three golden plates with inscriptions were found. One was in the Punic (Phoenician) language, the other two were in Etruscan. The temple, in the ruins of which the plates were located, was destroyed and plundered by the soldiers of the Syracusan tyrant Hieron. The plates are dated to the 6th-5th centuries BC. e.
At first, scientists were very happy, deciding that they had fallen into their hands bilingual - the same text in two languages, one of which is known. Alas, the Etruscan and Punic texts turned out to be different. Nevertheless, scientists have repeatedly tried to decipher the Etruscan text on the plates from Pyrgi, but failed each time. The meaning of the translation was different for all researchers.
Osipov, on the other hand, saw the key to deciphering in a language close to the famous "Vlesova book", that is, in ancient Slavic writings, recently completely deciphered. In principle, Osipov approached reading the text in the same way as his predecessors, he also read it from right to left, and voiced most of the characters in the same way. But there were differences in his work.
The Etruscans often composed their texts from phrases, words, signs merged into one line, which always interfered with linguists. Word division is the main problem of codebreakers, who first read the text and then tried to understand its meaning. Since the division of the text into words was different for everyone, the meaning also turned out to be different. There were as many “Old Etruscan languages” as there were codebreakers.
Osipov, on the other hand, rewrote the text in the usual letters of the modern Russian alphabet and in the usual direction - from left to right. The transition from reading to understanding the meaning was made already at the stage of word division.
And what?
The language of the golden plates turned out to be a “clattering” dialect, similar to the language of the Vlesovaya Book.
The author read: “itat” is this, “miaitsats” is a month. “dick” is a man, sir, “tleka” is only, “uniala” is calmed, “dream” is between, “bel” is henbane, “tslub” is a ball, “korb” is a jug, dishes, “mae” - has, “natsat” - start, “green” very much, “varne” - a brew, “lkvala” - rejoiced, and so on.
The text on the plates from Pirga turned out to be a description of an ancient ritual that the Etruscans transferred to the Italian lands from Asia Minor. Perhaps this is just a fragment. In any case, Valery Osipov believes that there is clearly no beginning in the text. Ancient priests tell how to hold summer games on the day of the solstice. The holiday was erotically unbridled, and the text contains advice on how to overcome female coldness with the help of stimulating decoctions of henbane and mistletoe, which remove shame and give sexual strength. According to Valery Osipov, the text from Pirga may bring to us the practical experience of the ancestors, who recommended to intensify sexual life during a certain period of the year, so as not to get out of the natural rhythm and not to violate the divine prescriptions. The life of the Etruscans in general was subject to many strict religious rules and formal rituals.
Moreover, erotic games among all peoples of antiquity also pursued a magical goal - with their sexual activity, a person sought to influence the fertility of sown fields and to increase the number of domestic animals. Here it is appropriate to recall the Slavic holiday of Ivan Kupala, named so not from the word "swim", as many believe, but from the word KUPA - a bunch. The same root in the words KUPNO, COPOM, TOGETHER, COMBINE, in French COUPLE - a couple, a couple.
The text from Pirga is extremely frank and even naturalistic, therefore, in the brochure, Osipov does not give its translation into modern Russian, but offers a variant of the text written from left to right in the letters of the modern Russian alphabet, divided into words.
Valery Osipov sent his translation of the text from Pirga to scientists in different countries of the world, but no one answered him. Meanwhile, the Russian researcher translated dozens of Etruscan inscriptions with his own method, and in one epitaph on an Etruscan sarcophagus from Tuscany he found the name of the common Slavic god Veles, the god of pagan cattle breeders. The Russian researcher sent a message about this to many Etruscologists, but they did not believe him either.
The work of the French orientalist Z. Mayani "Etruscans begin to speak" echoes the work of V. D. Osipov. Mayani's book is quite popular in Western Europe and in 2003 was published in Russia by the Veche publishing house. The French scientist deciphered some Etruscan texts using the Old Albanian (Illyrian) language, making more than three hundred etymological comparisons between Etruscan and Illyrian words. Mayani seems to have needed the help of benevolent linguists to validate his method, but linguists have dismissed his method as subjective and does not give the full picture. Academicians backed up their opinion with the authority of ... the ancient Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who believed that the Etruscan language is not like any other. But the Illyrian language, like Old Russian, belongs to the Indo-European language group. It has been proven that the Etruscan language belongs to the same group. The ancient Illyrian tribes on the way from Asia Minor to the Balkans could well intersect with the Proto-Etruscans.
Despite everything, official etruscology continues to believe: "the Etruscans refuse to speak." However, the works of such researchers as V. Osipov and Z. Magnani testify that the ancient people have already spoken, but many scientists do not want to hear it.
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