The Etruscan language was spoken and written by Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria (modern Tuscany plus western Umbria and northern Latium) and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna (where the Etruscans were displaced by Gauls), in Italy. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy Etruria &mdash usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia &mdash was a region of Central Italy, located in an area Tuscany (Toscana is a region in Italy. It has an area of 22990 km² and a population of about 3 Umbria is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. The capital is Perugia. Latium was a region of ancient Italy, home to the original Latin people. Lombardy (Lombardia Latin: Langobardia, Western Lombard: Lumbardìa, Eastern Lombard: Lombardia) is one of the Veneto or Venetia ( Vèneto) is one of the 20 regions of Italy. Emilia-Romagna is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. The capital is Bologna. Gaul (Gallia was the Roman name for the region of Western Europe comprising present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest However, Latin superseded Etruscan completely, leaving only a few documents and a few loanwords in Latin (e. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. g. , persona from Etruscan φersu^[1]), and some place-names, such as Roma. Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2

History of Etruscan literacy

Drawing of the inscriptions on the Piacenza liver, see haruspex. Piacenza ( Placentia in Latin and old-fashioned English, Piasëinsa in the local dialect of Emiliano-Romagnolo) is a In Roman practice inherited from the Etruscans, a haruspex (plural haruspices) was a man trained to practice a form of Divination called haruspicy

Etruscan literacy was widespread over the Mediterranean shores, as can be seen by about 13,000 inscriptions (dedications, epitaphs etc), most fairly short, but some of some length. Epigraphy (ἐπιγραφολογία from Greek ἐπιγραφή — "inscription" is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs engraved An epitaph (in Greek, &mdash literally " on the gravestone " is a short text honoring a deceased person strictly speaking that inscribed on ^[2] They date from about 700 BC. ^[3]

The Etruscans had a rich literature, as noted by Latin authors. Unfortunately only one book (now unreadable) has survived, although there is always some possibility that more will turn up. By AD 100, Etruscan had been replaced by Latin.

Only a few educated Romans with antiquarian interests, such as Varro, could read Etruscan. Marcus Terentius Varro (116 BC &ndash 27 BC also known as Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus, was a Roman The last person known to have been able to read it was the Roman emperor Claudius (10 BC – AD 54), who — in the context of his work in twenty books about the Etruscans, Tyrrenikà (now lost) — compiled a dictionary (also lost) by interviewing the last few elderly rustics who still spoke the language. The Roman Emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period (starting at about 27 BC Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus or Claudius I ( August 1, 10 BC &ndash October 13, AD 54 ( Tiberius Claudius Drusus from birth to Year 54 was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Julian calendar. Urgulanilla, his first wife, was Etruscan. Plautia Urgulanilla (fl first century) was the first wife of the future Roman Emperor Claudius. ^[4]

Livy and Cicero were both aware that highly specialized Etruscan religious rites were codified in several sets of books written in Etruscan under the generic Latin title Etrusca Disciplina. Titus Livius (traditionally 59 BC &ndash AD 17 known as Livy in English, was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome Marcus Tullius Cicero ( Classical Latin ˈkikeroː usually ˈsɪsərəʊ in English January 3, 106 BC &ndash December 7, 43 BC was a Roman The Libri Haruspicini dealt with divination from the entrails of the sacrificed animal, the Libri Fulgurales expounded the art of divination by observing lightning. Divination (from Latin divinare "to be inspired by a god" related to Divine, Diva and Deus) is the attempt of ascertaining A third set, the Libri Rituales, would have provided us with the key to Etruscan civilization: its wider scope embraced Etruscan standards of social and political life as well as ritual practices. According to the 4th century Latin writer Servius, a fourth set of Etruscan books existed, dealing with animal gods, but it is probably unlikely that any contemporary scholar could have read Etruscan at such a late date. As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 4th century (per the Julian calendar and Anno Domini / Common era) was that Century "Servius" redirects here For the Roman king see Servius Tullius. Christian authorities collected such works of paganism and burnt them during the 5th century; the single surviving Etruscan book, Liber Linteus, being written on linen, survived only by being used as mummy wrappings. The 5th century is the period from 401 to 500 in accordance with the Julian calendar in Anno Domini / Common Era. The Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis (also rarely known as Liber Agramensis) ( Latin: Linen Book of Zagreb or Book of Agram

Etruscan had some influence over Latin. A few dozen words were borrowed by the Romans and some of them can be found in modern languages.

Geographic distribution

Approximate distribution of languages in Iron Age Italy during the sixth century BC. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest

Inscriptions have been found in north-west and west-central Italy, in the region that even now bears the name of the Etruscans, Tuscany (from Latin tuscī "Etruscans"), as well as in today's Latium north of Rome, in today's Umbria west of the Tiber, around Capua in Campania and in the Po valley to the north of Etruria. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy Tuscany (Toscana is a region in Italy. It has an area of 22990 km² and a population of about 3 Latium was a region of ancient Italy, home to the original Latin people. Umbria is one of the 20 Regions of Italy. The capital is Perugia. The Tiber ( Latin Tiberis, Italian Tevere) is the third-longest River in Italy, rising in the Apennine mountains Capua is a city in the Province of Caserta, Campania, Italy situated 25 km (16 mi north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of Campania is a region of Southern Italy in Europe. The region has a population of around 5 The Po ( Latin: Padus, Po Ligurian: Bo, Greek: Eridanus) is a river that flows 652 km(405 miles (682 km by considering Presumably this range is a maximum Italian homeland where the language was at one time spoken.

Outside of Italy^[5] inscriptions have been found in Africa, Corsica, Elba, Gallia Narbonensis, Greece, the Balkans and the Black Sea. Corsica (Corse Corsican and Italian: Corsica) is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily Elba (Ilva is an island in Tuscany, Italy, from the coastal town of Piombino. Gallia Narbonensis ( Narbonese Gaul) was a Roman province located in what is now Languedoc and Provence, in southern France. Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία The Black Sea is an inland Sea bounded by southeastern Europe, the Caucasus and the Anatolian peninsula ( Turkey By far the greatest concentration is in Italy.

An inscription found on Lemnos in 1886, is in an alphabet practically identical to that of Etruscan.

Classification

The majority consensus is that Etruscan is related only to other members of what is called the Tyrsenian language family which in itself is an isolate family, that is, unrelated to other language groups by any known relationship. Aegean languages are the language groups spoken around the Aegean Sea area prior to and along with Greek. A language isolate, in the absolute sense is a Natural language with no demonstrable genealogical (or "genetic" relationship with other living languages that is Since Rix (1998) it is widely accepted that Tyrsenian is composed of Rhaetic and Lemnian together with Etruscan. For the modern Romance languages spoken in Switzerland and North-Eastern Italy see Rhaeto-Romance languages. The Lemnian language is a language of the 6th century BC spoken on the island of Lemnos.

In the 1st century BC the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus stated that the Etruscan language was unlike any other. The 1st century BC started the first day of 100 BC and ended the last day of 1 BC. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Halicarnassus c 60 BC–after 7 BC was a Greek historian and teacher of Rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of ^[6] He agrees with the prevalent modern view that Etruscan, or more recently Tyrsenian, is an isolate. Bonfante, a leading scholar in the field, says ". . . it resembles no other language in Europe or elsewhere . . . . "^[2]

Speculative relationships

The Etruscan language has been difficult to analyze, which is attributable to its being an isolate. The phonology is known through the alternation of Greek and Etruscan letters in some inscriptions (for example, the Iguvine Tables), and many individual words are known through loans into or from Greek and Latin, as well as explanations of Etruscan words by ancient authors. Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning The Iguvine Tables were a series of seven Bronze tablets discovered at Iguvium, contemporary Gubbio, in Italy in the year 1444. The Ancient Greek language is the historical stage in the development of the Hellenic language family spanning the Archaic (c Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. A few concepts of word formation have been formulated (see below). Knowledge of the language is incomplete.

Speculators nevertheless continue to compare known languages to Etruscan searching for a pattern match. Speculative decipherments utilize partial pattern matches. The key follows the formula: "Etruscan is really a form of X" where X is the known language or language group. None of these have found general academic credibility.

Semitic hypothesis

The interest in Etruscan antiquities and the mysterious Etruscan language found its modern origin in a book by a Dominican monk, Annio da Viterbo, called "il Pastura", the cabalist and orientalist who guided Pinturicchio's allegorical frescoes for Pope Alexander VI's Vatican apartments. Annio da Viterbo or Annius of Viterbo (c 1432 &ndash 13 November[[ 502]] or Joannes Annius Viterb(iensis, was an Italian Dominican friar A cabal is a number of people united in some close design usually to promote their private views and interests in a church, State, or other community often Oriental studies is the academic field of study that embraces Near Eastern and Far Eastern societies and cultures languages peoples history and archaeology in recent Bernardino di Betto, called Pintoricchio or Pinturicchio (1454 &ndash 1513 was an Italian painter of the Renaissance Pope Alexander VI ( 1 January 1431 &ndash 18 August 1503) born Roderic Llançol, later Roderic de Borja i Borja ( In 1498 Annio published his antiquarian miscellany titled Antiquitatum variarum (in 17 volumes) where he put together a fantastic theory in which both the Hebrew and Etruscan languages were said to originate from a single source, the "Aramaic" spoken by Noah and his descendants, founders of Etruscan Viterbo. Viterbo is an ancient city and Comune in the Lazio region of central Italy, the capital of the Province of Viterbo. Annio also started to excavate Etruscan tombs, unearthing sarcophagi and inscriptions, and made a bold attempt at deciphering the Etruscan language. Still, in the 19th century the theory of the Semitic origins found its supporters. In 1858, the last attempt was made by Johann Gustav Stickel, Jena University: "Das Etruskische (. Johann Gustav Stickel ( July 7, 1805 &ndash January 21, 1896) was a German Theologian, Orientalist and Friedrich Schiller University of Jena (FSU is located in Jena, Thuringia in Germany and was renamed for the German writer Friedrich Schiller . . ) als Semitische Sprache erwiesen". A reviewer concluded, that Stickel brought forward every possible argument which would speak for that hypothesis, and he proved with it the opposite of what he attempted to do (Johannes Gildemeister in ZDMG 13, 1859, 289-304).

Hungarian hypothesis

A recent (2003) study by linguist Mario Alinei has proposed the idea that Etruscan may have been an archaic form of Hungarian. Mario Alinei (born 1926 Turin) is Professor Emeritus at the University of Utrecht, where he taught from 1959 to 1987 currently living in Impruneta Hungarian ( magyar nyelv) is a Uralic language (more specifically a Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. Alinei's theory is based on similarities between certain words (magistrature names), agglutination, vowel harmony, construction of personal pronouns when used together with prepositions, etc. This theory has not been widely accepted in academic circles, and it has been rejected by practically all specialists of Uralic comparative linguistics. The Uralic languages (jʊˈrælɨk constitute a language family of 39 Languages spoken by approximately 20 million people Comparative linguistics (originally comparative Philology) is a branch of Historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to Critics accuse Alinei's work of being the product of mass comparison, a methodology that is not accepted by comparative linguists. Mass lexical comparison or mass comparison is a highly controversial method developed by the well-known linguist Joseph Greenberg to find genetic relationships among Historian Kenneth J. Dillon suggests that Alinei was nonetheless on the right track, that Etruscan was a distant cousin of Hungarian and was the language of Trojans who fled from the European side of the Dardanelles after the fall of Troy. See also [[Hellespont]] The Dardanelles ( Turkish: Çanakkale Boğazı Greek: Δαρδανέλλια Dardanellia) formerly ^[7]

Indo-European hypothesis

In 1861 Robert Ellis proposed that Etruscan was related to Armenian,^[8] a view that is now untenable. Some modern scholars^[9] assert that the Tyrsenian family is distantly related to the Indo-European family. Proponents of this hypothesis put together similarities of phonetics, vocabulary and syntax that they see.

Luvian

Frederik Woudhuizen has developed a theory that the Tyrsenians came from Anatolia, including Lydia, when they were driven out by the Cimmerians in the early Iron Age, 750-675 BC, leaving some colonists on Lemnos. Anatolia (Anadolu Ανατολία Anatolía) or Asia minor, comprising most of modern Turkey, is the geographic region bounded by the Black Defining Lydia Aside from a legend related by Herodotus, who states that the name Lydia came from king Lydus at the time of the fall of Troy See Cimmeria (Conan or Cimmeria (Poem for the fiction of Robert E Lemnos (Λήμνος is an island in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. He makes a number of comparisons of Etruscan to Luvian and asserts that Etruscan is modified Luvian. Luwian (sometimes spelled Luvian) is an extinct language of the Anatolian branch of the He accounts for the non-Luvian features as a Mysian influence: "deviations from Luwian . Mysia (Μυσία was a region in the northwest of ancient Asia Minor or Anatolia (part of modern Turkey) . . may plausibly be ascribed to the dialect of the indigenous population of Mysia. "^[10] According to Woudhuizen, the Etruscans were colonizing the Latins and the Villanovan and all preceding cultures were Indo-European. The Etruscans brought the alphabet from Anatolia. Dionysius of Halicarnassus was right for his time, but the Iron Age inhabitants of Lydia were Luvian. Defining Lydia Aside from a legend related by Herodotus, who states that the name Lydia came from king Lydus at the time of the fall of Troy

Writing system

Etruscan words have been successfully explained from the resources of the Armenian, the Albanian, and the Rhaeto-Romansch languages. The Armenian language (hy հայերեն լեզու hajɛɹɛn lɛzu —, conventional short form) is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian Albanian (sq ''Gjuha shqipe'' ˈɟuha ˈʃcipɛ is an Indo-European language spoken by nearly 6 million peoplewhile others claim that it derives from Daco - ^[11]

Alphabet

The Latin alphabet that is used in English owes its existence to the Etruscan writing system, which was adapted for Latin in the form of the Old Italic alphabet. Old Italic refers to several now extinct Alphabet systems used on the Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European (predominantly Italic The Etruscan alphabet^[12] employs a Euboean variant^[13] of the Greek alphabet using the letter digamma and was in all probability transmitted through Pithecusae and Cumae, two Euboean settlements in southern Italy. Old Italic refers to several now extinct Alphabet systems used on the Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European (predominantly Italic For the mythological figure see Euboea (mythology Euboea ( Modern Greek, Εύβοια - Évia &mdash The Greek alphabet (Ελληνικό αλφάβητο is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early Digamma (uppercase Ϝ, lowercase ϝ) is an archaic letter of the Greek alphabet, used primarily as a Greek numeral. For the comune see Ischia (comune. For the part of the human hip see Ischium Ischia is a Volcanic Island in the There is also a small modern Greek Euboean city called Κυμη, near the ruins of the ancient Cuma Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest This system is ultimately derived from West Semitic scripts. The history of the Alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the History of writing.

The Etruscans recognized a full 26-letter alphabet, which they depicted as itself for decoration on some objects such as an occasional ink-jar; for example, the "rooster ink-stand. "^[14] This has been termed the model alphabet. ^[15] They did not use four letters of it, mainly because Etruscan had no voiced stops, b, d and g, and also no o. They innovated one letter for f. ^[13]

Text

Writing was from right to left except in archaic inscriptions, which might use boustrophedon. Boustrophedon (ˌbustroʊˈfiːdən from Greek βουστροφηδόν "ox-turning"&mdashthat is turning like Oxen in Ploughing An example found at Cerveteri used left to right. Cerveteri is a town and Comune of the northern Lazio, in the Province of Rome. In the earliest inscriptions, the words are continuous. From the 6th century BC, they are separated by a dot or a colon, which might also separate syllables. Writing was phonetic; the letters represented the sounds and not conventional spellings. On the other hand, many inscriptions are highly abbreviated and often casually formed, so the identification of many individual letters is sometimes difficult. Spelling might vary from city to city, probably reflecting differences of pronunciation. ^[16]

Impossible consonants

Speech featured a heavy stress on the first syllable of a word, causing syncopation by weakening of the remaining vowels, which then were not represented in writing: Alcsntre for Alexandros, Rasna for Rasena. ^[13] This speech habit is one explanation of the Etruscan "impossible consonant clusters. " The resonants however may have been syllabic, accounting for some of the clusters (see below under Consonants). In Phonetics and Phonology, a sonorant is a Speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the Vocal tract. In other cases the scribe sometimes inserted a vowel: Greek Herakles became Hercle by syncopation and then was expanded to Herecele. Pallottino^[17] regarded this variation in vowels as "instability in the quality of vowels" and accounted for the second phase (e. g. , Herecele) as "vowel harmony, i. Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance ( see below) assimilatory phonological process involving Vowels in some languages e. , of the assimilation of vowels in neighboring syllables . . . . "

Phases

The writing system had two historical phases: the archaic, 7th to 5th century BC, which used the early Greek alphabet, and the later, 4th to 1st century BC, which modified some of the letters. In the later period syncopation increased.

The alphabet went on in modified form after the language disappeared. In addition to being the source of the Roman alphabet, it has been suggested that it passed northward into Venetic and from there through Raetia into the Germanic lands, where it became the Futhark, a system of runes. Venetic is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken in ancient times in the North- Italian Veneto and modern Slovenia, between Raetia (so always in inscriptions classical manuscripts usually use the form Rhaetia) was a province of the Roman Empire, bounded on the west by the country The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. ^[18]

The media

Bilinguals

The Pyrgi Tablets are a bilingual text in Etruscan and Phoenician engraved on three gold leaves, one for the Phoenician and two for the Etruscan. The Pyrgi Tablets, found in a 1964 excavation of a sanctuary of that town in Italy (current Santa Severa) a port of the southern Etruscan town Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Pūt in Ancient Egyptian Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew, and The Etruscan is in 16 lines, 37 words. The date is roughly 500 BC. ^[19] The tablets were found in 1964.

Longer texts

According to Rix and his collaborators only two unified (though fragmentary) texts are available in Etruscan:

• The Liber Linteus used for mummy wrappings (now at Zagreb, Croatia). The Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis (also rarely known as Liber Agramensis) ( Latin: Linen Book of Zagreb or Book of Agram Zagreb (ˈzɑːgrɛb is the Capital and the largest city of Croatia. Roughly 1200 words of readable text, mainly repetitious prayers yielding about 50 lexical items. ^[19]
• The Tabula Capuana (the inscribed tile from Capua). The Tabula Capuana ("Tegola di Capua" Etruscophiles like to call it now conserved in Berlin represents the second most extensive surviving Etruscan text after the Capua is a city in the Province of Caserta, Campania, Italy situated 25 km (16 mi north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of About 300 readable words in 62 lines, dating to the 5th century BC.

Some additional longer texts are:

• The lead foils of Punta della Vipera,^[20] about 40 legible words having to do with ritual formulae. Dated to about 500 BC.
• The Cippus Perusinus, a stone slab (cippus) found at Perugia. The Cippus Perusinus or Cippus of Perugia is a stone tablet discovered on the hill of San Marco near Perugia, Italy in 1822 Perugia is the capital City of the region of Umbria in central Italy, near the Tiber river and the capital of the Province of Perugia Contains 46 lines, 130 words.
• The Tabula Cortonensis, a bronze tablet from Cortona recording a legal contract. The Tabula Cortonensis, or the Cortona Tablet in English is a ca Cortona is a town and comune in the Province of Arezzo, in Tuscany, Italy. About 200 words.
• The Piacenza Liver, a bronze model of a sheep's liver representing the sky, with the engraved names of the gods ruling different sections. The Liver of Piacenza is an Etruscan artifact found on September 26 1877 near Gossolengo, in the Province of Piacenza, Italy

Inscriptions on monuments

Tumulus on a street at Banditaccia, the main necropolis of Caere. For Caere Inc see OmniPage and Nuance Communications. Caere (also Caisra

The main material repository of Etruscan civilization is or was its tombs. Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy Public and private buildings were dismantled and the stone reused centuries ago. The tombs remain as they were except for the ravages of time and the activities of plunderers. More tombs continue to be found regularly.

The tombs are the main source of portables in collections throughout the world, provenance unknown. The Etruscans lived well and valued art. Their objets d'art are of incalculable value, causing a brisk black market and equally brisk law enforcement effort. It is against the law to remove objects from Etruscan tombs unless authorized by the Italian government.

The total number of tombs is unknown due to the magnitude of the task of cataloguing them. They are of many different types. Especially fruitful are the hypogeal or "underground" chamber or system of chambers cut into tuff and covered by a tumulus. Hypogeum or Hypogaeum (plural hypogea) literally means "underground" from Greek hypo (under and Tuff (from the Italian "tufo" is a type of rock consisting of consolidated volcanic ash ejected from vents during a volcanic eruption A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a Mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves The interior of the tomb represents a habitation of the living stocked with furniture and favorite objects. The walls may display painted murals, the predecessor of wallpaper. A mural is a Painting on a wall ceiling or other large permanent surface Tombs are identified as Etruscan dating form the Villanovan period to about 100 BC, when presumably the cemeteries were abandoned in favor of Roman ones. The Villanovan culture was the earliest Iron Age culture of central and northern Italy, abruptly ^[21] Some of the major cemeteries are as follows:

• Caere or Cerveteri, a UNESCO site. For Caere Inc see OmniPage and Nuance Communications. Caere (also Caisra Cerveteri is a town and Comune of the northern Lazio, in the Province of Rome. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on November 16 ^[22] Three complete necropolises with streets and squares. A necropolis (plural necropoleis or necropoles) is a large Cemetery or burial place (from Greek nekropolis "city of the dead" Many hypogea are concealed beneath tumuli retained by walls; others are cut into cliffs. Hypogeum or Hypogaeum (plural hypogea) literally means "underground" from Greek hypo (under and A tumulus (plural tumuli) is a Mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves The Banditaccia necropolis contains more than 1000 tumuli. Access is through a door. ^[23]

• Tarquinia, Tarquinii or Corneto, a UNESCO site. Tarquinia, formerly Corneto and in Antiquity Tarquinii, is an ancient city in the Province of Viterbo, Lazio, Italy. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on November 16 ^[22] Approximately 6000 graves dating from the Villanovan (9th & 8th centuries BC) distributed in necropolises, the main one being the Monterozzi hypogea of the 6th - 4th centuries BC. The Villanovan culture was the earliest Iron Age culture of central and northern Italy, abruptly A necropolis (plural necropoleis or necropoles) is a large Cemetery or burial place (from Greek nekropolis "city of the dead" Hypogeum or Hypogaeum (plural hypogea) literally means "underground" from Greek hypo (under and About 200 painted tombs display murals of various scenes with call-outs and descriptions in Etruscan. Elaborately carved sarcophagi of marble, alabaster and nenfro include identificatory and achievemental inscriptions. Marble is a nonfoliated Metamorphic rock resulting from the Metamorphism of Limestone, composed mostly of Calcite (a crystalline form of Alabaster is a name applied to varieties of two distinct Minerals Gypsum (a hydrous sulfate of Calcium) and Calcite The Tomb of the Orcus at the Scatolini necropolis depicts scenes of the Spurinna family with call-outs. ^[24]

• Inner walls and doors of tombs and sarcophagi.
• Engraved steles (tombstones)
• ossuaries

Inscriptions on portable objects

Votives

Votive gifts

Specula

A speculum is a circular or oval hand-mirror used predominantly by Etruscan women. An ossuary is a chest building well or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains A votive deposit or votive offering is an object left in a Sacred place for Ritual purposes Speculum is Latin; the Etruscan word is malena or malstria. Specula were cast in bronze as one piece or with a tang into which a wooden, bone or ivory handle fitted. Bronze is any of a broad range of Copper alloys, usually with Tin as the main additive but sometimes with other elements such as Phosphorus The reflecting surface was created by polishing the flat side. A higher percentage of tin in the mirror improved its ability to reflect. The other side was convex and featured intaglio or cameo scenes from mythology. For the "brief appearance" see Cameo appearance. For the "chemical emergency software" see Computer-Aided Management of Emergency The piece was generally ornate. ^[25]

About 2300 specula are known from collections all over the world. As they were popular plunderables, the provenance of only a minority is known. An estimated time window is 530-100 BC. ^[26] Most probably came from tombs.

Many bear inscriptions naming the persons depicted in the scenes, for which reason they are often called picture bilinguals. In 1979, Massimo Pallottino, then president of the Istituto di Studi Etruschi ed Italici initiated the Committee of the Corpus Speculorum Etruscanorum (CSE), which resolved to publish all the specula and set editorial standards for doing so. Massimo Pallottino ( 9 November 1909 &ndash 7 February 1995) was an Archaeologist specializing in Etruscan civilization

Since then the committee has grown, acquiring local committees and representatives from most institutions owning Etruscan mirror collections. Each collection is published in its own fascicle by diverse Etruscan scholars. ^[27]

Cistae

A cista is a bronze container of circular, ovoid or more rarely rectangular shape used by women for the storage of sundries. They are ornate, often with feet and lids to which figurines may be attached. The internal and external surfaces bear carefully crafted scenes usually from mythology, usually intaglio, rarely part intaglio, part cameo. For the "brief appearance" see Cameo appearance. For the "chemical emergency software" see Computer-Aided Management of Emergency

Cistae date from the Roman Republic of the 4th and 3rd centuries BC in Etruscan contexts. The Roman Republic was the phase of the ancient Roman civilization characterized by a Republican form of government a period which began with the overthrow of the They may bear various short inscriptions concerning the manufacturer or owner or subject matter. The writing may be Latin, Etruscan or both. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome.

Excavations at Praeneste, an Etruscan city turned Roman, turned up about 118 cistae, one of which has been termed "the Praeneste cista" or "the Ficoroni cista" by art analysts, with special reference to the one manufactured by Novios Plutius and given by Dindia Macolnia to her daughter, as the archaic Latin inscription says. Palestrina (ancient Praeneste) is an ancient city and Comune (municipality with a population of about 18000 in Lazio, c All of them are more accurately termed "the Praenestine cistae. "^[28]

Rings and ringstones

Among the most plunderable portables from the Etruscan tombs of Etruria are the finely engraved gemstones set in patterned gold to form circular or ovoid pieces intended to go on finger rings. Etruria &mdash usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia &mdash was a region of Central Italy, located in an area This article is about a music album For information about the minerals see Gemstone. Of the magnitude of one centimeter, they are dated to the Etruscan floruit from the 2nd half of the 6th to the 1st centuries BC. A centimetre ( American spelling: centimeter, symbol cm) is a unit of Length in the Metric system, equal to one hundredth The two main theories of manufacture are native Etruscan^[29] and Greek. ^[30]

The materials are mainly dark red cornelian with agate and sard coming in from the 3rd to the 1st centuries BC along with purely gold finger rings of a hollow engraved bezel. Cornelian is a red variety of Chalcedony, which is cryptocrystalline Quartz. This article is about the semi-precious stone For other uses see Agate (disambiguation. is a Japanese tuning company and racing team from Toyota Aichi, mainly competing in the Super GT series and specialising in Toyota tuning parts The engravings, mainly cameo, but sometimes intaglio, depict scarabs at first and then scenes from Greek mythology, often with heroic personages called out in Etruscan. For the "brief appearance" see Cameo appearance. For the "chemical emergency software" see Computer-Aided Management of Emergency Dung beetles are beetles which feed partly or exclusively on Feces. The gold setting of the bezel bears a border design, such as cabling.

Coins

Etruscan-minted coins date ca. 500-200 BC. Use of the Euboïc-Syracusan standard, based on the silver litra of 13. 5 grams maximum, indicates the custom, like the alphabet, came from Greece. Roman coinage supplanted Etruscan, but the basic Roman coin, the sesterce, is believed to have been based on the 2. The sestertius, or sesterce, was an ancient Roman Coin. During the Roman Republic it was a small Silver, and rare coin issued 5 denomination Etruscan coin. ^[31] Etruscan coins have turned up in caches or individually in tombs and in excavations seemingly at random, concentrated, of course, in Etruria. Etruria &mdash usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia &mdash was a region of Central Italy, located in an area

Etruscan coins were in gold, silver and bronze, the gold and silver usually having been struck on one side only. The coin bore a denomination, a minting authority name, and a cameo motif. For the "brief appearance" see Cameo appearance. For the "chemical emergency software" see Computer-Aided Management of Emergency Gold denominations were in units of silver; silver, in units of bronze. Full or abbreviated names are mainly pupluna (Populonia), Vatl or Veltuna (Vetulonia), Velathri (Volaterrae), Velzu or Velznani (Volsinii) and Cha for Chamars (Camars). Populonia ( Latin: Populonium, Etruscan: Pupluna or Fufluna) is a Frazione Vetulonia, formerly called Vetulonium or Vatluna, was an ancient Town of Etruria, Italy, the site of which is probably occupied by Volterra is a town in the Tuscany region of Italy. History The town was a Neolithic settlement and an important Etruscan center with an Clusium was an ancient city in Italy, one of several found at the site Insignia are mainly heads of mythological characters or depictions of mythological beasts arranged in a symbolic motif: Apollo, Zeus, Janus, Athena, Hermes, griffin, gorgon, sphinx, hippocamp, bull, snake, eagle, etc. Zeus (zjuːs in Greek: nominative: Zeús /zdeús/ genitive: Diós; Modern Greek /'zefs/ in Greek mythology ATHENA was an Antimatter research project that took place at the AD Ring at CERN. Hermes ( Greek,, ˈhɝmiːz in Greek mythology, is the Olympian god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them of Shepherds and The griffin is a Legendary creature with the body of a Lion and the head and often wings of an Eagle. In Greek mythology, a gorgon ( Greek: γοργώ or γοργών transl A Sphinx is a Zoomorphic mythological figure which is depicted as a recumbent lion with a human head The hippocamp or hippocampus (plural hippocampi Greek: ἵπποκαμπος from ἵππος "horse" and κάμπος, "monster"

Recent discoveries

A book of gold sheets bound with gold rings went on display in May 2003 at the National History Museum in Sofia, Bulgaria. Sofia (София ˈsɔfija is the Capital and largest city of the Republic of Bulgaria, with a population of 1395568 in the Capital Municipality It consists of six bound sheets of 24-carat (100%) gold, with low-reliefs of a horseman, a mermaid, a harp and soldiers, with text. The KARAT (abbreviation "K" or 'Kt' or "KP" for Karat Plumb is a measure of the Purity of Gold Alloys. A mermaid is a Mythological aquatic creature that is half human half aquatic creature (e It was claimed to have been discovered about 1940 in a tomb uncovered during digging for a canal along the Strouma river in south-western Bulgaria, kept secretly and anonymously donated by its 87-year-old owner, living in the Republic of Macedonia. Strymon redirects here For the Strymon Gulf see Strymonian Gulf. ^[32]

Sounds

In the tables below, conventional letters used for transliterating Etruscan are accompanied by likely pronunciation in IPA symbols within the square brackets, followed by examples of the early Etruscan alphabet which would have corresponded to these sounds:

Vowels

The Etruscan vowel system consisted of four distinct vowels. Old Italic refers to several now extinct Alphabet systems used on the Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European (predominantly Italic In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract Vowels "o" and "u" appear to have not been phonetically distinguished based on the nature of the writing system where only one symbol is used to cover both in loans from Greek (e. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly g. Greek κώθων kōthōn > Etruscan qutun "pitcher").

	Front	Central	Back
High	i [i]		u [u]
Mid	e [e]
Low			a [ɑ]

Consonants

Table of consonants

	Bilabial		Dental		Alveolar	Palatal	Velar		Glottal
Stops	p [p]	φ [pʰ] Φ	t, d [t]	θ [tʰ] Θ			c, k, q [k]	χ [kʰ]
Fricatives	f [ɸ]		s [s]		ś [ʃ]				h [h]
Affricates			z [ʦ]
Nasals	m [m]		n [n]
Laterals			l [l]	r [r]
Approximants	v [w]					i [j]

Voiced stops missing

The Etruscan consonant system primarily distinguished between aspirated and non-aspirated stops. A front vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far forward A central vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between A back vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as A close vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in many spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as A mid vowel is a Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an An open vowel is a Vowel sound of a type used in most spoken Languages The defining characteristic of an open vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far as In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Affricate Consonants begin as stops (most often an alveolar, such as or) but release as a fricative (such as or or occasionally into A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Voiced stops such as English "b", "d" or "g" were non-distinct from [p], [t] and [k], respectively. When words were borrowed that had voiced stops, the stops were unvoiced: Greek thriambos to Latin triumpus and triumphus through Etruscan. ^[33]

Syllabic theory

Based on standard spellings by Etruscan scribes that appear otherwise to lack vowels or that have strings of clusters that as they occur seem phonetically impossible to pronounce, as seen in words like cl "of this (gen. )" and lautn "freeman", it is likely that "m", "n", "l" and "r" were sometimes written for syllabic resonants. In Phonetics and Phonology, a sonorant is a Speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the Vocal tract. Thus cl /kl̩/ and lautn /'lɑwtn̩/.

Rix postulates several syllabic consonants, namely /l, r, m, n/ and palatal /lʲ, rʲ, nʲ/ as well as a labiovelar spirant /xʷ/ and some scholars such as Mauro Cristofani also view the aspirates as palatal rather than aspirated but these views are not shared by most Etruscologists. Mauro Cristofani (born Rome Italy 1941 died 1997 was a linguist and researcher in Etruscan studies Rix supports his theories by means of variant spellings such as amφare/amφiare, larθal/larθial, aranθ/aranθiia.

Word formation

Etruscan was inflected, varying the endings of nouns, pronouns and verbs. For fusion in Word formation, see Compound (linguistics. A fusional language (also called inflecting language) is a In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. It also had adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions, which were uninflected. In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the Conjunctions is a biannual American literary journal publishing innovative fiction poetry criticism drama art and interviews by both emerging and established

Nouns

Etruscan substantives had five cases, a singular and a plural. All five cases are not attested for every word. Nouns merge the nominative and accusative; pronouns do not generally. Gender appears in personal names (masculine and feminine) and in pronouns (animate, or either masculine and feminine, and inanimate or neuter); otherwise, it is not marked. ^[34]

Unlike the Indo-European languages, the Etruscans might add two or three endings instead of alternative endings; for example, where Latin would have distinct nominative plural and dative plural endings, Etruscan would suffix the case ending to a plural marker: Latin nominative singular fili-us, "son", plural fili-i, dative plural fili-is, but Etruscan clan, clen-ar and clen-ar-aśi. ^[35]

Pallottino calls this phenomenon "morphological redetermination", which he defines as "the typical tendency . . . to redetermine the syntactical function of the form by the superposition of suffices. "^[36] His example is Uni-al-θi, "in the sanctuary of Juno", where -al is a genitive ending and -θi a locative. Steinbauer uses the term "inflecting language" (rather than inflected), which he explains as a language in which ". . . there can be more than one marker . . . to design a case, and . . . the same marker can occur for more than one case. "^[37]

Nominative/Accusative Case:
No distinction is made between nominative and accusative of nouns. The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive Common nouns use the unmarked root. Names of males may end in -e: Hercle (Hercules), Achle (Achilles), Tite (Titus); of females, in -i, -a or -u: Uni (Juno), Menrva (Minerva), Zipu. Names of gods may end in -s: Fufluns, Tins; or they may be the unmarked stem ending in a vowel or consonant: Aplu (Apollo), Paχa (Bacchus), Turan.

Genitive case:
Pallottino defines two declensions based on whether the genitive ends in -s/-ś or -l. In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another ^[38] In the -s group are most noun stems ending in a vowel or a consonant: fler/fler-ś, ramtha/ramtha-ś. In the second are names of females ending in i and names of males that end s, th or n: ati/ati-al, Laris/Laris-al, Arnθ/Arnθ-al. After l or r -us instead of -s appears: Vel/Vel-us. Otherwise a vowel might be placed before the ending: Arnθ-al instead of Arnθ-l.

There is a patronymic ending: -sa or -isa, "son of", but the ordinary genitive might serve that purpose. A patronym, is a component of a Personal name based on the name of one's father In the genitive case morphological redetermination becomes elaborate. Given two male names, Vel and Avle, Vel Avleś means "Vel son of Avle. " This expression in the genitive become Vel-uś Avles-la. Pallottino's example of a three-suffix form is Arnth-al-iśa-la.

Dative case:
The dative ending is -si:Tita/Tita-si. The dative case is a Grammatical case generally used to indicate the Noun to whom something is given ^[34]

Locative case:
The locative ending is -θi: Tarχna/Tarχna-l-θi. Locative (also called the seventh case) is a Grammatical case which indicates a location ^[39]

Pronouns

Personal pronouns refer to persons; demonstrative point out: English this, that. ^[40]

Personal

The first person personal pronoun has a nominative mi ("I") and an accusative mini ("me"). The nominative case is a Grammatical case for a Noun, which generally marks the subject of a Verb, as opposed to its object or other The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive The second person has a dative singular une ("to thee"), an accusative singular un ("thee") and an accusative plural unu ("you"). The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive The third person has a personal form an ("he" or "she") and an inanimate in ("it").

Demonstrative

The demonstratives are ca and ta used without distinction. The nominative/accusative singular forms are: ica, eca, ca, ita, ta; the plural: cei, tei. There is a genitive singular: cla, tla, cal and plural clal. In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another The accusative singular: can, cen, cn, ecn, etan, tn; plural cnl. Locative singular: calti, ceiθi, clθ(i), eclθi; plural caiti, ceiθi. Locative (also called the seventh case) is a Grammatical case which indicates a location

Adjectives

Though uninflected, adjectives fall into a number of types formed from nouns with a suffix:

• quality, -u, -iu or -c: ais/ais-iu, "god/divine"; zamaθi/zamθi-c, "gold/golden. "
• possession or reference, -na, -ne, -ni: paχa/paχa-na, "Bacchus, Bacchic"; laut/laut-ni, "family/familiar" (in the sense of servant)
• collective, -cva, -chva, -cve, -χve, -ia: sren/sren-cva: "figure/figured"; etera/etera-ia, "slave/servile"

Adverbs

Adverbs are unmarked: etnam, "again"; θui, "now"; θuni, "at first. " Most Indo-European adverbs are formed from the oblique cases, which become unproductive and descend to fixed forms. Cases such as the ablative are therefore called "adverbial. In Linguistics, ablative case ( abbreviated ABL) is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic " If there is any such system in Etruscan it is not obvious from the relatively few surviving adverbs.

Verbs

Verbs had an indicative mood and an imperative mood. Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive Verb forms that are used to signal modality. The imperative mood is a Grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests Tenses were present and past. Present Tense is the first Sagittarius album released in 1968 by Columbia Records. The past tense is a Verb tense expressing action activity state or being in the past of the current moment (in an Absolute tense system or prior The past tense had an Active voice and a Passive voice. In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified In Grammar, the voice (also called gender or diathesis of a verb describes the relationship between the action (or state that the verb expresses and the participants identified

Present active

Etruscan uses a verbal root with a zero suffix or -a without distinction to number or person: ar, ar-a, "he, she, we, you, they make. "

Past or preterite active

The -ce or -ke suffix to the root produces a third person singular active, which has been called variously a "past", a "preterite" or an "aorist. " In contrast to Indo-European, this form is not marked for aspect, nor are the roots, apparently, distinguished for their aspect; they are simply actions that went on in the past. In Linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a Verb defines the temporal flow (or lack thereof in the described event or state Examples: tur/tur-ce, "gives/gave"; sval/sval-ce, "lives/lived. "

Past passive

The third person past passive is formed with -che: mena/mena-ce/mena-che, "offers/offered/was offered. "

Vocabulary

See the list of Etruscan words and list of words of Etruscan origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project

The Etruscan vocabulary is now a few hundred words known with some certainty. Wiktionary (a Portmanteau of Wiki and Dictionary) is a multilingual, Web -based project to create a Free The exact count depends on whether the different forms and the expressions are included. The Wiktionary list referenced above is in alphabetic order. Below is a table of some of the words grouped by topic. ^[41]

Some words with corresponding Latin or other Indo-European forms are likely loanwords to or from Etruscan. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation For example, neftś "nephew", is probably from Latin (Latin nepōs, nepōtis; German neffe, Old Norse nefi). A few dozen from Etruscan survive in Latin; for example, elementum (letter), litterae (writing), cera (wax)/κερί (in Greek), arena (sand).

The Etruscan numerals are known although debate lingers about which numeral means "four" and which "six" (huθ or śa). The Etruscan numerals were used by the ancient Etruscans The system was adapted from the Greek Attic numerals and formed the inspiration for the later Roman Numerals are listed in their own article. Of them, and of the basic words in general, Bonfante (1990) says:^[42]

What these numerals show, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is the non-Indo-European nature of the Etruscan language. Basic words like numbers and names of relationships are often similar in the Indo-European languages, for they derive from the same root.

Notes

Bibliography

• (2003) Bilingualism and the Latin Language. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521817714.   Available for preview on Google Books.
• Bonfante, Giuliano; Bonfante, Larissa (2002). Giuliano Bonfante ( August 6, 1904 - September 9, 2005 in Rome) was an Italian linguistics scholar and expert on the language Larissa Bonfante is Professor of Classics at New York University and an international authority on Etruscan language and culture. The Etruscan Language: an Introduction. Manchester: University of Manchester Press. ISBN 0-7190-5540-7.   Preview available on Google Books.
• Bonfante, Larissa (1990). Etruscan. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07118-2.   Preview available at Google Books.
• Mario Alinei (2003). Mario Alinei (born 1926 Turin) is Professor Emeritus at the University of Utrecht, where he taught from 1959 to 1987 currently living in Impruneta Etrusco: una forma arcaica di ungherese. Bologna: Le edizioni del Mulino.  
• Cristofani, Mauro; et al (1984). Mauro Cristofani (born Rome Italy 1941 died 1997 was a linguist and researcher in Etruscan studies Gli Etruschi: una nuova immagine. Firenze, Giunti Martello.  
• Cristofani, Mauro (1979). Mauro Cristofani (born Rome Italy 1941 died 1997 was a linguist and researcher in Etruscan studies The Etruscans: A New Investigation (Echoes of the ancient world). Orbis Pub. ISBN 0-85613-259-4.  
• Pallottino, Massimo (1955). Massimo Pallottino ( 9 November 1909 &ndash 7 February 1995) was an Archaeologist specializing in Etruscan civilization The Etruscans. Penguin Books.   Translated from the Italian by J. Cremona.
• Rix, Helmut (1991). Helmut Rix ( July 4, 1926 – December 3, 2004) was a German linguist and professor of the Sprachwissenschaftliches Seminar of Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Etruskische Texte. G. Narr. ISBN 3-8233-4240-1.   2 vols.
• Steinbauer, Dieter H. (1999). Neues Handbuch des Etruskischen. Scripta Mercaturae. ISBN 3-89590-080-X.  
• Woudhuizen, Frederik Christiaan. April 2006. The Ethnicity of the Sea Peoples. Doctoral dissertation; Rotterdam: Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Faculteit der Wijsbegeerte. Erasmus University Rotterdam is a university in the Netherlands, located in Rotterdam.

See also

• Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum
• Etruscan alphabet
• Etruscan civilization
• Etruscan documents
  • Liber Linteus — An Etruscan linen book that ended as mummy wraps in Egypt. The Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum (Body of Etruscan inscriptions is a corpus of Etruscan texts collected by Karl Pauli and his followers since 1885 Old Italic refers to several now extinct Alphabet systems used on the Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European (predominantly Italic Etruscan civilization is the modern English name given to the culture and way of life of a people of ancient Italy The Liber Linteus Zagrabiensis (also rarely known as Liber Agramensis) ( Latin: Linen Book of Zagreb or Book of Agram Linen is a Textile made from the Fibers of the Flax plant Linum usitatissimum.
  • Tabula Cortonensis — An Etruscan inscription. The Tabula Cortonensis, or the Cortona Tablet in English is a ca
  • Cippus perusinus — An Etruscan inscription. The Cippus Perusinus or Cippus of Perugia is a stone tablet discovered on the hill of San Marco near Perugia, Italy in 1822
  • Pyrgi Tablets — Bilingual Etruscan-Phoenician golden leaves. The Pyrgi Tablets, found in a 1964 excavation of a sanctuary of that town in Italy (current Santa Severa) a port of the southern Etruscan town Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Pūt in Ancient Egyptian Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew, and
• Etruscan mythology
• Etruscan numerals
• Lemnian language
• List of English words of Etruscan origin
• List of Spanish words of Etruscan origin
• Raetic language
• Tyrsenian languages

External links

General

• Etruscan News Online, the Newsletter of the American Section of the Institute for Etruscan and Italic Studies. The Etruscans were a people of unknown origin living in Northern Italy, who were eventually integrated into Roman culture and politically became part of the Roman Republic The Etruscan numerals were used by the ancient Etruscans The system was adapted from the Greek Attic numerals and formed the inspiration for the later Roman The Lemnian language is a language of the 6th century BC spoken on the island of Lemnos. This is a list of English words that may be of Etruscan origin and were borrowed through Latin, often via French. This is a list of Spanish words of Etruscan origin All of these words existed in Latin and most of them have alternate etymologies. For the modern Romance languages spoken in Switzerland and North-Eastern Italy see Rhaeto-Romance languages. Aegean languages are the language groups spoken around the Aegean Sea area prior to and along with Greek.
• Etruscan News back issues, Center for Ancient Studies at New York University.
• Etruscology at Its Best, the website of Dr. Dieter H. Steinbauer, in English. Covers origins, vocabulary, grammar and place names.
• Viteliu: The Languages of Ancient Italy at web. archive. org.
• The Etruscan Language, the linguistlist. org site. Links to many other Etruscan language sites.

Inscriptions

• ETP: Etruscan Texts Project A searchable database of Etruscan texts.
• Etruscan Inscriptions in the Royal Ontario Museum, article by Rex Wallace displayed at the umass. edu site.
• Etruscan; The Pyrgi Bilingual, paper by Michael Weiss, Cornell University.

Lexical items

• An Etruscan Vocabulary at web. archive. org. A short, one-page glossary with numerals as well.
• Etruscan Vocabulary, a vocabulary organized by topic at etruskisch. de, in English.
• Etruscan-English Dictionary at iolairweb. co. uk. An extensive lexicon compiled from other lexicon sites. Links to the major Etruscan glossaries on the Internet are included.

Fonts

• Etruscan and Early Italic Fonts, download site by James F. Patterson at webspace. utexas. edu.