Mysterious Etruscans Essay Research Paper email Orion185aolcomtitle

Mysterious Etruscans Essay, Research Paper

email: Orion185@aol.comtitle: The Mysterious EtruscansThe Etruscans were a very mysterious civilization. We do not know exactly whothey are, and where they came from is a large controversy that goes back the time ofHerodotus, the father of history. Also, their language is still yet to be deciphered. Still,they are a fascinating society. Living some 2,000 years ago, they flourished for arelatively brief time in modern day Italy, which was called Vitelia in earlier days. Nobody is quite sure of the origin of the Etruscans. There are different theories,but we do not know which one to believe because the Etruscans have always hadnumerous myths about them, and truths were usually mixed with falsehoods. Manypeople believe that they emigrated from Lydia, or Asia Minor. Herodotus tells that therewas a great famine in Lydia and that after trying to combat the hunger for eighteen years,Atys, the king, made a decision to split up his people. They drew lots, so that half of themwould stay in Lydia, under the rule of Atys, and the others would follow his son,Tyrrhenus. They left the country on ships, and sailed off to find what they could. Theythen called themselves the Tyrrhenians, after their leader. From this we got the name ofthe Tyrrenhian sea which is along the western coast of Italy. The Romans called them theEtrusci, which is where the term Etruscans comes from.1Another common theory is that the Etruscans were indigenous to Italy. The mainearly supporter of this idea was Dionysius of Halicarnassus. He noted that they did nothave the same language as Lydians. They also did not worship the same gods or in facthave any traits which might have been derived from their so-called homeland. Peoplewho believe this theory claim that the Etruscans were there first, and that they had beentaken over by Indo-European invaders, and that their birth in the 600 s B.C.E wasmerely a re-emergence. They slowly had re-conquered their land.2 In ancient times there were only those two theories about the origins of theEtruscans. In modern times, yet another one has been added. This one states that theycame from the north, over the Eastern Alps. One of the main supporters of this beliefwas Dr. Zacharie Mayani of the University of Paris. He did research comparing thephonetic, morphological and semantic similarities of the Albanian and Etruscanlanguages. He felt that it seemed as thought the Etruscan language was essentiallyIndo-European. He also thought they did not come from one place, but instead half camefrom the Danube, and the other half from Anatolia. They then formed a heterogeneouspeople in the new land which we called Etruria. The Language of the Etruscans is also a great mystery, but we are slowly learningtheir language. It is only known through sporadic words cited by Greek and Latinauthors. There are thousands of inscriptions, but most of them are simple epitaphs. It isimprobable that they did not have some type of literature, but none has survived. Theorigins of the Etruscan language have long been a controversy. Numerous andoccasionally outlandish theories had been made, but it was not until Massimo Pallottinothat any real progress was made in deciphering any of the texts. Pallottino adopted a newcombinatory approach. Instead of trying and force a connection between Etruscan andanother language, like previous historians, he compared the inscriptions with each otherand set them in a cultural context.The process of deciphering the Etruscan language continues to this day, and thanksto Pallottino’s methods and a certain amount of educated guesswork, some of thelanguages’ vocabulary and basic grammar have been revealed. The discovery of the Pyrgitablets in the 1960 s was an important advancement. They were written in Etruscan andPhoenician. We have deciphered Phoenician, so it was possible to compare the two texts,and even though the Phoenician turned out not to be an exact translation of the Etruscan,the content was similar enough to prove useful.As more and more is discovered about Etruscan, there is more evidence that it isnot related to any known living language. In particular, Etruscan does not belong to theIndo-European group of languages, so it cannot be connected to Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, orany other languages of that branch. There are only 2 that show any resemblance at all toEtruscan: Rhaetic, and a language recorded on some inscriptions and pottery from theGreek island of Lemnos. Still, these do not help to put Etruscan in it s place in the array ofthe world s languages. From what we know, it seems as thought Etruscan was probably an easternMediterranean language. If Herodotus theory of the Etruscans emigrating from AsiaMinor, then they may have picked up parts of their language from tribes that they passedon the way to the Italian peninsula.3Most of what we know about Etruscans religion is information obtained throughmaterials surrounding death. Images painted on the walls of tombs, and the artifacts

found in the tombs provide the largest clues to Etruscan religion. Because the Romanreligion inherited many of these aspects, a study of Roman religion could be helpful. Themainstream Etruscan religion believed in a wide array of gods, probably around 45.These ranged from Menrva, whom the Romans called Minerva (and the Greeks calledAthena) to water and forest gods. They also believed in demons, who were usuallydepicted as blue and squat. Religion