Talk:Etruscan civilization/Archive 1

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Contents

"Aryan" article

  • The "Aryan" article linked from here does not seem to provide a suitable definition of the term as used in this context. Does anyone els mildly disagree with the polytheism and divine worship bit? - some year 12 student trying to get a good mark---- Does anyone have any serious objection to the removal of links for which there are no articles? UnDeadGoat
  • Yes. The red emphasis tips people off that an article could be done and probably should be. Or, that a link to an article should be fixed.Dave 23:56, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Map

  • This article would be better if it contained a map. Lyle
  • Lyle, I've added a map showing Etruria and the main Etruscan cities. Now we need someone to come by and fix up the article. :-) If you need any changes to the map, let me know. --NormanEinstein 19:12, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

Origin of Etruscans

The simplest solution it seems to me, from the main article's assertion that Rome began as a fully Etruscan city, is that Rome was founded by the Etruscan Leagues, and remained solidly Etruscan until it was liberated by Republican forces in 510 BCE and joined the Republic. The Etruscans were driven into a quarter "in their own city". The Etruscans are an outgrowth of the Villanovan culture, which began around 1100 BCE, shortly after the Trojan War when we'd expect Trojan refugees to arrive and change the culture (from the earlier Terramare Culture). Lydia = Latin, Troy = Etruria, genetic links, oral tradition all point this general way. The grafting of Republican and Etruscan cultures together is seen in the juxtaposition of the PATRICIANS and PLEBIANS, with the former being the "old money" Etruscan / Trojan "elites", and the latter being the Republicans.

  • Question? Does any one else feel that the theory about the Etruscans or even the Romans being Trojan desendants is true? -Someguy
  • Man, I think that's myth. I think that myth was created by whoever wrote the Aeneid (it was Virgil). I forget who it was, but I'm almost certain it was just to create some kind of nationalism in Rome. -anonymous
  • First, perhaps you've all misplaced your copy of Histories by the classical Greek historian named Herodotus where he identified the origin of the Etruscans (whom he called the Tyrrhenoi as they were known in the Greek world at that time). He said they were from Lydia. Look at the map. Where is Lydia? Now, where is Troy? See any cool connexions? Secondly, it's really hard to gloss over the similarities between Etruscan culture, religion, architecture and other material characteristics that have a strong kinship to things we find contemporaneously in Asia Minor. Thirdly, the time in which the Etruscans would have conceivably migrated to Western Italy is narrowed down to around 1200 BCE (which is precisely during the nasty Hellenic Dark Ages). Everything checks out. If the Etruscans aren't from Troy itself and if the names they are given by other cultures (Roman <Tusci>, Greek <Tyrrhenoi>, Egyptian [twrš]) are a geniously elaborate red herring caused purely by chaos theory, damn if they aren't a hop, skip and a jump to the Illiad. --Glengordon01 22:28, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh, by the way, if Etruscans are indeed from Troy, then the only way a Roman citizen would be descended from Troy is if he was in fact an Etruscan or descended from Etruscans. Romans, as a people however, cannot be descended from Troy because they are largely an Indo-European people that entered Northern Italy prior to the arrival of the Etruscans. So... It's only a partial myth then :) --Glengordon01 22:32, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Hello guys. I am or was a classicist. You are reinventing the wheel. Yes, all those views have been considered long ago. No, there are still no clear-cut answers. Vergil was pro-Augustus, no doubt. So was most everyone else. It is not a matter of voting here. What do you think Wikipedia is, revealed scripture? None of the stuff in the article is my personal opinion (most of the article is mine) that you can cancel out of existence with a Wikipedian vote. These are issues in the field. So you do or do not think the Trojan theory is true. So what? It was presented by Virgil, a major Roman author, and therefore has a place in an article on this topic. You probably couldn't even list the articles and books that have published on the topic, they are so many. Glengordon, you are tying to summarize too big a topic in one paragraph. It can't be done. Eveything you said can be elaborated and contested (and has been) in pages. As for the Indo-european, yep, the Italics were Indo-european. End of story. The Etruscans were not. Just because the citizens of Masschachusetts speak Indo-european doesn't mean the indigenes did. Good luck in following down your interest in classics. More work, guys, more work.Dave 16:00, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Was a classicist? What does that mean? As in "I was a classicist... until that tragic car accident forced me to amputate a leg"? I was merely responding to the discussion-provoking question at the top by Someguy: "Question? Does any one else feel that the theory about the Etruscans or even the Romans being Trojan desendants is true?" Perhaps you mistook the **second** quote to be mine, but it's not (so I marked it -anonymous). Anyways I naturally decided to put in my two cents with my opinion (what? opinion? that's crazy! let's all be nihilo-relativistic wikiclones instead and smoke hippy crack, yay!). I didn't say "Let's put it to a vote" (as if I believe that much in humanity! god no!), or "I want to summarize the universe in a single sentence", or "Virgil is the spawn of Satan and he must die!" (erh, you did know that Virgil is spelled with an "i" in English, right?). Just try to read and ponder first. Don't project nonexistent arguements onto people because your coffee was switched to decaf at the office. Just chillax and smoke your hippy crack, hehe :) --Glengordon01 07:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
  • PS. There's gotta be a better and clearer way to add comments than this pre-1997 madhacker method using this user-hostile textarea tag, programmer code and cheap server-side script. If someone doesn't timestamp their comments, or they fail to indent, or they use more than one paragraph, it's hard to know who said what. Hmm. Maybe Wikipedia's own interface should be open source too. I so would make this interface happier for everyone. --Glengordon01 07:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)


About the relationship between Etruscans and Turks, it is, of course, spurious. Genetics seem to show that Etruscans are related to Anatolians but, albeit most Anatolians (not all) speak a turkish language today, it's a recent development. Turkish was imposed by a warrior elite upon a population which probably hasn't changed much since the neolithic (except for Greek influences on the coast and iranian ones in the east). By the time Etruscans appears in history, one spoke Phrygian, Lydian, Lycian and Armenian in Anatolia. As an aside, Etruscan does not even remotely look like Turkish. So links with Anatolia, likely, with Turks, no way, unless you show me they were genetically similar to Yakuts or Kirgizs --Arskoul

Yes, thank you so much for spotting yet another silly edit by a political idealist or possibly a 9-year-old Turkish kid ;) I didn't even notice the quote there. Sneaky! Some zealots don't seem to know their history, starting with the Ottoman empire (quote: "The ancestry of the Ottoman Dynasty is traced to the Turkic migrations from Asia, which began during the 10th century.") and ending with the relationship of Turkish to Mongolian via the Altaic theory. But of course, many people on the Wikipedia from all sort of backgrounds, from my unfortunate experiences, like to deny truths that don't fit into their preconceived notions. Sigh, are we doomed as a species? Oh well, good work, Arskoul. I'm goin' back to watch "Cosmos" now :) --Glengordon01 14:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Tyrrhenians and Sirens

  • Is it possible that Sirens (of Odyssey) may be proto-Tyrrhenians colonists (from Asia Minor), in Corsica? --IonnKorr 20:22, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I can't say I ever heard that theory. But, in the field, you would need some evidence, something said or found that points in that direction. Then you could write it up nicely and present it to your peers or your mentors. Dave 16:03, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

About the relationship between Etruscans and Turks, it is, of course, spurious. Genetics seem to show that Etruscans are related to Anatolians but, albeit most Anatolians (not all) speak a turkish language today, it's a recent development. Turkish was imposed by a warrior elite upon a population which probably hasn't changed much since the neolithic (except for Greek influences on the coast and iranian ones in the east). By the time Etruscans appears in history, one spoke Phrygian, Lydian, Lycian and Armenian in Anatolia. As an aside, Etruscan does not even remotely look like Turkish. So links with Anatolia, likely, with Turks, no way, unless you show me they were genetically similar to Yakuts or Kirgizs

Cities

  • I changed from "Volsinii modern Bolsena or alternatively Orvieto" into "Volsinii, modern Orvieto". The Etruscan Volsinii was where Orvieto (Urbs Vetus, the old city) is now. During Roman times an earthquake destroyed Volsinii, which was rebuilt where now Bolsena stands, on the lake with the same name, which is therefore a Roman foundation (even though in a countryside where everything old enough is Etruscan). The new town was named Volsinii Novi (New Volsinii), out of which the modern name Bolsena comes.
  • Alalia, modern Aleria is in Corsica, not in Sardinia.
  • I added Mantua to the list of Etruscan cities; it was a very important Etruscan town in what is now Lombardy. The poet Vergil was born in a village near Mantua and, if I remember correctly, he claims some Etruscan origin. Anyway, his cognomen "Maro" (full name Publius Vergilius Maro) sounds very Etruscan. Guparra 21:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Added "presumed" before "modern Orvieto", because a better examination of texts shows that alternaitve identifications are still extant, even though much less accepted. Guparra 19:36, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Ah, but in what way does it "sound" Etruscan if we're unsure of its etymology and of the meaning of the Etruscan word maru? Red herrings and folk etymologies are lurking everywhere. --Glengordon01 07:29, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Russian

  • Could please the wikipedian who added the lines about Russian language give a reference to the work of the St. Petersburg researcher? Also, the helmet represented in the Crocifisso necropolis is very common in Greece in the first place, it is a Corinthian helmet without the nose protection, specialists have a name for it. Guparra 16:12, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I went ahead and reverted the unreferenced additions by User:213.221.33.52. That user has a tendency to subtlely add incorrect, misleading, or deliberately POV material. --NormanEinstein 16:36, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Relationships

  • Can someone look at this (a sub-page of one of the external links) and comment on it: http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/theopompus/index.html. Are the broad conclusions about the Etruskan sexual relations to be taken as correct or are they interpretations of an artistic nature. The article now only mentions a monogamous kinship in their society, based on a sarcophagus. Maybe that is too narrow an interpretation. JohJak2 11:08, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
  • From what I've read so far I can't help but think that page is bull. I can't imagine etruscans, whose sarcophagi have the husband and wife together, perform so many random sexual acts. Nucleocide
  • Hi there nucleotide and Johjak. As whole the Etruscans had a wide variety of sexual customs. For a while Etruscan women didn't have too good a reputation. Also there certainly was homosexuality, as is shown on some art. The article covers only the main practices and ideals of the culture. The sarcophagus is only one example. Maybe the article should have a statement to that effect. No, if you start reading Cicero and looking at the behavior of the Julo-Claudians and what-not, you see that people then behaved like people now. Actual behavior is not the same as expected or prefered social behavior. As Cicero said, O tempora! O mores! To be "good" in the society was to be as depicted in the article. I didn't say everyone was good. We present people at their best, unless our name is the Marquid de Sade.
  • Is this amateurish old text still needed? "Eastern Mediterranean combinations: The evidence indicates that some of them did, although under what circumstances is not clear. The ancient Etruscans show a much higher degree of relationship to the populations of Anatolia and north Africa, and a much lesser to the Basques, than do modern Italians. The tradition of the Aeneid says that Aeneas and refugee Trojans left Troy for Carthage under Queen Dido and departed there for Latium. An influx from Anatolia cannot be ruled out, especially as one of the sea peoples has a name similar to the Roman and Greek names (but not to Rasenna)." --Wetman 05:04, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh, hello, Wetman. Amateurish old text, hey? You have such a winning bedside manner, my friend. No matter. I'd rather have you than the many vandals that seem to like this article. No offense. Now, the issue is, how true is the Aeneid? The protagonists on this page have little knowledge of classical issues, that is clear, but that isn't their fault. They don't know any better and they are entitled to a say too. The issue is not a new one. Just where did the Etruscans come from? Is the Aeneid total fabrication? If not, just how does it fit in? Maybe it does not. The researchers addressed this problem and found some evidence. A significant number of Etruscans came from Anatolia and Africa. That should be in there. Now, I'm not going to say to you, "Quit calling me names. Put the text back in." Instead, here is what I suggest. YOU say it! Or do you only take text out? It is more noble to propose alternatives, I think. If you call somebody amateurish that must mean you think you are a professional. What I propose is that you do some work as one. How about a nicely turned sentence emphasizing that we cannot take Virgil as total bunk and stating the reason why? Dazzle us with your professionalism, my friend.Dave 15:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Who knew that this was someone's treasured hobbyhorse? I never imagined someone would defend encouraging Wikipedia readers to read the Aeneid as a work of Etruscan ethnography. A bit like tracing Queen Elizabeth's genealogy to Troy, based on Geoffrey of Monmouth. This bit of text does not report on any published work, does not reflect any mainstream conclusions nor does it transmit any hard information: one of the sea peoples has a name similar to the Roman and Greek names (but not to Rasenna) doesn't inform anybody about anything. The text is the issue: nothing personal about it--Wetman 18:16, 27 March 2006 (UTC).

Government

  • I completely object to most of this section as it is written now, but what can you do when the masses insist on eating dog manure and rehashing lunatic pet theories? I'll explain below piece by piece, word by word. --Glengordon01 05:24, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

lucumo

  • No such Etruscan word. Anybody with a brain and functional transport to get to a public library stocked with adequate literature will take all of five minutes to find that Etruscan has no vowel "o". Now, take your legs to a Latin dictionary and you'll find that lucumo is Latin. So why the screw up? One of two reasons, both potentially true at the same time. One is that there are a number of pro-Etruscan-is-Latinic nutjobs who've successfully published their baseless pet theories which then end up at a public library because librarians are lazy government workers and don't care whether Joe Shmoe takes control of his own education. So what any nutjob author does is take a random part of an inscription (hell they'll even take fragments of words or invent them out of their ass) and make it look like Latin, Semitic, the lost language of Mu, yadayada all to "prove" to the mentally dead populus that their theory is correct. Then they become famous, widely loved, get to kiss lots of babies, get quoted in the NY Times and maybe even get some airtime on Nova. The second possibility is that people have taken quotes in blind faith from authors known from ancient times, some of whom themselves were nutjobs with lunatic pet theories (Some things never change!), and so if Xerxopholopolous of Masturbatron says lucumo is originally an Etruscan word meaning "pork swine", then that's what we're gonna believe. Sigh. Did I say that Etruscan has no "o", people??? --Glengordon01 05:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

fanu

  • Sacred place? More pro-Latinic nonsense. Now Mr Generic-Nutjob-Author is connecting fanu with Latin fanum. But why? What basis? A good test of whether said author is a crackpot is if (s)he fails to tell his vegetable readers what the context of the cited word really is. Context is everything. The proper context of fanu is in TLE 100 and TLE 619 and given the other passive participles in -u we know of in Etruscan, chances are fanu is too. If fanu did mean "temple" then I would expect someone, ANYONE, to state the **full translation** of these two inscriptions with "temple" stuffed into it in a way that properly connects the inscription with its object and purpose. Well? Any takers? Yep, thought not. My personal feeling is that fanu means something more to the tune of "layed down (to rest)" but whatever the case, "temple" it's not. --Glengordon01 06:08, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

zilχ

  • This word does not mean "chief" unless you're translating extremely loosely from French "chef" (which means "leader" or "head" as in "head of the faculty"). The fact is there are many different types of zilχ attested (eg: zilχ parχis, zilχ ceχaneri). This word must then mean a general type of position of prominence like "head", "leader" or "official". It irritates me that people don't do their homework but have good typing skills and a penchant for wikiediting. To call them kings, chiefs, sultans or emperors is to hollywoodize history.--Glengordon01 06:17, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

meχ

  • "League"? No, mech Rasnal is attested and is known to have the value "Etruscan people". The value of Rasna is confirmed by the gloss rasénna in classical Greek literature. It had been stated to mean "Etruscan". We also find mention of mech thuta in the Pyrgi Tablets where a value of "league" doesn't make much sense. And funny how we never witness this word inscribed in the plural, eh? The known plurals are -(ch)va or -ar. We see neither ever attached to mech (*mechar? Nope. *mechva? Double nope.) The simple explanation for that is that this word has a natural plural sense to begin with, without need for plural markers (just as we don't normally say "peoples" in English unless we're talking about Nia Peeples or multiple cultures). Another reason why "league" doesn't work. --Glengordon01 06:35, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

lucair

  • Let's cut straight to the chase: Where is this word even attested?? I've never found the inscription of this otherwise conlang fabrication to this very day. Speaking of conlangs, does anyone else still have a bad taste from Jodie Foster's unfortunate involvement in the movie Nell? What does this have to do with Etruscan? Nothing. But then neither does lucair >:P --Glengordon01 06:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
  • Funny enough, the only place I do find lucair is on some psycho's website, deceptively with a non-alarming title: The Art of Haruspicy. And I quote, "i. When the Divination has been completed, all say: 'NETSVIS SACCE! ZERI UTU RATUM! EISAR IPA LUCAIR THUI UTICE!' [The Haruspex has carried out the Sacred Act! The Rite is legally done! The Gods who rule have withdrawn from here!] ii. The Egg may be removed from the Water and eaten by the Celebrants as a Sacred Meal." I hate flower children, incense and fabricated Etruscan words used in faux-pagan psychobabble. --Glengordon01 07:43, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Image:Paris-Louvre-Etruscan Couple.jpg

Hi, this image is a suspected copyright violation and may soon be deleted from the Commons:. If your Wikipedia allows fair use, please consider uploading the image locally. Thank you. Jastrow 11:32, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Interesting link - what do people think?

Here's an interesting link on this subject. Before I add it, could people have a look and see whether it should be included? Slightly cooky title but don't be put off.

www.mysteriousetruscans.com

ThePeg 14.7.2006

The information on MysteriousEtruscans.com is relatively descent (at least when relative to other junk links like Etruscan: an archaic form of Hungarian). I stick up for people who say things like: "The present day notion that there is a "mystery" regarding the Etruscan language is fundamentally erroneous; [...] The real problem with the Etruscan texts lies in the difficulty we have in understanding the exact meaning of the words and grammatical forms." A bang-on statement.

There are some mistakes however. Be careful (hence the need to read multiple sources). For example, when they write out the numbers in Etruscan and compare them to other languages, they get some numbers wrong. The site displays "nutph" instead of nurph, "maK" instead of mach and "sa" instead of śa. --Glengordon01 20:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, typo. I should have said "decent". I'm losing my English because of Etruscan ;) --Glengordon01 20:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

ah ah ha ha http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com this webpage is full of bulls. The same author writes articles on Hera magazine, a publication about werewolves, ghosts, vampires, goblins, aliens... He is not serious. --Nick 12:50, 13 August 2006 (UTC)--

"Full of bulls". No. A "few bulls"? Yes ;) Ad hominems aren't as helpful as critiques of the information supplied by the webauthor in question. Even if you aren't satisfied with the site's accuracy, you can always try their special forum. The forum is surprisingly full of posts and activity so I'd bookmark it just for that alone. I see here a smorgasbord of serious ideas on many aspects of Etruscan life and history that have nothing to do with vampires and aliens.

In the end, you always have to question everything you're reading anyways and draw from as many sources as possible. --Glengordon01 11:30, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Under "Etruscan society"

More issues with the language, cuz, well what can I say, I'm obsessed with ancient languages:

tusurthir

  • "Married couple"? Erh, something in the back of my head feels that this is based on slice-n-dice linguistics again, based on some obscure connection with Albanian, Hungarian, Turkish or something other off-the-wall connection that people didn't bother questioning. The word is an animate plural because of -r, but there is nothing particularly dual or paral about this word and I'm worried that the initial tu- was amateurishly linked to Indo-European languages where the word for "two" derives from *dwōu. Sufficed to say, Etruscan is not Indo-European. I need to find the context in which this word is found to be sure what's going on. CIE number? Anyone? --Glengordon01 12:22, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Okay, I've tracked down the inscriptions' id numbers. Someone please explain to me what these phrases say, with "consort" stuck in, paying faithful attention to Etruscan inflection as well as to the individual meanings of each word in these inscriptions as they are found in all other known inscriptions. Think of it as a game of chess.
(TLE 586)
Ve. Ti. Petruni Ve. Aneinal Spurinal clan Veilia clanti Arznal tuśurθi.
(Note the word is singular here; no plural in -r; some common names are evidently abbreviated in the inscription.)
(TLE 587)
La. Tite Petruni Ve. clantial Fasti capznei Ve. tarisa Vestnal tuśurθir.
(Now we find the plural -r. Consorts of Vestna? What kind of arrangement is this??)

Supposedly there's also tuśurθi-i in TLE 627 (a sepulchre cippus) but now we see the same word in the locative case with -i. My thinking is, if the so-called experts can't own up and translate these phrases in entirety, it's just another slice-n-dice, pseudolinguistic hoax that should be forgotten. I'm bitter that way. --Glengordon01 13:10, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

sech farthana

  • No, god no. It does not mean stepdaughter. Totally made-up again. Here are the attested inscriptions showing clearly a verb root farthan:
(TLE 321)
Θancvil Tarnai: An farθn-aχ-e Marc-es Tarn-es, Ramθ-es=c Χaire-al-s. Larθ Tetnies: An farθn-aχ-e Arnθe-al-s Tetni-s, Ramθ-e=cs Visnaial-s.
Thancvil Tarnai: She was born from Marce Tarna, and from Ramtha Chaire. Larth Tetnies: He was born from Arnth Tetnies, and from her, Ramtha Visnaia.
(Note the passive past suffix -aχ-e.)
(TLE 583)
Afli, Hustnal śeχ farθan-a.
Afli, Hustna's daughter by birth.
(Note -a used occasionally for the ablative case; here the case marks the act, farθan "bearing, giving birth".)

There's no possible way to prove that śeχ farθan-a means "step-daughter" in this context. It's another myth. --Glengordon01 13:56, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Hold on... in TLE 583, farθana might actually be from *farθan-na, instead of from the ablative -a, since many pertinentive adjectives are formed with -na in Etruscan. The *-nn- would just reduce to -n- in spelling, reflecting a lack of gemination in pronunciation. Yeah! Phew, Etruscan grammar is complex. --Glengordon01 16:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Tirash and Bible references

Claim: "Also the name is connected to the biblical patriarch Tirash, the ancestor of the Thracians and Etruscans"

I located the source:

Karel Van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, eds. Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible. Second Edition. Leiden: Brill; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.

There's a critique of this book and an article in pdf both confirming that Tirash is not in the bible. It's supposed to be Ugaritic and it's only very weakly connected with the actual biblical word tîrōš meaning "new wine". So this is nonsense. --Glengordon01 06:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Etruscans and Sardinia

There are many archaeological, linguistical, genetical evidences that the Etruscans descend from the Nuragicians, islanders of Sardinia. The UNESCO is still studying them. --Nicholas 12:35, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

All Etruscans descend from Sardinia? Every single one? Yeah, whatever. These pure-blood "aryan" theories are supposed to have died out with the early 20th century, but alas! Genetics say nothing about the origins of Etruscan culture and language. Please notify us when UNESCO finds the Etruscan-language gene in the human genome :P --Glengordon01 11:39, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.