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105-474: Umbrian is known from about 30 inscriptions dated from the 7th through 1st centuries BC. The largest cache by far is the Iguvine Tablets , seven inscribed bronze tablets found in 1444 near the village of Scheggia or, according to another tradition, in an underground chamber at Gubbio (ancient Iguvium ). The seven tablets contain notes on the ceremonies and statutes for priests of the ancient religion in

210-459: A (b of Lepsius) (Lacuna at the beginning of the text). Sacrifice of an ox to Iove Patre , of a ram to Iovio ? ( Iuno according to Newman), of a lamb to Iovio ( Iuno ) and of a boar to Marte . The Hondia (elements that pertain to ritual sacrifice to Hondus, an earth deity) Preparations made by the arfertur : readying of the victim(s), grains, strues , fertum ; incense or meal, wine; salt, mola ; mandraculum (white linen used to wrap

315-523: A 26-letter alphabet, which makes an early appearance incised for decoration on a small bucchero terracotta lidded vase in the shape of a cockerel at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ca. 650–600 BC. The full complement of 26 has been termed the model alphabet. The Etruscans did not use four letters of it, mainly because Etruscan did not have the voiced stops b , d and g ; the o was also not used. They innovated one letter for f ( 𐌚 ). Writing

420-526: A bilingual text in Etruscan and Phoenician engraved on three gold leaves, one for the Phoenician and two for the Etruscan. The Etruscan language portion has 16 lines and 37 words. The date is roughly 500 BC. The tablets were found in 1964 by Massimo Pallottino during an excavation at the ancient Etruscan port of Pyrgi , now Santa Severa . The only new Etruscan word that could be extracted from close analysis of

525-539: A bit longer, and that a survival into the late 1st century AD and beyond "cannot wholly be dismissed", especially given the revelation of Oscan writing in Pompeii 's walls. Despite the apparent extinction of Etruscan, it appears that Etruscan religious rites continued much later, continuing to use the Etruscan names of deities and possibly with some liturgical usage of the language. In late Republican and early Augustan times, various Latin sources including Cicero noted

630-556: A calf to Iove Patre for the Vocian (Lucian?) gens of the Attidians. The sacrifice is conducted with the urfeta in one hand at the offering and the crencatro (augural implement comparable to the lituum but crossed (Newman), or toga wore slanted across the right shoulder (Buck)) in the right hand at the time of the slaughtering. Side a Six triplet sacrifices to the Grabovian triad and

735-411: A cross-linguistically common phonological system, with four phonemic vowels and an apparent contrast between aspirated and unaspirated stops . The records of the language suggest that phonetic change took place over time, with the loss and then re-establishment of word-internal vowels, possibly due to the effect of Etruscan's word-initial stress . Etruscan religion was influenced by that of

840-584: A few dozen Etruscan words and names were borrowed by the Romans, some of which remain in modern languages, among which are possibly voltur 'vulture', tuba 'trumpet', vagina 'sheath', populus 'people'. Inscriptions have been found in northwest and west-central Italy, in the region that even now bears the name of the Etruscan civilization , Tuscany (from Latin tuscī 'Etruscans'), as well as in modern Latium north of Rome, in today's Umbria west of

945-733: A few lexical correspondences are documented, at least partly due to the scant number of Raetic and Lemnian texts. On the other hand, the Tyrsenian family, or Common Tyrrhenic, is often considered to be Paleo-European and to predate the arrival of Indo-European languages in southern Europe. Several scholars believe that the Lemnian language could have arrived in the Aegean Sea during the Late Bronze Age , when Mycenaean rulers recruited groups of mercenaries from Sicily , Sardinia and various parts of

1050-658: A key component in making progress in the decipherment of another ritual text, the Etruscan Liber Linteus . The tablets are engraved on bronze. Analysis of the external appearance of the supporting material has led scholars to conclude that only tablets V, VI and VII were meant to be exposed in public. The other ones were cast as an archive document. They are inscribed in Italic alphabet derived from Etruscan (T. I to Vb 8) and in Latin alphabet (T. Vb 9 onwards, VI, VII). The study of

1155-809: A number of innovations , some of them shared by its neighbor to the west, Latin. (Below, following convention, bold text for Umbrian and Oscan indicates words written in the native, Etruscan derived script, while italics represents words written in Latin-derived script.) All diphthongs are simplified into monophthongs , a process only partly seen in Latin, and only very rarely in Oscan. So Proto-Italic * ai and * ei become Umbrian low ē : kvestur  : Oscan kvaísstur , Latin quaestor 'official in charge of public revenue and expenditure'; prever 'single' : Oscan preivatud , Latin prīvus ; furthermore, Proto-Italic * oi , * ou and * au become ō (written u in

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1260-399: A rare case from this early period of a female (Venalia) dedicating the votive. A speculum is a circular or oval hand-mirror used predominantly by Etruscan women. 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. The reflecting surface was created by polishing

1365-552: A source of long-running speculation and study, with it mostly being referred to as one of the Tyrsenian languages , at times as an isolate , and a number of other less well-known hypotheses. The consensus among linguists and Etruscologists is that Etruscan was a Pre-Indo-European and Paleo-European language , closely related to the Raetic language that was spoken in the Alps , and to

1470-601: A symbolic motif: Apollo , Zeus , Culsans , Athena , Hermes , griffin , gorgon , male sphinx , hippocamp , bull, snake, eagle, or other creatures which had symbolic significance. Wallace et al. include the following categories, based on the uses to which they were put, on their site: abecedaria (alphabets), artisans' texts, boundary markers, construction texts, dedications, didaskalia (instructional texts), funerary texts, legal texts, other/unclear texts, prohibitions, proprietary texts (indicating ownership), religious texts, tesserae hospitales (tokens that establish "the claim of

1575-562: Is also celebrated in Jessup, Pennsylvania , a town with a large number of immigrants from the Gubbio area, as Saint Ubaldo Day . There are two versions of the discovery of the tablets. The first one says that a farmer found them in a field near Scheggia in 1444. After his death, his son-in-law with his wife and his sister-in-law sold them to the city of Gubbio with a notarial deed on 25 August 1456 for two years' worth of farming rights. Since Scheggia

1680-451: Is considered to have possibly been able to read Etruscan, and authored the Tyrrhenika , a (now lost) treatise on Etruscan history ; a separate dedication made by Claudius implies a knowledge from "diverse Etruscan sources", but it is unclear if any were fluent speakers of Etruscan. Plautia Urgulanilla , the emperor's first wife, had Etruscan roots. Etruscan had some influence on Latin, as

1785-429: Is now Italy . Etruscan influenced Latin but was eventually completely superseded by it. The Etruscans left around 13,000 inscriptions that have been found so far, only a small minority of which are of significant length; some bilingual inscriptions with texts also in Latin, Greek , or Phoenician ; and a few dozen purported loanwords . Attested from 700 BC to AD 50, the relation of Etruscan to other languages has been

1890-420: Is one explanation of the Etruscan "impossible" consonant clusters. Some of the consonants, especially resonants , however, may have been syllabic, accounting for some of the clusters (see below under Consonants ). In other cases, the scribe sometimes inserted a vowel: Greek Hēraklēs became Hercle by syncopation and then was expanded to Herecele . Pallottino regarded this variation in vowels as "instability in

1995-434: Is published in its own fascicle by diverse Etruscan scholars. 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, or rarely part intaglio, part cameo . Cistae date from

2100-630: Is that Etruscan, and therefore all the languages of the Tyrrhenian family, is neither Indo-European nor Semitic, and may be a Pre–Indo-European and Paleo-European language. At present the major consensus is that Etruscan's only kinship is with the Raetic and Lemnian languages. The idea of a relation between the language of the Minoan Linear A scripts was taken into consideration as the main hypothesis by Michael Ventris before he discovered that, in fact,

2205-457: Is thought to have died out, Ammianus Marcellinus reports that Julian the Apostate , the last pagan Emperor, apparently had Etruscan soothsayers accompany him on his military campaigns with books on war, lightning and celestial events, but the language of these books is unknown. According to Zosimus , when Rome was faced with destruction by Alaric in 408 AD, the protection of nearby Etruscan towns

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2310-656: The Anatolian branch . More recently, Robert S. P. Beekes argued in 2002 that the people later known as the Lydians and Etruscans had originally lived in northwest Anatolia , with a coastline to the Sea of Marmara , whence they were driven by the Phrygians circa 1200 BC, leaving a remnant known in antiquity as the Tyrsenoi . A segment of this people moved south-west to Lydia , becoming known as

2415-499: The Lemnian language , attested in a few inscriptions on Lemnos . The Etruscan alphabet is similar to the Greek one. Therefore, linguists have been able to read the inscriptions in the sense of knowing roughly how they would have been pronounced, but have not yet understood their meaning. A comparison between the Etruscan and Greek alphabets reveals how accurately the Etruscans preserved

2520-555: The Lydians , while others sailed away to take refuge in Italy, where they became known as Etruscans. This account draws on the well-known story by Herodotus (I, 94) of the Lydian origin of the Etruscans or Tyrrhenians, famously rejected by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (book I), partly on the authority of Xanthus, a Lydian historian, who had no knowledge of the story, and partly on what he judged to be

2625-591: The Roman Republic of the fourth and third centuries BC in Etruscan contexts. They may bear various short inscriptions concerning the manufacturer or owner or subject matter. The writing may be Latin, Etruscan, or both. Excavations at Praeneste , an Etruscan city which became 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

2730-511: The Sahata ( Sahata is probably the area considered within the pomerium, possibly marked by a stream) three she calves shall be sacrificed to Tursa Çerfia of Çerfios Martios. The assignation of the place where to carry out the slaughter of the boars shall be decided according to the site upon which the officiant is watching, whether either behind on the Rubina or beyond on the Sahata . Three days later

2835-716: The Tiber , in the Po Valley to the north of Etruria, and in Campania . This range may indicate a maximum Italian homeland where the language was at one time spoken. Outside Italy, inscriptions have been found in Corsica , Gallia Narbonensis , Greece , the Balkans . But by far the greatest concentration is in Italy. In 1998, Helmut Rix put forward the view that Etruscan is related to other extinct languages such as Raetic , spoken in ancient times in

2940-558: The University of Utrecht . Alinei's proposal has been rejected by Etruscan experts such as Giulio M. Facchetti, Finno-Ugric experts such as Angela Marcantonio, and by Hungarian historical linguists such as Bela Brogyanyi. Another proposal, pursued mainly by a few linguists from the former Soviet Union, suggested a relationship with Northeast Caucasian (or Nakh-Daghestanian) languages. None of these theories has been accepted nor enjoys consensus. The Latin script owes its existence to

3045-474: The Villanovan period to about 100 BC, when presumably the cemeteries were abandoned in favor of Roman ones. Some of the major cemeteries are as follows: One example of an early (pre-fifth century BC) votive inscription is on a bucchero oinochoe (wine vase): ṃiṇi mulvaṇịce venalia ṡlarinaṡ. en mipi kapi ṃi(r) ṇuṇai = "Venalia Ṡlarinaṡ gave me. Do not touch me (?), I (am) nunai (an offering?)." This seems to be

3150-647: The ancient peoples of Italy , including the archaic religion of the Romans . Parts of tablets VI and VII appear to be written in an accentual metre , similar to the Saturnian metre that is encountered in the earliest Latin poetry. The complete text, together with a translation into Latin, was published in 1849 by Aufrecht and Kirkhoff, in London in 1863 by Francis Newman , and in 1931 by Albrecht von Blumenthal . G. Devoto's edition dates from 1948. James W. Poultney published The Bronze Tables of Iguvium in 1959 (which received

3255-400: The ductus (writing style), conducted by comparing the tablets with other inscriptions from the area of Central Italy, has allowed scholars to conclude that they date from no later than the end of the 3rd century for T. III and IV to the first half of the 1st century for the latest T. VI and VII. Tablets I to V present their topic in a concise, matter of fact manner. Tablets VI and VII repeat

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3360-490: The eastern Alps , and Lemnian , to which other scholars added Camunic language , spoken in the Central Alps . Rix's Tyrsenian language family has gained widespread acceptance among scholars, being confirmed by Stefan Schumacher, Norbert Oettinger, Carlo De Simone , and Simona Marchesini. Common features between Etruscan, Raetic, and Lemnian have been found in morphology , phonology , and syntax , but only

3465-531: The "Aramaic" spoken by Noah and his descendants, founders of the Etruscan city Viterbo . The 19th century saw numerous attempts to reclassify Etruscan. Ideas of Semitic origins found supporters until this time. In 1858, the last attempt was made by Johann Gustav Stickel , Jena University in his Das Etruskische durch Erklärung von Inschriften und Namen als semitische Sprache erwiesen . A reviewer concluded that Stickel brought forward every possible argument which would speak for that hypothesis, but he proved

3570-443: The 2nd century BC, still alive in the first century BC, and surviving in at least one location in the beginning of the first century AD; however, the replacement of Etruscan by Latin likely occurred earlier in southern regions closer to Rome. In southern Etruria , the first Etruscan site to be Latinized was Veii , when it was destroyed and repopulated by Romans in 396 BC. Caere ( Cerveteri ), another southern Etruscan town on

3675-579: The 3rd century BC, and the latest, written in the Latin alphabet , from the 1st century BC. The tablets contain religious inscriptions that memorialize the acts and rites of the Atiedian Brethren, a group of 12 priests of Jupiter with important municipal functions at Iguvium. The religious structure present in the tablets resembles that of the early stage of Roman religion, reflecting the Roman archaic triad and

3780-626: The 3rd person: singular primary -ter , singular secondary -(n)tur , plural -endi . Perfect stems are derived from the present stem in different ways. Latin -vī- perfects are not attested in Umbrian. Instead, Umbrian uses its own set of forms, including reduplicated perfects such as dede 'gave', the -s- suffix, as in sesu-s-t 'will have sat', and the -nçi- suffix, as in purdi-nçi-ust 'will have presented'. Some verbs also use suppletive forms. Other tenses are formed by suffixation: The following non-finite forms are attested (all of them are based on

3885-467: The 4th-century AD Latin writer Maurus Servius Honoratus , a fourth set of Etruscan books existed, dealing with animal gods, but it is unlikely that any scholar living in that era could have read Etruscan. However, only one book (as opposed to inscription), the Liber Linteus , survived, and only because the linen on which it was written was used as mummy wrappings. By 30 BC, Livy noted that Etruscan

3990-581: The British scholar Isaac Taylor brought up the idea of a genetic relationship between Etruscan and Hungarian , of which also Jules Martha would approve in his exhaustive study La langue étrusque (1913). In 1911, the French orientalist Baron Carra de Vaux suggested a connection between Etruscan and the Altaic languages . The Hungarian connection was revived by Mario Alinei , emeritus professor of Italian languages at

4095-683: The Early Iron Age Latins , and that the Etruscan language, and therefore the other languages of the Tyrrhenian family, may be a surviving language of the ones that were widespread in Europe from at least the Neolithic period before the arrival of the Indo-European languages, as already argued by German geneticist Johannes Krause who concluded that it is likely that the Etruscan language (as well as Basque , Paleo-Sardinian and Minoan ) "developed on

4200-498: The Etruscan alphabet, which was adapted for Latin in the form of the Old Italic script . The Etruscan alphabet employs a Euboean variant of the Greek alphabet using the letter digamma and was in all probability transmitted through Pithecusae and Cumae , two Euboean settlements in southern Italy. This system is ultimately derived from West Semitic scripts . The Etruscans recognized

4305-545: The Etruscan apogee from the second half of the sixth to the first centuries BC. The two main theories of manufacture are native Etruscan and Greek. The materials are mainly dark red carnelian , with agate and sard entering usage from the third to the first centuries BC, along with purely gold finger rings with a hollow engraved bezel setting . 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. The gold setting of

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4410-462: The Etruscan language found its modern origin in a book by a Renaissance Dominican friar, Annio da Viterbo , a cabalist and orientalist now remembered mainly for literary forgeries. In 1498, Annio published his antiquarian miscellany titled Antiquitatum variarum (in 17 volumes) where he put together a theory in which both the Hebrew and Etruscan languages were said to originate from a single source,

4515-455: The Gate three ewe lambs are sacrificed to Tefre Iovie . After the profanation of the lambs, the rump is offered in expiation and a libation for the tota , local community, ensues, on the two sides separately starting with the right side. After the profanation of the rumps is over the backs shall be profanated. Side b Two more triplet sacrifices to Marte Hodie and Hondos Çerfios in atonement for

4620-535: The Goodwin Award in 1961), which included English translations along with notes, a glossary, etc. Although the general meaning of the tablets is clear, there are still some debated points and issues. The main difficulty in understanding the text is insufficient knowledge of Umbrian vocabulary. These are the only documents with details of sacred rituals from the ancient religions of Europe which have survived in an almost complete state. Moreover, their content deals with

4725-466: The Greek alphabet. The Etruscan alphabet contains letters that have since been dropped from the Greek alphabet, such as the digamma , sampi and qoppa . Grammatically, the language is agglutinating , with nouns and verbs showing suffixed inflectional endings and some gradation of vowels . Nouns show five cases , singular and plural numbers , with a gender distinction between animate and inanimate in pronouns . Etruscan appears to have had

4830-561: The Greeks , and many of the few surviving Etruscan-language artifacts are of votive or religious significance. Etruscan was written in an alphabet derived from the Greek alphabet ; this alphabet was the source of the Latin alphabet , as well as other alphabets in Italy and probably beyond. The Etruscan language is also believed to be the source of certain important cultural words of Western Europe such as military and person , which do not have obvious Indo-European roots. Etruscan literacy

4935-515: The Italian peninsula. Scholars such as Norbert Oettinger, Michel Gras and Carlo De Simone think that Lemnian is the testimony of an Etruscan commercial settlement on the island that took place before 700 BC, not related to the Sea Peoples. A 2021 archeogenetic analysis of Etruscan individuals, who lived between 800 BC and 1 BC, concluded that the Etruscans were autochthonous and genetically similar to

5040-458: The Latin alphabet on the tablet): In Latin: In English: Iguvine Tablets The Iguvine Tablets , also known as the Eugubian Tablets or Eugubine Tables , are a series of seven bronze tablets from ancient Iguvium (modern Gubbio ), Italy , written in the ancient Italic language Umbrian . The earliest tablets, written in the native Umbrian alphabet, were probably produced in

5145-593: The Latin author Aulus Gellius mentions Etruscan alongside the Gaulish language in an anecdote. Freeman notes that although Gaulish was clearly still alive during Gellius' time, his testimony may not indicate that Etruscan was still alive because the phrase could indicate a meaning of the sort of "it's all Greek (incomprehensible) to me". At the time of its extinction, only a few educated Romans with antiquarian interests, such as Marcus Terentius Varro , could read Etruscan. The Roman emperor Claudius (10 BC – AD 54)

5250-560: The Latins, bringing the alphabet from Anatolia. For historical, archaeological, genetic, and linguistic reasons, a relationship between Etruscan and the Indo-European Anatolian languages (Lydian or Luwian) and the idea that the Etruscans initially colonized the Latins, bringing the alphabet from Anatolia, have not been accepted, since the account by Herodotus is no longer considered reliable. The interest in Etruscan antiquities and

5355-650: The Neo-Etruscan, but using a letter shaped like a 'P' from the Archaic Etruscan alphabet for the unique Umbrian sound discussed below. The newer was written in the Latin script . The texts are sometimes called Old Umbrian and New Umbrian. The differences are mainly orthographic. For example, rs in the Latin alphabet is represented by a single character in the native script (generally transcribed as ř ; this represents an unknown sound that developed regularly from intervocalic *-d- in most cases). To clearly distinguish them,

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5460-635: The Trebulana Gate. Review of the city militia and expulsion ( extermination ) of the traditional enemies of Iguvium (Tadinates, Etruscans, Nahartes, Iapuzcoi) by the arfertur and the two prinovatus ( augures or their attendants): Four more triplet sacrifices: Near the small fontains three red boars shall be sacrificed to Çerfos Martios. On the Rubinian ager three she boars shall be sacrificed to Prestata Çerfia of Çerfos Martios. The sacred jugs, black and white, shall there be ordered and turned. Beyond

5565-435: The banquet of the brotherhood takes place, the fratreks or the cvestor must put to votes whether the banquet was properly arranged. If the majority of those present think it was not, a further vote must be taken to fix the penalty for the arsfertur . Side b Contributions to be made by two gentes to the brethren, and portions of flesh to be awarded them by the brethren on the decurial festival. These two tablets repeat

5670-671: The bezel bears a border design, such as cabling. Etruscan-minted coins can be dated between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC. Use of the 'Chalcidian' standard, based on the silver unit of 5.8 grams, indicates that this custom, like the alphabet, came from Greece. Roman coinage later supplanted Etruscan, but the basic Roman coin, the sesterce , is believed to have been based on the 2.5-denomination Etruscan coin. Etruscan coins have turned up in caches or individually in tombs and in excavations seemingly at random, and concentrated, of course, in Etruria . Etruscan coins were in gold, silver, and bronze,

5775-603: The citadel: At the Jovian grove after the shearing of sheep three male calves shall be sacrificed to Marte Hodie for the Iguvine people and tota . At the Coreties (Quiritius or Curiatius) grove three male calves shall be sacrificed to Hontos Çerfios . Henceforth the citadel will be expiated. If any anything vicious happened in the discharge of the rite the birds shall be observed, the rite shall be reinstated once again after returning to

5880-474: The city" (note that Umbrian continues the PIE case, while Latin innovates here to -ae); Dat. tute "to the city"; Abl. asa "from the altar"; Loc. tote "in the city"; Voc. Prestota "Oh, Prestota" Plural: Nom. fameřias "families"; Acc. porca "pigs"; Gen. pracatarum "of the ramparts"?; Dat.-Abl. plenasier "for the annual festival" (with final rhotacism from -s; thought to be related to Latin plenus "full" with

5985-519: The classification of Etruscan remained problematic for historical linguists, though it was almost universally agreed upon that Etruscan was a language unlike any other in Europe. Before it gained currency as one of the Tyrrhenian languages, Etruscan was commonly treated as a language isolate . Over the centuries many hypotheses on the Etruscan language have been developed, most of which have not been accepted or have been considered highly speculative since they were published. The major consensus among scholars

6090-520: The coast 45 kilometers from Rome, appears to have shifted to Latin in the late 2nd century BC. In Tarquinia and Vulci , Latin inscriptions coexisted with Etruscan inscriptions in wall paintings and grave markers for centuries, from the 3rd century BC until the early 1st century BC, after which Etruscan is replaced by the exclusive use of Latin. In northern Etruria, Etruscan inscriptions continue after they disappear in southern Etruria. At Clusium ( Chiusi ), tomb markings show mixed Latin and Etruscan in

6195-471: The content of tablet I while expanding it to include and expound the minutest details of the rituals. See below for a sample text and translation of part of tablet six. VI Side a Etruscan language Etruscan ( / ɪ ˈ t r ʌ s k ən / ih- TRUSK -ən ) was the language of the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria , in Etruria Padana and Etruria Campana in what

6300-561: The continent in the course of the Neolithic Revolution ". The lack of recent Anatolian-related admixture and Iranian-related ancestry among the Etruscans, who genetically joined firmly to the European cluster, might also suggest that the presence of a handful of inscriptions found at Lemnos, in a language related to Etruscan and Raetic, "could represent population movements departing from the Italian peninsula". For many hundreds of years

6405-504: The different languages, laws, and religions of the two peoples. In 2006, Frederik Woudhuizen went further on Herodotus' traces, suggesting that Etruscan belongs to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European family, specifically to Luwian . Woudhuizen revived a conjecture to the effect that the Tyrsenians came from Anatolia , including Lydia , whence they were driven by the Cimmerians in

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6510-496: The early 1600s, and that the sources of the Gubbio find at the same time attested that the tablets were originally nine and that two of them, loaned to Venice , were never returned (which is patently false), it is likely that the latter version of the Gubbio find has a chauvinistic origin. The content of the tablets concerns the religions and ceremonies that were celebrated at Iguvium, the town's religious organization and its boundaries. The first attempt at deciphering their meaning

6615-412: The early Iron Age, 750–675 BC, leaving some colonists on Lemnos . He makes a number of comparisons of Etruscan to Luwian and asserts that Etruscan is modified Luwian. He accounts for the non-Luwian features as a Mysian influence: "deviations from Luwian [...] may plausibly be ascribed to the dialect of the indigenous population of Mysia." According to Woudhuizen, the Etruscans were initially colonizing

6720-399: The esteemed reputation of Etruscan soothsayers . An episode where lightning struck an inscription with the name Caesar, turning it into Aesar, was interpreted to have been a premonition of the deification of Caesar because of the resemblance to Etruscan aisar , meaning 'gods', although this indicates knowledge of a single word and not the language. Centuries later and long after Etruscan

6825-399: The first half of the 1st century BC, with cases where two subsequent generations are inscribed in Latin and then the third, youngest generation, surprisingly, is transcribed in Etruscan. At Perugia , monolingual monumental inscriptions in Etruscan are still seen in the first half of the 1st century BC, while the period of bilingual inscriptions appears to have stretched from the 3rd century to

6930-459: 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. The piece was generally ornate. About 2,300 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. Most probably came from tombs. Many bear inscriptions naming

7035-553: The generic Latin title Etrusca Disciplina . The Libri Haruspicini dealt with divination by reading entrails from a sacrificed animal, while the Libri Fulgurales expounded the art of divination by observing lightning . A third set, the Libri Rituales , might have provided a key to Etruscan civilization: its wider scope embraced Etruscan standards of social and political life, as well as ritual practices. According to

7140-507: The gold and silver usually having been struck on one side only. The coins often bore a denomination, sometimes a minting authority name, and a cameo motif. 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 ). Insignia are mainly heads of mythological characters or depictions of mythological beasts arranged in

7245-582: The group of gods more strictly related to Jupiter. Discovered in a farmer's field near Scheggia in the year 1444, they are currently housed in the Civic Museum of the Palazzo dei Consoli in Gubbio. The tablets are the longest document of any of the Osco-Umbrian group of languages, which are closely related to Latin. The tablets shed light on the grammar of the language, and also on the religious practices of

7350-402: The holding of the sacrifice, sacrifice of the ovis (lamb) to Puemonos and Vesuna near a sacred grove . Containing details on the choice of the ohtur ( auctor , head, perhaps augur ) of the ceremony, the dispositions of the ritual instruments, the ritual invocations for the safety of the city to Iove Patre and Puemonos , the distribution of the sacrificial meat and the libations. Side

7455-432: The initial syllable of words as a stress accent, since non-initial syllables are regularly lost or weakened. Since the same pattern occurs in the history of Etruscan , this must be assumed to be an areal feature. (By the time of classical Latin, the accent had shifted in that language to more of an Ancient Greek pattern--on the third syllable from the end (antepenult) unless the last syllable was long, in which case it fell on

7560-520: The language behind the later Linear B script was Mycenean , a Greek dialect . It has been proposed to possibly be part of a wider Paleo-European "Aegean" language family, which would also include Minoan , Eteocretan (possibly descended from Minoan) and Eteocypriot . This has been proposed by Giulio Mauro Facchetti, a researcher who has dealt with both Etruscan and Minoan, and supported by S. Yatsemirsky, referring to some similarities between Etruscan and Lemnian on one hand, and Minoan and Eteocretan on

7665-701: The language disappeared. In addition to being the source of the Roman and early Oscan and Umbrian alphabets, it has been suggested that it passed northward into Veneto and from there through Raetia into the Germanic lands, where it became the Elder Futhark alphabet, the oldest form of the runes . The corpus of Etruscan inscriptions is edited in the Corpus Inscriptionum Etruscarum (CIE) and Thesaurus Linguae Etruscae (TLE). The Pyrgi Tablets are

7770-455: The language, final -s also becomes -r (a change not seen in Latin). For example, the genitive plural ending of -ā stems: Umbrian -arum , Latin -arum vs Oscan -asúm (compare Sanskrit - āsām ). While initial * d- is preserved (spelled t in the native alphabet), earlier intervocalic *-d- (and sometimes *-l-) show up in the native alphabet as a character generally transliterated as ř , but as

7875-514: The late 1st century BC. The isolated last bilinguals are found at three northern sites. Inscriptions in Arezzo include one dated to 40 BC followed by two with slightly later dates, while in Volterra there is one dated to just after 40 BC and a final one dated to 10–20 AD; coins with written Etruscan near Saena have also been dated to 15 BC. Freeman notes that in rural areas the language may have survived

7980-402: The main source of Etruscan portables, provenance unknown, in collections throughout the world. Their incalculable value has created a brisk black market in Etruscan objets d'art – and equally brisk law enforcement effort, as it is illegal to remove any objects from Etruscan tombs without authorization from the Italian government. The magnitude of the task involved in cataloguing them means that

8085-629: The minor triad : After observing the birds before and the behind, three oxen are sacrificed to Iove Grabovius before (without) the Trebulana Gate . Behind (within) it three sows are sacrificed to Trebus Iovio . Before the Tesenaca Gate three oxen are sacrificed to Marte Grabovie . Behind it three pigs are sacrificed to Fisus Sancius . A libation ensues. Before the Vehiia Gate three white fronted oxen are sacrificed to Vofione Grabovie . Behind

8190-650: The native script is generally transcribed in bold, the Latin in italics. The exact phonetics of much of what follows are not completely clear. The consonant inventory of Umbrian is as follows: Pure: i, e, a, o, u; ā, ē, ī, ō, ū Diphthongs: ai, ei, ou Classes of nouns roughly match those in Latin: long a-stems matching Latin first declension, historical o-stems matching Latin second declension, consonant- and i-stems matching Latin third declension, with some more sparse attestation of u-stem (Latin fourth) and long e-stem (Latin fifth) declensions. There are seven attested cases in

8295-635: The native script) in initial syllables: unu 'one' : Old Latin oinus ; ute 'or' : Oscan auti , Latin aut ; tuta 'city' : Oscan touto . Velars are palatalized and spirantized before front vowels and the front glide /j/ to probably a palatalized sibilant (perhaps the postalveolar /ʃ/), written ç , ś or simply s . (A similar change happened later in most Romance languages.) For example: Umbrian śesna 'dinner' : Oscan kersnu , Latin cēna ; Umbrian façiu 'I do, I make' : Latin faciō . Like Latin, but unlike Oscan, intervocalic -s- rhotacized to -r- in Umbrian. In late forms of

8400-409: The officiant's hand), vases; pure water; ignition of the fire at the ara . Petronian Feast to Hontos Iovios : sacrifice to Hontos Iovios of puppies, offers of wine, libation, partition of the meats and their exposition on a board. Holding and turning of the ara with the hands and offer of wine. Division of the wine, the strues and ferctum, the meats among the participants. Burning (or inhumation) of

8505-489: The one manufactured by Novios Plutius and given by Dindia Macolnia to her daughter, as the archaic Latin inscription says. All of them are more accurately termed "the Praenestine cistae". 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. Around one centimeter in size, they are dated to

8610-403: The opposite of what he had attempted to do. In 1861, Robert Ellis proposed that Etruscan was related to Armenian . Exactly 100 years later, a relationship with Albanian was to be advanced by Zecharia Mayani , a theory regarded today as disproven and discredited. Several theories from the late 19th and early 20th centuries connected Etruscan to Uralic or even Altaic languages . In 1874,

8715-481: The other hand, many inscriptions are highly abbreviated and often casually formed, so the identification of individual letters is sometimes difficult. Spelling might vary from city to city, probably reflecting differences of pronunciation. 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 . This speech habit

8820-427: The other. It has also been proposed that this language family is related to the pre-Indo-European languages of Anatolia, based upon place name analysis. The relationship between Etruscan and Minoan, and hypothetical unattested pre-Indo-European languages of Anatolia, is considered unfounded. Some have suggested that Tyrsenian languages may yet be distantly related to early Indo-European languages , such as those of

8925-467: The people shall be assembled and three heifers sacrificed below the Forum of Sehemania ( Semonia ) to Tursa Iovia at Acedonia . One of the heifers shall be consecrated by the arfertur and two by the prinovatus . Side a Duties of the arsfertur : The arsfertur must provide whatever is essential for the ceremony and select the victims. Fees to be levied for the performance of the rites. Whenever

9030-655: The persons depicted in the scenes, so 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 , which resolved to publish all the specula and set editorial standards for doing so. Since then, the committee has grown, acquiring local committees and representatives from most institutions owning Etruscan mirror collections. Each collection

9135-419: The present stem): Umbrian shares some phonological changes with its sister language Oscan. This change is shared with Umbrian, and so is a common Sabellic change, reminiscent of the k/p split between Goidellic (Irish, etc) and Cymric (Welsh, etc). piře , pirse "what"; Oscan pídum vs Latin quid. At some point early in the history of all Indo-European Italic languages, the accent seems to have shifted to

9240-517: The puppies at the ara . Side b (a of Lepsius) Sacrifice and feast of the Attidian Brotherhood : Sacrifice of a pig and a ram to Iove at the time of the decuriae of month Semonius by the ten sets of families of each of the 12 regions. Sacred Epulum (feast) in honour of Iove Patre , started in town and profanated at the various fana with libations using the mandraculum . Vocian (Buck: Lucian) Feast to Iupater : Sacrifice of

9345-476: The quality of vowels" and accounted for the second phase (e.g. Herecele ) as " vowel harmony , i.e., of the assimilation of vowels in neighboring syllables". The writing system had two historical phases: the archaic from the seventh to fifth centuries BC, which used the early Greek alphabet, and the later from the fourth to first centuries BC, which modified some of the letters. In the later period, syncopation increased. The alphabet went on in modified form after

9450-476: The region. Sometimes they are called the Eugubian tablets after the medieval name of Iguvium/Eugubium. The tablets contain 4000–5000 words. Other minor inscriptions are from Todi , Assisi and Spoleto . The Iguvine tablets were written in two alphabets. The older, the Umbrian alphabet, like other Old Italic script , was derived from the Etruscan alphabet , and was written right-to-left, essentially equivalent to

9555-448: The rituals (sacrifices and prayers) addressed to the highest gods of the local community and to some extent may reflect the common religious beliefs and practices of the Italic peoples. The modern Festival of Ceri , celebrated every year in Gubbio on May 15 in honor of Bishop Ubald or Ubaldo of Gubbio (1084–1160), shares certain features with the rites described in the text and so may be a survival of that ancient pre-Christian custom. It

9660-430: The same subject as Tablet I in a much more detailed and diluted way, with apparent literary and encomiastic intentions and overtones. The content of the tablets is given below, in their relative order of antiquity as established by Newman on the authority of Aufrecht and Kirchhoff, which is identical to that recently indicated by A. Maggiani. Sacrifice to Puemonos Popricos and Vesuna . General prescriptions concerning

9765-596: The second to last syllable (the penult).) The degree to which these shifts can be connected to similar shifts to initial stress in Celtic and Germanic is unclear; for discussion see J. Salmons' Accentual Change and Language Contact . Examples: Loss of unstressed short -e-: * onse "shoulder" < * omesei , compare Latin umerus ; destre "on the right" < * deksiterer ; ostendu "present" (imperative) < * obs-tendetōd , compare Latin ostendito . But compared to its highly conservative sister language Oscan, Umbrian exhibits

9870-401: The semantic development > "of the full (year)"). Verbs in Umbrian are inflected for the following categories: Present, future and future perfect forms in the active voice use the following set of personal endings (primary): Imperfect, perfect indicative and all tenses of the subjunctive in the active voice use a different set of endings (secondary): Passive endings are attested only for

9975-440: The sequence rs in Umbrian texts using the Latin alphabet. The exact pronunciation is unknown: piře , pirse "what" vs. Oscan pídum , Latin quid. Proto-italic *ū became /i/, sim (accusative singular) <PI *sūm "pig" Taken from the Iguvine Tablets , tablet Va, lines 6–10 (written in the native alphabet on the tablet): In Latin: In English: Taken from the Iguvine Tablets , tablet VIa, lines 25–31 (written in

10080-603: The singular: nominative , accusative (along with the nom-acc neuter case), genitive , dative , ablative , locative , and vocative . In the plural, there are only four distinct cases: nominative; accusative; genitive; and dative-and-ablative combined into one form. There are no attested locative or vocative plurals. Examples from long a-stems (for use of bold versus italic script, see above under "Alphabet"): Singular: Nom. muta/mutu "fine" (related to Latin molta "fine"); Acc. tuta / totam "city, state"; Gen. tutas / totar (the later with rhotacism, on which see below) "of

10185-472: The tablets was the word for 'three', ci . According to Rix and his collaborators, only two unified (though fragmentary) long texts are available in Etruscan: Some additional longer texts are: The main material repository of Etruscan civilization , from the modern perspective, is its tombs, all other public and private buildings having been dismantled and the stone reused centuries ago. The tombs are

10290-413: The total number of tombs is unknown. They are of many types. Especially plentiful are the hypogeal or "underground" chambers or system of chambers cut into tuff and covered by a tumulus . The interior of these tombs represents a habitation of the living stocked with furniture and favorite objects. The walls may display painted murals , the predecessor of wallpaper. Tombs identified as Etruscan date from

10395-417: The use of Etruscan letters, the language of the inscriptions was different from the Etruscan language. Lepsius added to the epigraphical criticism of the tablets, and Lassen and Grotefend made several successful attempts at interpretation. Aufrecht and Kirchhoff , working off of their predecessors and under the scientific method, created a refined interpretation. The understanding of this text has been

10500-541: Was attributed to Etruscan pagan priests who claimed to have summoned a raging thunderstorm, and they offered their services "in the ancestral manner" to Rome as well, but the devout Christians of Rome refused the offer, preferring death to help by pagans. Freeman notes that these events may indicate that a limited theological knowledge of Etruscan may have survived among the priestly caste much longer. One 19th-century writer argued in 1892 that Etruscan deities retained an influence on early modern Tuscan folklore. Around 180 AD,

10605-408: Was from right to left except in archaic inscriptions, which occasionally used boustrophedon . An example found at Cerveteri used left to right. 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 be used to separate syllables. Writing was phonetic; the letters represented the sounds and not conventional spellings. On

10710-588: Was made by Bernardino Baldi in the beginning of the 17th century, and he was followed by Adriaan van Schrieck , who believed the tablets were in the Low German language , and interpreted them accordingly. Olivieri recognized the name of Eugubium in one frequently recurring word. Louis Bourget pointed out that one of the tablets written in the Etruscan letters corresponded with two written in Roman letters. Karl Otfried Müller , in Die Etrusker , showed that in spite of

10815-420: Was once widely taught to Roman boys, but had since become replaced by the teaching of Greek, while Varro noted that theatrical works had once been composed in Etruscan. The date of extinction for Etruscan is held by scholarship to have been either in the late first century BC, or the early first century AD. Freeman's analysis of inscriptional evidence would appear to imply that Etruscan was still flourishing in

10920-536: Was the site of the temple of Jupiter Apenninus , an important Umbrian sanctuary, it is conceivable that the plates were kept in the temple itself. The second version, first attested in the 17th century, states that the tablets were found in a basement of the Roman theater in Gubbio. However, given that all the actors involved in the sale of the tablets were natives of Scheggia, that the tradition of finding them in Scheggia has been attested in Scheggia itself since at least

11025-479: Was widespread over the Mediterranean shores, as evidenced by about 13,000 inscriptions (dedications, epitaphs , etc.), most fairly short, but some of considerable length. They date from about 700 BC. The Etruscans had a rich literature, as noted by Latin authors. Livy and Cicero were both aware that highly specialized Etruscan religious rites were codified in several sets of books written in Etruscan under

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