Mars Of Todi.

The so-called Mars of Todi is a near life-sized bronze warrior, dating from the late 5th or early 4th century BC, produced in Etruria for the Umbrian market. It was found at Todi (ancient Tuder), on the slope of Mount Santo.

The bronze warrior was an expensive votive offering made at a religious sanctuary, possibly to Laran, the Etruscan god of war. It had been buried in antiquity, perhaps ritually,  and left undisturbed until its discovery in 1835. It is an example of the highest-quality "prestige" works from Etruria found in Umbria during this period, and probably came from a workshop in Orvieto (Etruscan Velzna), Velzna was known for its bronze sculptures, more than 2,000 of which were looted by the Romans in 265 BC.

The work is a "typical military figure" with "conspicuously Etruscan" facial features It is an Etruscan realization of reek formal Classicism. The figure probably held a patera (libation bowl) in his extended right hand, and a spear in the left. His helmet is missing but his intricate body armor, depicted with "pedantic accuracy," is one of the best examples showing what plate armor from the period looked like.

The dedication is inscribed on the skirt of the breastplate. It is written in Umbrian in Etruscan characters and marks the beginning of the epigraphic tradition in this part of Umbria. The man dedicating it, however, has a name that is Celtic in origin, an indication of Tuder's "cosmopolitian" character in the Archaic period. The inscription reads Ahal Trutitis dunum dede, "Ahal Trutitis gave [this as a] gift".

The sculpture is currently held by the Museo  Etrusco Gregoriano of the Vatican.

The Lemnos Stele

A little north of Poliókhni lies that village of Kaminia where, in 1885, as part of a church wall, the so-called Stele of Lemnos was discovered. This stele is generally dated at an epoch (shortly) before the Attic conquest of the island, and is now on exhibition at the National Museum of Athens. Portraying a warrior holding a spear, its paramount scientific and historical meaning is constituted, however, by two inscriptions. They are written in a hitherto unknown variant of the Greek alphabet and a language equally unknown in 1885; which language, from obvious reasons, was called Lemnian.

For the first time there was a testimony at hand that enables us to pursue the traces of the Etruscans back to their Aegean country of origin in Asia Minor by applying modern linguistic methodology. From the start -- as soon as those two inscriptions were published -- a convergence between Lemnian and Etruscan became clear: just like the Etruscan writing, the Lemnian writing has chosen only four vowel characters from its Greek mother alphabet: a, e, i, o (the Etruscans having selected a, e, i, u). Over the years, a huge amount of books and essays analysing the Lemnian language has been published, which unfortunately have produced few substantial results and rather frequently involuntarily amusing translations of the text. 

Nevertheless, after more than a century of research, the linguistic relationship between Lemnian and Etruscan -- despite the scanty material -- is nowadays established to a large extent as an undeniable fact.

The phonemic systems can not be set to coincide completely, yet it is significant that apart from the already mentioned four vowel system parallels exist in the consonant inventory, too. There are two varieties of s (here written s and sh) and no indications of the voiced plosives b, d, g, while next to each other are to be found in both languages t and th (no aspirate sound like the Greek one, but rather pronounced like ty).

Evident conformities exist in the vocabulary between Etruscan (ET, Ta 1.169:) avils machs shealchlsc (literally: "at (=-s) years at four and (=-c) at sixty"), and Lemnian mav shialchveis avis(literally: "four at (=-s) sixty at years"). The common translation, "at 64 years", is of course depending on the values assigned to the Etruscan numerals. In view of the extremely meagre vocabulary of the Lemnian language possible interpretations must rely almost completely on so far decoded Etruscan expressions. Yet, the interpretation of mav and mach is based additionally on the fact that in the (Indo-European) Anatolian language Luvian the word "four" is called maua. 

Grammatical analysis may compare constructions of both languages, which the linguist calls 'morpho-syntactic', e.g. the endings -le and -si expressing the logical subject connected with past forms of the passive voice in Etruscan -u and Lemnian -o 

Etruscan (Vc 3.2) ...larthia-le melacina-si mul-u "(was) by Larth Melacina(s) given" und Lemnian holaie-si qokiashia-le...evisth-o "by Holaie kokiashia (?) x-ed" are so convincingly matched that they entitle linguists to postulate a common ancestral stage of both languages which may be termed Proto-Etrusco-Lemnian. 

Further -- which has been only briefly mentioned here with Luvian maua -- there exist enough similarities between the Etruscan and Lemnian languages and the so-called Anatolian languages (in Asia Minor) to show that the roots of the Etruscans in Italy must be sought in the northwest part of Asia Minor -- approximately in the region of Troy. And this might well form the historical core of that myth of Trojan origin, which the Romans have borrowed from their neighbouring nation, in order to claim it for themselves.

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APOLLO OF VEII.

The Apollo of Veii is an over-life-size painted terracotta Etruscan statue of Apollo (Aplu). Originally at Veii, it dates from c. 510 - 500 BC and was sculpted in the so-called "international" Ionic or late-archaic Etruscan style. It was discovered in 1916, and is now on show in the National Etruscan Museum in Rome.

The statue was probably made by Vulca, the only Etruscan artist whose name is known. It was part of a scene of Apollo and Heracles contending over the Ceryneian Hind, 12 metres above the ground on beams on the acroterion of the Portonaccio Sanctuary of Minerva. The statue is dressed in a tunic and short cloak, advancing towards the left with the right arm outstretched and bent (the statue's left arm is towards the ground and may have held a bow).

Together with other statues, it decorated the roof beams of the Temple of Veio in Portonaccio, a sanctuary dedicated to Minerva. Placed on high plinths they were erected with an acroterial function twelve metres high and even though they were created separately, they narrated Greek mythical events at least in part tied to the god Apollo. The statue, which is currently undergoing restoration work, together with the statue of Heracles, formed a group representing one of the labours of the hero before his apotheosis among the divinities of Olympus. The myth narrates the contention between the god and the hero for the possession of the doe with the golden horns. There was probably also a statue of Mercury united to this group of which only the head and a part of the body remain. Apollo, dressed in a tunic and short cloak advances towards his left with his right arm outstretched and bent (his left arm is towards the ground maybe with a bow in his hand); Heracles, with the doe tied around his legs, is outstretched towards the right, leaning forwards to attack with his bludgeon and with his torso in a violent curve.

The Group was conceived for a lateral vision and the solid volume of the figures united with the dissymmetry both in Apollo (the torso and face) and Heracles torso suggest that the artist was knowledgeable regarding optical deformations. The style of the statues is in the ambit of the “international” Ionic manner that characterizes not only the Etruscan artistic culture of the late archaic period of the last years of the 6th century BC but the result achieved reaches very high expressive levels. The creator of the acroterial statues can be identified as the “Artist from Veio, an expert in coroplastic art”.

HYPOGEUM OF THE VOLUMNUS FAMILY.

The Hypogeum of the Volumnus family (Italian: Ipogeo dei Volumni) is an Etruscan tomb in Ponte San Giovanni, a suburb of Perugia, central Italy. Its dating is uncertain, although it is generally assigned to the 3rd century BC.

The Hypogeum was the Roman-Etruscan tomb of Arnth Veltimna Aules. It is part of the larger Palazzone necropolis, a burial ground dating to the 6th-5th century BC, with numerous subterranean tombs. Visitors can see and enter some of the tombs found along paths in the site's grounds. A museum building displays funerary urns and other artifacts found in the excavations of the area. More urns are displayed in the separate building covering the Volumnus tomb. The Volumnus tomb itself is accessed by a staircase which leads several metres under the surface to the portal leading inside to a vestibule. This in turn opens into four small side chambers and three larger central ones, the middle of which housed the remains of the family's main members. Only this chamber now displays burial urns and artifacts. Arnth's urn is made of travertine, and is surmounted by a representation of the deceased lying on a triclinium.

The tomb was used up to the 1st century BC. It was rediscovered on 5 February 1840.

ETRUSCAN TOMB PAINTING.

Tomb paintings include images of funeral ceremonies, athletic competitions, bloody duels, grand banquets, warriors and horsemen, demons and mythical creatures, and journeys to the next world. There are images of bearded snakes, dolphins, flocks of birds, musicians, wild dancers and jugglers. The vibrant colors were created with an array of pigments, some of them quite rare and expensive: white from calcite, red from hematite, black from charcoal, yellow from goethite, and blue from a mixture if silica, lime, copper and a special alkali imported from Egypt.

Few of the tombs with wall paintings are open to the public. Once a sealed tomb has been opened the paintings decays rapidly in the humidity. One tomb called the Tomb of the Leopards has beautiful wall paintings that depict nude wrestlers, men playing musical and a banqueting couple looking upon an egg, a symbol of immortality.

The Etruscan Museum in the Vatican contains one of the world's best collections of Etruscan art. The most outstanding pieces, which were found in Etruscan tombs in Tuscany and Lazio, include gold and silver jewelry, dice that looks just like modern dice, chariots, vase paintings, and small sarcophagi that held the cremated remains of wealthy Etruscans. Among the highlights are lovely Etruscan painting and a bronze statue of boy from the Etruscan site of Tarquina.

ETRUSCAN JEWELRY.

This tomb group represents one of the richest and most impressive sets of Etruscan jewelry ever found. It comprises a splendid gold and glass pendant necklace, a pair of gold and rock-crystal disk earrings, a gold fibula (dress fastener) decorated with a sphinx, a pair of plain gold fibulae, a gold dress pin, and five finger rings. Two of the rings have engraved scarabs that revolve on a swivel bezel, one is decorated with embossed satyr heads, and the other two have decorated gold bezels. The disk earring is originally a Lydian type of jewelry that became fashionable in Etruria in the latter part of the sixth century B.C., when the Etruscans were strongly influenced by eastern Greek artists and their works.

BUCCHERO POTTERY

It is said of the Etruscans that they ate twice a day, well and profusely. The lustrous black pottery called bucchero typifies their material culture in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. It was used for pouring and drinking wine. The word 'bucchero' is not Etruscan but comes from the Spanish name for South American pottery which was much imitated in the nineteenth century. Early wheel-turned bucchero dating from the second half of the seventh century is thin-walled and has a shiny, deep black surface. The solid black colour results from the low temperature and smoky atmosphere in which the pottery was fired. Most probably, bucchero developed as an improved form of the earlier rough impasto. It often appears to imitate metalware. A few decades later, bucchero became less refined as the thickness of the wall increased and the colour grew greyer. Bucchero's fan-shaped ornaments are particularly striking: they were pressed with a comb into the leather hard clay. Other motifs were made with a cylinder stamp which was rolled over the moist surface.

ETRUSCAN GEOMETRIC PERIOD.

In the Geometric period of about 900 to 700 B.C., Greeks continued to be active seafarers, seeking opportunities for trade and founding new, independent cities in Asia Minor, Italy, and Sicily. In the Late Geometric period, around 760–750 B.C., Greeks from the island of Euboea (near northern Attica) established a colony at Pithekousai, near the Bay of Naples. The settlement received Levantine goods in quantity, as well as Corinthian, Cycladic, and Rhodian pottery, most of which were exported to the Italian mainland. This influx of goods and designs from the East played a major role in initiating the Italic and Etruscan Orientalizing period (ca. 750–575 B.C.). Likewise, Euboean vases were exported from Pithekousai to Campania and Etruria, as were local (Italic) vessels decorated with typical Euboean Late Geometric designs, as on this oinochoe, a small jug that was used to dip out and serve wine. Its main figurative scene, two goats standing upright and, perhaps, nibbling at a tree, is a familiar motif in Near Eastern art, and appears on vases made in Euboea at this time. The distinctive barrel shape of this vessel, however, is more Italic than Greek; similar oinochoi have been found in Etruria, near Bisenzio, and at Marsiliana.

SOME ETRUSCAN RULER

The institution of kingship was general. Many names of individual Etruscan kings are recorded, most of them in a historical vacuum, but with enough chronological evidence to show that kingship persisted in Etruscan city-culture long after it had been overthrown by the Greeks and at Rome, where Etruscan kings were long remembered with suspicion and scorn. When the last king was appointed, at Veii, the other Etruscan cities were alienated, permitting the Romans to destroy Veii. It is presumed that Etruscan kings were military and religious leaders. The paraphernalia of Etruscan kingship is familiar because it was inherited at Rome and adopted as symbols of the republican authority wielded by the consuls: the purple robe, the staff or scepter topped with an eagle, the folding cross-framed "curule seat", the sella curulis, and most prominent of all, the fasces carried by a magistrate, which preceded the king in public appearances.
The tradition by which the Etruscan cities could come together under a single leader was the annual council held at the sacred grove of the Fanum Voltumnae, the precise site of which has exercised scholars since the Renaissance. In times of no emergency, the position of praetor Etruriae, as Roman inscriptions express it, was no doubt largely ceremonial and concerned with cultus.

Rulers of Clusium
Osiniu fl. probably early 11th century BC
Lars Porsenna fl. late 6th century BC
Aruns fl. c. 500 BC

Rulers of Caere
Lausus
Larthia
Thefarie Velianas fl. c. late 6th century–early 4th century BC, known from his temple dedication recorded on the Pyrgi Teblets

Rulers of Veii
Volumnius fl. mid 5th century–437 BC
Lars Tolumnius fl. late 5th century–428 BC

Rulers of Arimnus
Arimnestos

Etruscan kings of Rome
Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (616–579)
Servius Tullius (578–535)
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (535–510/509) BC

Other Etruscan rulers
Mezentius fl. c. 1100 ? BC
Tyrsenos
Velsu fl. 8th century BC.

ETRUSCAN ALPHABET.

The Etruscans were the first people in the Italic peninsula to learn to write. They adopted the Euboean Greek alphabet, and from them writing spread to other cultures of the Italic peninsula such as the Romans.

The Etruscan language has never been conclusively shown to be related to any other language in the world. The problem is compounded by the fact that the textual corpus is limited in scope, mostly from tombstones. Imagine trying to reconstruct any language from texts in cemetaries. Chances are you'll get geneological words, personal titles, and brief dedicatory sentences. There are some bilingual texts with Phoenician, but they are short and few in number. As a consequence, the Etruscan language remains poorly understood.

The following table represent various stages of the Etruscan alphabet. The "Model" alphabet is basically the Euboean Greek alphabet, and was not used but probably learned as part of a literate person's training. The "Archaic" alphabet was used between the 8th and 4th century BCE, before the Etruscans were part of the Roman Empire. The "Late" version was used from the 4th century BCE to the 1st century CE, at a time when Etruscan as a language was rapidly being replaced by Latin. The knowledge of Etruscan finally died out by the 1st century CE.

As the above table indicates, the source of the Etruscan alphabet is the Euboean variant of the Greek alphabet. This explains the presence of the letters F and Q, and the usage of H for the [h] sound (instead of [e:]) and X for [ks] (instead of [kh]). The adoption possibly occurred as early as the 8th century BCE, before the general standardization of the Greek alphabet, as indicated by the archaic shapes of the letters, and the and the direction of writing (which is either right-to-left or boustrophedon).

The Etruscan language did not have many of the sounds that the Greek language had. So while they did adopt nearly all letters in the Greek alphabet, they left many of them unused (such as Β, Δ, Ζ, Ο. In addition, they took Γ; and changed it to represent the [k] sound. This, in turn, means that there are now three letters that represent the [k] sound, namely C, K, and Q. The Etruscans decided to use all of them, but each one in a prescribed environment: K appears before A, C before I and E, and Q before V.

The letter F represented either the sound [w] or [v], as it is in Euboean Greek. However, Etruscan did have the sound [f]. In the early stages of the alphabet, the digraph (HF) was used to write the [f] sound. Later on, the letter 8 replaced *HF*.

The Etruscan alphabet was the foundation for many other alphabets such as Oscan, Umbrian, and maybe even Futhark. However, its descendent, the Latin alphabet, would come to be one of the most widely used alphabets in the world.