The Etruscan alphabet is a set of characters that make up the Etruscan language, the most mysterious language in the world that can be read but impossible to understand. Despite the large number of known monuments of Etruscan writing, numbering thousands of copies, scientists around the world have not yet been able to solve this riddle.
Who are the Etruscans
The Etruscans are a powerful people who lived in Italy from the 9th century. BC e., even before the advent of the Romans. The state of Etruria had a federal structure and consisted of 12 independent cities. Each city had its own king, but in the 4th c. BC e. the aristocracy came to power.
The Etruscan state maintained trade and industrial relations with Ancient Greece (Corinth), as evidenced by drawings and written monuments. Clay urns and vessels with drawings found near Tarquinia show a close relationship between the art of the Etruscans and the Greeks. According to some reports, one of the skilled Greek draftsmen brought to the countryalphabet. The fact that the Etruscan alphabet originated from the Greek is also indicated by the shape and meanings of its letters.
The heyday of the state of Etruria
The Etruscan state widely developed trade and industrial activity. The territory from the seaside of Tarquinia to the Gulf near Vesuvius was convenient for sailors, so the Etruscans tried to oust the Greeks from trade in the Mediterranean. Agriculture and crafts were well developed in the state. Evidence of the development of building art are the ancient remains of buildings and tombs, roads and canals.
The ruling nobility - the lukumon - led the construction of cities, gaining glory through battles and raids on neighbors.
Much of what is now considered primordially Roman was actually made and founded by the Etruscans: for example, the ancient temple on the Capitoline Hill was built by craftsmen from Etruria. The kings of Ancient Rome also came from the Tarquinian family, many Latin names were borrowed from Etruscans, and many historians also attribute the origin of the alphabet in the Roman Empire to the Etruscans.
The heyday of the state of Etruria falls on 535 BC. e., when the army of the Carthaginians and Etruscans defeated the Greeks, but after a few years, due to the disunity of the state, Rome successfully conquers all the new Etruscan cities. Already by the middle of the 1st century BC. e. Roman culture completely absorbs the local one, and the Etruscan language is no longer used.
Language and art in Etruria
At the Etruscansart was well developed: the manufacture of marble sculptures, the technique of bronze casting. The famous statue of a she-wolf feeding the founders of the city, Romulus and Remus, was created by Etruscan masters who studied with the Greeks. The painted terracotta sculptures have preserved the facial features of the Etruscan people: slightly slanting almond-shaped eyes, a large nose, and full lips. The inhabitants of Etruria are very reminiscent of the inhabitants of Asia Minor.
Religion and language greatly distinguished the Etruscans from neighboring peoples because of their alienness. Even the Romans themselves could no longer understand this language. The Roman proverb “Etruscan is not readable” (etruscum non legitur) has survived to this day, which predetermined the fate of Etruscan writing.
Most of the Etruscan texts that have been found by archaeologists over the past centuries are funerary and dedicatory inscriptions on tombstones, vases, statues, mirrors and jewelry. But any scientific works or medical (according to some reports, medicine and drug treatment were highly developed in Etruria) most likely will no longer be found.
Attempts to decipher the Etruscan language have been made for over 100 years. Many scientists have tried to do this by analogy with the Hungarian, Lithuanian, Phoenician, Greek, Finnish and even Old Russian languages. According to the latest data, this language is considered isolated from all other languages of Europe.
Early Etruscan alphabet
In order to decipher words in an unknown language, scientists first find recognizable words (names, titles, titles), and then,having made a transfer from a known language, they try to find repetitions in words or grammatical forms. Thus, the syntax, vocabulary and composition of an unknown language are comprehended.
Today, there are more than 10 thousand inscriptions (on dishes, on tablets, etc.) using the Etruscan alphabet in museums and depositories around the world. Its origin is interpreted by various scientists in different ways. Some researchers call it Pelasgian (Proto-Tyrrhenian) and believe that it originated from pre-Greek, others - Dorian-Corinthian, others - Chalcidian (Western Greek).
Some scholars suggest that before him there was an older alphabet, which is conventionally called "Proto-Etruscan", but no written evidence or finds have been found. The archaic Etruscan alphabet, according to the scientist R. Carpenter, most likely was composed of "several Greek" and was invented in the 8th-7th century. BC e.
Records are read in the Etruscan language horizontally from right to left, sometimes there are inscriptions made by boustrophedon (lines are read "snake", alternately one - from right to left, the other - from left to right). Words were often not separated from each other.
This alphabet is also called Northern Italic and is considered to be descended from Phoenician or Greek, and some of its letters are very similar to Latin.
The Etruscan alphabet with translation was reconstructed by scientists back in the 19th century. How to pronounce each of the letters of the Etruscan alphabet is known, and any student can read it. However, no one has yet been able to decipher the language.fails.
Marsilian alphabet
The writing of the Etruscans appeared in the middle of the 7th century. BC e., and it was found on some household items during archaeological excavations: these are scratched inscriptions on vessels, on valuable items from tombs.
The most complete example of an alphabet came when a tablet from Marsiliana de Albeña was found during excavations of a necropolis (now in the Archaeological Museum in Florence). It is made of ivory and measures 5x9 cm and is covered with wax residues with embossed letters. On it you can see 22 letters of the Phoenician (Middle Eastern) alphabet and 4 Greek at the end, of which 21 are consonants and 5 are vowels. The very first letter of the alphabet - the letter "A" - is on the right.
According to the researchers, the tablet served as a primer for a person who learned to write. After examining it, scientists came to the conclusion that the Marsilian alphabet comes from the Greek. The font of these letters is very similar to Chalkid.
Another confirmation of this alphabet is its presence on a vase that was found in Formello, and another one found in a tomb in Cervetri (now in the museums of Rome). Both finds are dated to the 7th-6th centuries. BC e. The inscription on one of them even has a list of syllables (syllabary).
Development of the alphabet
To answer the question of how the Etruscan alphabet changed, how many characters were in it at the beginning and whether their number changed later, it is necessary to trace this from the “exhibits with writing” found and described by researchers.
Judging byarchaeological finds of a later period (by the 5th-3rd centuries BC), it changed gradually, which can be seen by comparing the samples on the tablets from Viterbo, Collet and others, as well as the alphabets from Ruzell and Bomarzo.
In the 5th century BC. e. the Etruscan alphabet already had 23 letters, since some of them were no longer used. By 400 BC. e. a “classic” alphabet was formed, already consisting of 20 letters:
- 4 vowels: letter A, then E, I, I;
- 16 consonants: G, U-digamma, C, H, Th, L, T, N, P, S(an), R, S, T, Ph, Kh, F (figure eight).
Late Etruscan inscriptions have already begun to be done differently: after the “right to left” method, boustrophedon was used, later, under the influence of the Latin language, the “left to right” method was used. Then there are inscriptions in 2 languages (Latin + Etruscan), and some Etruscan letters become similar to the Latin alphabet.
The Neo-Etruscan alphabet has been in use for several hundred years, and its pronunciation even influenced the Tuscan dialect in Italy.
Etruscan numbers
Identifying the Etruscan numerals also proved to be a difficult task. The first step in determining the numbers was a discovery in Tuscany in the middle of the 19th century. two dice with 5 words on their faces: math, thu, huth, ci, sa. Trying to compare the inscriptions with other bones that have dots on their faces, scientists could not determine anything, because the dots were applied randomly.
Then they began to examine the tombstones, which always contain numbers, and as a result it turned out that the Etruscansthey wrote numbers by summing tens and ones, and sometimes they subtracted smaller numbers from large ones (20-2=18).
A scientist from Germany G. Stoltenberg made a systematization of tombstone inscriptions and found out that the number "50" is determined by the word muvalch, and "5" - mach. Word designations 6 and 60, etc. were found in a similar way.
As a result, Stoltenberg concluded that the Etruscan script served as a prototype for Roman numerals.
Pirgi plates
In 1964, between the plates of the temple, not far from the ancient port of Pirgi, which belongs to the Etruscan city of Pere, archaeologists found 3 plates 6-5 c. BC e. of gold with inscriptions, one of which was in the Phoenician language, and 2 in Etruscan. The very presence of these tablets speaks of the connection between Carthage and the Etruscan city of Pirgi. At first, scientists perked up, assuming that it was bilingual (identical text in 2 languages), and they could read the Etruscan inscriptions. But alas… The texts were not quite the same.
After trying to decipher these tablets by two famous scientists Pallotino and Garbini, the conclusions were made that the inscription was made during the dedication of a statue or temple to the goddess Uni-Astarte. But on a smaller tablet, it contained a reference to Teferi Velinas and described a ritual of sacrifice. It turned out that both Etruscan texts have similar places, but they could not be fully deciphered.
Attempts to decipher the texts on these plates were made many times by scientists from many countries, but each time the meaning of the text turned out to be different.
Connection between the Etruscan language and Middle Eastern analogues
One of the oddities of the Etruscan alphabet is the very little use, and sometimes the absence, of vowels. By the outline of the letters, you can see that the Etruscan letters are identical to the Phoenician ones.
The ancient writings of the Near East are very similar to the "Phoenician" and made in the language used by the Etruscans. From which we can conclude that in the period from the 13th century. and up to 3-2 centuries. BC e. the written language in Italy, the coast of the Middle East, northwest Africa was the only one and similar to Etruscan.
At the beginning of our era, Etruscan inscriptions in these territories disappear, replaced by Greek and Aramaic. Most likely, this was due to the historical era of increasing power in the Roman Empire.
The Mummy Book and other texts
One of the largest Etruscan texts was found in the 19th century, a Croatian tourist brought a mummified woman from Egypt to Zagreb. Later, after unwinding strips of linen fabric from it, scientists discovered inscriptions that were later identified as Etruscan. The linen book consists of 12 pieces of fabric, which, when combined, form a 13.75 m long scroll. The text consists of 12 columns, read from right to left.
After many years of research, it was concluded that the "Book of the Mummy" is a calendar that prescribes the performance of various religious ceremonies.
Another similar large Etruscan text was found during construction work in the city of Cortona, which was previously one of the main cities of Etruria. Cortonian text has been researchedthe famous linguist V. Ivanov, who came to the conclusion that the Etruscan and North Caucasian languages are related.
One of the conclusions of the scientist was the assertion of the powerful influence of Etruscan culture and writing on Roman, Latin.
Comparison of the Etruscan and Lezgi languages
Another version of the origin and reading of the Etruscan language was published in 2013 by linguist Y. Yaraliev and N. Osmanov under the title “History of the Lezgins. Etruscans . They claim that they were able to decipher the Etruscan alphabet and, most importantly, translate the texts using the Lezgi language, one of the modern languages of the Dagestan branch.
They were able to read all available Etruscan texts, including 12 pages from the "Book of the Mummy" and another 320 tablets with Etruscan texts. The data obtained, they claim, allows revealing ancient historical ties between the Middle East and the Caucasus.
"Slavic" theory of the origin of the Etruscans
Supporters of the Proto-Slavic origin of the Etruscans believe that the Etruscans called themselves "Rasens" or "Rosens", which is consonant with the word "Russians". They provide other evidence of the closeness of these cultures and languages.
Deciphering the tablets from Pyrgi attracted the attention of supporters of the Slavic theory of the origin of the Etruscan language. One of the researchers who was interested in Etruscan writing was the Russian scientist V. Osipov. He made an attempt to rewrite the Etruscan text with the usual letters of the Russian alphabet in the standard direction (left to right) and even divided it into words. And received … a description of the ancientritual of erotic games on Solstice Day.
Osipov draws analogies with the Slavic holiday of Ivan Kupala. After his discovery, the scientist sent a translation of the text from Pyrgi and his explanations to scientists involved in Etruscan writing in different countries. Subsequently, he translated several dozen more inscriptions with his method, but so far scientists have not reacted in any way to such a breakthrough in research.
Another Russian scientist, V. Shcherbakov, put forward the theory that bronze mirrors, which they placed in tombs, could be used to decipher the Etruscan writing. Using mirrors, text can be read in different directions and some letters can be upside down.
Historians explain this by the fact that the masters who made the inscriptions themselves were not literate, but copied the letters from the mirrors, while the images of the letters in the mirrors turned out to be turned or upside down. By moving the mirrors, Shcherbakov made his own version of the text decoding.
Research by Z. Mayani and others
Attempts to read and translate the Etruscan tablets, comparing the Etruscan alphabet and the Old Albanian, were made by the French scientist Z. Mayani, who in 2003 published the book "The Etruscans Begin to Talk", which became popular throughout Europe. He made 300 etymological comparisons between the dictionaries of these languages (Etruscan and Illyrian), but did not receive the support of linguists.
Based on the finds of writing, scientists also identified several types of Late Etruscan alphabets, which include North Etruscan and Alpine, Venetian andrut alphabets. It is generally accepted that the early Etruscan alphabet served as the basis for them. Moreover, all these scripts were used by the inhabitants of Tuscany and Italy at the beginning of the 1st century BC. e., after the disappearance of the Etruscan original. When people will be able to understand the Etruscan language remains a mystery of the last millennia.
