Meet the Etruscans

From about 700 BC to about 300 BC a group of people lived just north of the city of Rome. They are called the Etruscans, and much of their art and culture found its way into the later Roman civilization. The first three recorded kings in Rome were Etruscan. The very name, Rome, or Roma, itself comes from an Etruscan word. The Etruscan name for the Tiber River was Ruma. They gave to the Romans such things as divination. A priest was called in to divine the location of each new Roman town around a north-south axis called the Cardo and an east-west axis called the Decumanus. This arrangement was considered lucky. Laying out a city this way was an idea begun by the Etruscans. Divination also figures into the Roman custom of reading the entrails of a slain animal. By this method Etruscan priests were supposed to be able to predict the future. Another custom that the Romans got from the Etruscans is the notion of gladiatorial combat. The Etruscans would often have ceremonial games as part of a funeral rite. In some of these combative sports participants were killed.

The name of the ancient Etruscan town we visited is called Tarquinia. That name was given recently to a medieval town that grew up nearby, but originally it was called Cornetto because of a tree which grows here called the cornet tree. One can argue that the Etruscan civilization itself was not all that advanced. They did very quickly borrow, however, from Greek, Egyptian, and African civilizations nearby.

We entered many of the tombs which the Etruscans dug into the earth. In some periods they cremated their dead and buried the remains in funerary urns shaped like their houses. At other times they laid out their deceased relatives on wooden beds surrounded by their treasures—wine jars, chariots or jewelry. Unlike Egyptian tombs, which focus on the afterlife, Etruscan tomb decorations seem to be more a review of the joys experienced by the deceased during their earthly sojourn. These tombs differed from those of Egypt in another way as well. Egyptian artists used candles to illuminate the interior of the tombs while they painted, but the Etruscan tombs show no traces of smoke or soot. Apparently they pierced the ceilings of the tombs to let in sunlight and then used mirrors to direct the light to their work areas. The walls of the tombs themselves are often covered with flowers and depictions of feasts involving every type of culinary and erotic pleasure imaginable. It is also interesting that the residue from their feasts consists of pork bones rather than beef bones. They did not eat cows or oxen because these were more valuable as beasts of burden than food. Pigs couldn’t work so they got slaughtered.

Finally we visited the National Etruscan Museum of Cornetto, which shows evidence revealing the way Etruscans borrowed from other cultures as far away as Babylonia. Mickey, our brilliant guide had a fabulous command of English, and was quoting writers as diverse as Homer, Mark Twain and William Blake. Mickey gave us such a crash course in Etruscan culture that I can honestly say this was one of the most informative excursions I have ever enjoyed.Read more