Etruscans
Etruscan (Latin: Tuscii ) is a Peuple which lived in Étrurie, territory corresponding about to current the Toscane and in the north of the Latium, that is to say the center of the Italian peninsula, before the period of the Roman royalty. Their Greek neighbors called them Thyrrhenoi , i.e. Tyrrhéniens (having given the name of Tyrrhenian Sea for the Western slope of Italy), but they were called themselves Rasna . Their language which was written with a slightly modified Greek alphabet, gave rise to the Latin alphabet.
Origin
The majority of the current researchers tend to agree on an indigenous origin, resulting from the Villanoviens (Italic culture of the age of iron extending from Italy of North to the Campanie) which, fascinated by their contacts with the Phénicien S at the 7th century before our era then by the Greeks in full orientalizing period (Phocéens who were going to found Marseilles thus made stopover in Étrurie, leaving there traces but without settling there), would have developed a culture original and very allured by Eastern esthetics.
First of all according to Hérodote, they would have emigrated of Lydie in Asia Mineure, in Toscane, of Troy devastated like wants it Énéide ; according to another tradition, supported by Tite-Live, they on the contrary would have come from north; according to a third tradition, supported by Denys d' Halicarnasse, they would be autochtones. The historians privileged one sometimes sometimes the other. This would explain the sudden birth of Etruscan civilization between the VIII {{E}} and the VII E (the period known as “orientalizing”), and many affinities which one notes in the uses and habits, the language, the art and the religion of the Etruscans with the world égéo-Anatolian, while the uses in the relationship with the female world were very different: it is known that indeed the women attended the banquets near the men at the Etruscans, which was not the case among Greeks their contemporaries.
This Etruscan habit indeed was very badly seen by the Greeks, neighbors direct of the Etruscans in Italy of the south which belonged then to the Grande Greece and was one of the reasons of the competition of the two people, in addition to their commercial competition. But it is undeniable that the woman was considered better at the Etruscans: it could thus have goods in its proper name…
Recent research genetic (publication Science&Vie- October 2007) shows that the Etruscans would have a biological origin of Anatolia (minor Asia), which would give reason to Hérodote.
Language
See also: Etruscan Language, Etruscan Alphabet
The Etruscan language uses a Greek alphabet which inspired the Latin alphabet. It is probably of nonIndo-European origin and is not entirely known for us (approximately 700 words only). The principal inscriptions are translated. But it misses a " Pierre de Rosette" Etruscan more closely to include/understand the grammar and the origins of the Etruscan language. Comparisons were tried with Hourrite/Urartéen. The French specialist in comparative literature Michel Morvan proposes for example to compare the figure three of Etruscan (Ci) with that of the hourrite (ki).
Religion
See also: Etruscan Mythology
Nothing which was not monk in the daily life of these people of cities. All these activities proceeded according to quite precise rites, consigned in the various treaties of the Disciplina etrusca , Etruscan science par excellence.
Art
See also: Etruscan art
The art produced by this civilization is of a great richness. The Etruscans were very skilful craftsmen and had large artists, painters of frescos in the tombs, like those of Tarquinia for example, on vases, sculptors who carried out true masterpieces as well bronzes some as out of terra cotta. They were also of excellent jewellers, of skilful metallurgists. One can see their works in the large Italian museums, such as for example those of Florence, of the the Vatican or Volterra. But what obstructs our modern eye, Petri of “traditional” esthetics gréco-Roman, it is the freedom of deformation of the bodies at ends of expressivity. The Etruscan art is an art of movement.
Expansion and decline
See also: Étrurie
The maximum of the prosperity and the expansion of Etruscan civilization was reached towards half of the VI {{E}} century. In -535 indeed, the Etruscans, combined with the Carthaginians (certain historians on this subject employ the expression of “Confederation étrusco-Carthaginian”), gained the naval battle of Alalia (Aléria) to broad of the Corsica , against the Phocée NS of Massalia, that is to say the Greek colony of the antique Marseilles, in the fight which opposed them for the control of the Western Mediterranean. The stop of the Etruscan expansion starts at the end of the same century, then comes the decline during the V {{E}} century. Rome was the first to be released from the Etruscan domination by driving out the Tarquin S towards -509; then the Latin as a whole released from it with the assistance from Aristodème de Cumes with the battle from Aricie in -506. The Etruscan heads of bridge remained thus isolated in Campania, weakened after the naval defeat of Cumes in -474, and were definitively lost in -423 at the time of the conquest of Capoue by the Samnites. In north, the invasion Gaulois E destroyed the Etruscan cities of the plain of the Po at the beginning of the 5th century. In -396, Rome conquered Véies, thus extending its influence on all Étrurie Southerner. During more than two centuries, on the initiative sometimes of sometimes of the other their cities, the Etruscans fought against the Roman expansion. But in -295, although united with the population of Ombrie, the Gallic cisalpins and Samnites, they was overcome with the Bataille of Sentinum: in a few decades they were completely fixed in Rome and were included, by specific treaties, among the “allies” of the Italian peninsula, until the Roman citizenship their is granted at the time of the social Guerre of -90 - -88.
Heritage
In spite of the loss of their political autonomy, the Etruscans continued to exert thereafter a great influence in Italy on the cultural, religious and artistic level. Rome, which under Auguste had made of Étrurie the seventh area of Italy, is subject to strongly their influence, which persisted in the institutions, the lifestyles, the language, the tastes, the love of the luxury, of ostentation and the banquets, the dance and the music. Etruscan tastes attested by paintings of their tombs, though these last inform us especially about the tastes of the easy classes, i.e. on the tastes of a minority of the population. The emperor Claude was itself a specialist in the Etruscan culture. The creative spirit of the Etruscan people (a skilful craft industry and its thorough techniques) emerged again many centuries later in Toscane at the time of the Renaissance.
The Roman gods, that much thinks of being borrowed from the Greeks, are actually borrowed from the Etruscans. Thus, the Etruscans venerated Menrva, armed goddess, Tinia, powerful god of the sky, Turan, goddess of the female power, Tinias Clenar, twins wire of Tinia, or Hercle, wire of Tinia on which were imposed work… These gods were not represented before the Etruscans do not meet the Greeks and their Pantheon. They thus took again the Greek iconography to represent their gods, who kept their originality (they thus do not have the same stories). The Etruscans then transmitted their Pantheon (names and iconographies) to Latin (who superimposed this Pantheon with their own former divinities). Therefore the Roman gods are Minerve, Jupiter, Hercules… and not Athéna, Zeus, Héraclès… Only Bacchus and Apollon are direct loans in the Greek Pantheon because there was no equivalent preexistent divinity in the Etruscan tradition.
The Roman Triad capitoline (Jupiter/Junon/Minerve, marker cultural Roman with which many Roman cities built a temple with triple concealed is also resulting from the Etruscans, at which this type of temple is current. That of Rome would have been inaugurated, according to the tradition, into 509 before our era, first year of the Republic after having driven out the Etruscan kings. What makes it possible to deduce that it was ordered and built under the Etruscan domination of the City.
Other symbols, very strongly Roman, like the curule seat of the Roman senators, is directly borrowed from the objects of Etruscan capacity. It was about a collapsible seat for tank, privilege aristocratic.
Analyzes of biology
Us know, since publication of work of Jean Bernard Blood and history , that the blood group dominating in the Cantabric territories is 0 - and that the more one moves away from there in concentric circles and the more the percentage of this group in the population decrease until being still dominating in a smaller proportion in Ligurie, blood group corresponding to the most former population of known Mediterranean Europe. In addition, the studies which were made on the current Tuscan population showed a proportion of 5% pertaining to the groups has and B higher than the remainder of the Italian population. This could connect the proto-Etruscans with the Eastern populations of Arménie, with the Hindous and the gipsies Sinti. On their side the anthropologists are limited in their research by the diffuse practice of the incineration of the late ones. The systematic studies which were however made on the skeletons coming from the tombs of Étrurie revealed data of which it is difficult to draw the unquestionable conclusions. On 44 craniums, 34 were Dolichocéphale S and mésocéphale while 14 were Brachycéphale S. One concludes from it that the long and average craniums would correspond to those of the type of the invaders come from the East while the others would correspond to that of the natives. The aspect and the proportions of these craniums correspond however to the average of what one knows of the population of all southernmost Europe to the Neolithic era. According to the genetic studies most recent, the Tuscan Eve mitochondriale is 17.000 years old.
DNA of the Etruscans
The analysis of the DNA mitochondrial of 80 individuals having lived in Étrurie between VIIe and it carried out by the research team of the department of biology of the university of Ferrare under the direction of professor Guido Barbujani was published on the review American Journal off Human Genetics .
According to the results of this research, current Toscans is not the descendants of the Etruscans.
The results of this analysis also reveal that those were an intrinsically homogeneous group without exchanges with other ethnos groups. One of the aspects which has surprised the researchers is the speed with which them DNA disappeared without leaving traces in the current Tuscan population, two millenia being relatively short times from the point of view of the genetics.
The results of this analysis connect the DNA of this sampling to that of the Anatolian populations (Asia Mineure). The analyzed elements coming from rich tombs, pertaining to the Etruscan aristocracy, let think that it was about a dominant and noncomparable elite with the remainder of the population of then, population villanovienne whose current Tuscan would be the descendants. The inhabitants of the village of Marlo say being the direct descendants of the Etruscans.
Others
The Etruscans are the inventors of the dental Prothèse.
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