Etruria and Ancient Italy, (Religious) Iconography, Religious History, Bronze Works, Ancient Topography, Cultural and Commercial Interdependances of Ancient (European) Civilizations

Work notes on Etruscan Devotional Plates III

by Mel Copeland

This is a PDF file of our website, 'Translation of Etruscan Devotional Plates III," with images compiled from the Etruscan Phrases website (http://www.maravot.com/Translation_ShortScripts_e.html)

In contrast to offerings from the British Museum and University of Bologna, where their analyses, following Pallottino, are generally speculation based on guesswork relating to short funerary inscriptions, the Etruscan Phrases work is supported by a strong grammar and vocabulary based on all texts, small and large. Thus, to clear the mystery of the Etruscan language alleged by such esteemed institutions, it is imperative that the Etruscan Phrases GlossaryA.xls be audited. We mention this since the only prospect of clearing up the Etruscan Mystery is through a verifiable audit of the Etruscan Grammar recorded in Etruscan Phrases. The British Museum, University of Bologna and other "Pallottino School" works have not produced a vocabulary or grammar that can be audited, since their theory is that the Etruscan language is unlike any other known to man, not Indo-European. Etruscan Phrases claims that the Etruscan Language is similar to Latin, French, Italian and Romanian, an Indo-European language. It offers a grammar, declension patterns and regular, measurable shifts between Etruscan and these languages; ergo the work can be easily audited.

We should hope, therefore, that there will be many linguists / scholars who will jump at the chance to clear up the Etruscan Mystery and rewrite the histories so clearly overshadowed by the Pallottino School theories, to help even the museums containing Etruscan artifacts explain a bit more about the items in their displays.

Etruscan GlossaryA.xls an index to about 2,500 Etruscan words that are similar to Latin, French, Italian and Romanian. Declension patterns follow those in Latin. The 2,500 words equal the repeated words in 6,000 words of the major extant texts. The texts have been frozen in time, covering ~700-400 B.C., representing a lens to understanding the early formation of Indo-European languages, particularly the early Italic-Latin-Celtic languages, such as Italian, French & Romanian / Dacian. (By 45 BC. the language was a dead language - no one understood or could write Etruscan)

This GlossaryA works together with Indo-European Table 1 which refutes theories by the Pallottino school of thought that the Etruscan language is not Indo-European and an isolate, unlike any other language. It is very close to Latin and, curiously, Romanian, Italian and French. The Latin suffix, "us" shifts to "o" as in Italian (Titus vs Tito); first person conjugation patterns are similar to French and Romanian. This GlossaryA provides a quick look at the grammatical structure of the Etruscan language, how closely it coincides with Latin. A more detailed Declension Table can be seen on the Etruscan Phrases website. These PDF documents facilitate independent confirmation of the words in GlossaryA.xls , the Grammar and Declension Table. All words can be examined from actual images of texts on the Etruscan Phrases website. Over 150 texts, with about 6,000 words can be examined at Etruscan Phrases.

The Etruscans surfaced in Italy about 1,000 B.C., reputed to have arrived from Lydia / Phrygia. The Phrygians originated near Macedonia in Thrace, according to Herodotus. One may therefore inquire whether the ancient Thracians (Dacians, Gettae, modern Romanians), spoke a language common to the Phrygians, at the time of the Trojan War and after (~1180 B.C.). The Thracians, Phrygians and Lydians (also dead languages) were allies of the Trojans, according to the Iliad. Etruscan Phrases finds a common vocabulary among Latin, Italian, French, Romanian, Etruscan and Phrygian. While French, Spanish, Italian and Romanian are considered Romance languages, showing a similar Latin heritage, Etruscan is not, of course, a Romance language, as it preceded Latin, at least in the written form (giving Rome its alphabet).

Resolution of the Etruscan Mystery may be likened to Michael Ventris' decipherment of Linear B and Jean-François Champollion's decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics using the Rosetta Stone - written in Egyptian hieroglypics, Demotic and Greek. The decipherment of Etruscan is a bit more challenging, since we have no multilingual Rosetta Stone, but we do have enough vocabulary and grammar to establish that Etruscan is similar to Latin, French, Italian and Romanian. (Certainly far more vocabulary and a more extensive grammar is provided in Etruscan Phrases than that used by Ventris to claim translation of Linear B as an old form of Greek)

The Devotional Plates may be an easy entry into an audit, for those who are hesitant to examine the larger texts, such as the Zagreb Mummy (Script Z).

Valentino Nizzo, Lieve Donnellan, Contestualizzare la "prima Colonizzazione". Archeologia, fonti, cronologia e modelli interpretativi fra l'Italia e il Mediterraneo, in Forma Urbis XVII, 3, 2012, pp. 46-47

by Valentino Nizzo

Contextualising “early Colonisation”: Archaeology, Sources, Chronology and Interpretative Models between Italy and the Mediterranean. Rome June, 21-.23 2012
For the CFP of the congress please visit: http://www.academiabelgica.it.cloud.seeweb.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=229&Itemid=142&lang=it

History of Italian Culture (a project with Luca Cavalli-Sforza)

by Emanuele Serrelli

Serrelli E (2007). Popoli, nomi e nominatori: un dizionario del popolamento. Introduction to E. Serrelli, C.B. Serrelli, Dizionario del popolamento dell’Italia prima della romanizzazione, unpublished.

From 2003 to 2006 Emanuele Serrelli worked in the research project "History of Italian Culture", directed by... more From 2003 to 2006 Emanuele Serrelli worked in the research project "History of Italian Culture", directed by prof. Luigi Luca Cavalli Sforza. The research, in collaboration with Italian museums and other institutions, yielded the publication Dizionario del popolamento dell'Italia prima della romanizzazione (by E. Serrelli and C.B. Serrelli). Its main access points are the initial synoptic maps in which the major incoming migrations or "arrivals" are shown, with specification of dates and main names that emerged in these movements. From such maps one can delve into the dictionary in search for details.

In november 2003 prof. Luigi Luca Cavalli Sforza asked Telmo Pievani and Emanuele Serrelli (who in turn involved Claudio Bruno Serrelli) to deal with population processes before the advent of ancient Romans. The request was a list of names of peoples, with the related occupied territories and temporal range. Fortunately, Italy is a name with a precise and unambiguous geographic extent: the Alps and the sea define its identity and ease the study of peoples following one another. The Romanization of Italy, carried on both for direct annexation and colony creations, begins after the "latin war" of 340-338 B.C., and ends with the "social war" of 90-88 B.C., last desperate attempt of Italic peoples to oppose Rome's the expansive process.
First of all, then, it was necessary to know peoples, those analogues to biological populations that are needed to talk about evolution...
The maps give access to the details in the Dictionary. So, for example, it will be possible to enter the world of Reto-euganei. There will be found a more detailed map of populations or tribes that formed them in III Century, and appreciate the preceding "compression" effect operated by the arrival of Veneti people in X Century.

Un testo etrusco di consacrazione e la terminologia del ‘luogo sacro’ nelle lingue dell’Italia antica

by Daniele Federico Maras

Published in La Parola del Passato LIII, 1998, pp. 321-351.

[An Etruscan consecration text and the terminology of 'sacred place' in the languages of ancient Italy] [An Etruscan consecration text and the terminology of 'sacred place' in the languages of ancient Italy]

L’iscrizione di Trivia ed il culto del santuario alla foce del Garigliano

by Daniele Federico Maras

Published in Archeologia Classica LVI, n.s., 6, 2005, pp. 33-48.

Starting from a revision of the reading of the so called “Trivia”-inscriptions (found in Marica’s sanctuary at the... more Starting from a revision of the reading of the so called “Trivia”-inscriptions (found in Marica’s sanctuary at the mouth of Garigliano river and dating from the end of the 6th or the beginning of 5th century BC), this contribution proposes a new interpretation: the long Latin inscription scratched inside the bowl is at the same time a votive dedication of the bowl and a set of vases as well as a request of protection for the offerer and his companions (sokioi); the term trivoial, “belonging to Trivia”, consecrates both the bowl and its dedicator to the goddess, protecting them from the danger of theft and slavery (nei pari med, “don’t buy me”), but avoiding the contamination with a chthonic cult.
In the reconstruction of the archaic Auruncan Marica’s cult and of the historical frame of archaic relationships among peoples, the article analyzes Greek and Latin literary sources, in order to understand the special worship paid by the inhabitants of Minturnae to their goddess, which forbade “to bring away anything which had been brought in her sanctuary” (as stated by Plutarch). This tabu granted protection to strangers and fugitives too, as showed by the story of Marius, who tried to hide in the Marica’s swamp and escaped to murder.
So the interpretation of the epigraphic text throws light on the phenomenon of hospitality in pre-Roman Italy and on its sacred values, as demonstrated by the Italic name scratched on the external wall of the bowl, which probably belongs to a Minturnian family who gave hospitality to the Latin author of the dedication.