When one begins an investigation one does not know where it will lead. Of key importance to any investigation is the way the data are gathered and recorded; then the process by which the information is analyzed. With diligence the study may open new vistas and they too are important to the work. Bear with me, now, as we explore the fascinating, mysterious world of the Etruscans, their neighbors, ancestors, hopes, dreams and fears. I say, fears, since their writing includes fearsome depictions, as can be seen, for instance, in the Tomb of Orcus (who would want to be buried with such depictions around them?), which you may wish to view by clicking on the Etruscan_murals link. To understand the Etruscans we step into their world about ~1,200 B.C. Although that date and the subsequent centuries are somewhat of a "Dark Age" to us, we can see in the light from the Etruscans and other Indo-European peoples, such as the Aryans of India who created the Rig Veda and the Danaäns of the Illiad, an attempt to reconcile their lives, their hopes and dreams, to that which is greater than they are: the gods. What these ancient peoples, in those ancient times, were reconciling was then even ancient history to them.
Also described in this work are the Celts, who have passed down a similar, though abbreviated, Indo-European tradition that continues with us till this day. They passed down to us the Táin Bó Cuailnge, also called The Tain. It is about a great battle between the two major chieftans of Ireland, concerning a cattle-raid by Queen Medb and King Ailill, of Connacht, with their allies, against the king of Ulster. The hero of the story is Cúchulainn, his name meaning "the hound of Chulainn." Though a giant of a man, still in his youth, he is obliged to watch the cattle that are about to be raided, because he killed the hound that normally watched the cattle. Obviously he is at the center of the battle that takes place and certain warriors that are killed in the battle leave their names to the places of Ireland where they were killed. It follows the same pattern of story-telling as the Illiad and the Hindu version of the "great battle" called the Mahabharata. An Anglo-Saxon, Danish version of the "great battle" is another wonderful story, Beowulf, that involves the hero, Beowulf, who destroys the monster Grendel, that lives underground, and feeds upon the warriors of a Danish palace. More ancient in the Indo-European tradition, perhaps, is the Rig Veda, which tells us of the god Indra (like the Greek god Zeus and Etruscan god Tinia) who destroys a dragon. In Greek mythology Zeus destroys the monster, whose legs were serpents, Typhöeus or Typhon. In Celtic mythology the name of this god who destroyed monsters or dragons is probably Cernunnos, who will be discussed more in this work. Typhöeus is a character, like many other Greek gods, remembered in Etruscan images. Knowing this we should be able to find in Tinia's ephitet a refrence to Typhöeus, or the Etruscan name of that character, if much different.
While there is no doubt that the Etruscan language, as shown on this site, is Indo-European and closely related to Latin, the work is not complete until other relationships are examined. We need to better understand what the Etruscan scripts say, and to do that, though we can read them, we need to be able to understand what we are reading. This is where an understanding of other like mythologies and languages is important and introduced in this work. For instance, in the "Tomb of the Lioness," in Tarquinia, a mural that can be viewed by clicking on the link below shows dancers and musicians on either side of an enormous vase or cauldron, and above them two lionesses. Actually, on the left appears to be a lioness, and on the right appears to be a leopardess. What mythology is being represented here? As will be seen in this work, the images from the Etruscan tombs are not just pretty images, though many have deteriorated; they tell a story. Our purpose ought to be to understand that story, to hopefully find at least a piece of the story in the extanct Etruscan scripts. We need to step beyond the efforts of the "historians" of the past.
Because so many of the Etruscan murals recall Greek mythology –many contain names that coincide with greek gods and godesses – we can presume that they adopted Greek themes to themselves, like the Latins. The Greek Zeus is the Latin Jupiter, for instance and he is called Tinia by the Etruscans. We also know from the Aeneid of Vergil (born in Cisalpine Gaul, 70 B.C.) that the Lydian refugees with Aeneas were able to enlist the Etruscans (Tyrrhenians) to aid them in their war against the indigenous Latins at Rome. Mentioned in that tale is also the fact that nearby was a Greek colony. The Greeks did influence Etruscan works of art, justifying the title of the "Hellenic" period in Etruscan "history." I put the word, history, in quotes for a reason: What is known about the Etruscans is from archeological data and bits and pieces of testimonials from the Greeks and Latin historians. Here we shall attempt to put more legitimacy to the idea of an Etruscan history, one that at least is composed of words and images, as we can see from the murals and mirrors, from their own hands – not others. Like the Greek mythology, Etruscan mythology focuses on patronymic relationships important to them. These characters are particularly associated with actors involved in the Trojan War and a few, like Alcestis and Admetus, provide moral lessons and conundrums. A modern representation of their history, from their point of view, is carried in a mirror about King Tarquin, whose powerful wife, Tanaquil, compelled him to move from Tarquinia to Rome where he became king. The mirror shows an augur warning Tarquin to beware.
In this work there is beauty, since many of the Etruscan inscriptions are on murals or frescos painted in Etruscan tombs. The paintings are extraordinary art forms in themselves, but now they are also sources of a new history about the Etruscans from the Etruscan point of view. Note that the mural below, on a sarcophagus, has writing upon it and was thus intended by its creator to be more than just a painting or work of art. The composer is trying to tell us something that has to do with the image he painted.
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Script AM: "Battle of the Greeks and Amazons" from a sarcophagus from Tarquinia, now in the Archeological Museum in Florence. There are some characters that are hard to read. See more details in Short_Scripts.html. The script reads: HVC CRAI: RVI: ASV ATI: TIFI CNEI: LAR RIAL Translation [ Hither is (L. huc) Crai the king (L. rex, regis; It. re, Fr. roi). Aso (Asius, a Trojan ally) of the Ati (sons of Atis). He carried away (L deveho -veheree -vexi -vectum) Cnei (Hecate or Hecuba; Cyneus): of the god (L. lar) royal (L. regalis)]. Note: Asius was the younger brother of Hecuba and son of Dymas, king of the Phryigian tribe who lived on the Sangarius River (their father was the river god, Sangarius). Asius led that nation's forces in the Trojan War. Crai carries a genetive suffix and may have a relationship to the Titan Crius. Crius was the father of Perses and Perses was the father of Hecate (Hecuba) by Asteria. Based upon the translation, rather than calling this scene the "Battle of the Greeks and Amazons" it would be better described as "The rape of Hecuba, wife of King Priam of Troy." Trojan stories are favorites in Etruscan art. |
Hitherto all we have had as a source of information about the Etruscans was reports of them from Greek and Roman sources. Here we have a wonderful mural reflecting a battle between what appears to be the Greeks and Amazons. But could the battle have been between the Trojans and Amazons? And what do you suppose this painting of the Amazons says? Whom do you suppose the paintings in the tombs, upon sarcophagi and walls, were for? Were they made to impress tourists visiting Italy on the Etruscan painting styles and art forms? In truth, the tombs were sealed, not to be seen by any human being after the dead were laid to rest. Some tombs were used over and over, as family tombs – which is true of some early British cairns – but for the most part the dead were left in their tombs, as in Egypt, to enjoy with their gods the images of their new abode. So when you look at the murals, keep in mind that you are not supposed to be looking at them – from their creator's point of view. And to whom are the writings within the tombs written? Not to you. But since you are here, and can see them, it behooves us to attempt to understand what the Etruscans knew the gods could understand.
These tombs had lots of artifacts, rich in gold, in them. Because of the riches found within them in the late 19th century, there was a rush to break into them to get at the treasures. The plundering of Etruscan artifacts was so extensive many works, such as the mirrors, have an unknown provenance.
The following is a short explanation of what I am trying to do with this website:
The Etruscan language involves one of the greatest mysteries and controversies in the history of archaeology, since there have been so many charlatans who have claimed to translate the language over the past hundred years or so. Many Etruscologists are invested in the theory that the language is not Indo-European and some linguists and historians even offer their own translations, adding more confusion to the problem. I approached the problem 35 years ago from a different perspective, based upon some sound principals:
1) The texts are a language intended to communicate messages;
2) since the texts are a language, the language would reflect grammatical characteristics (obey rules);
3) since rules are involved there would be repetition and
4) by isolating the repetitious words and phrases (thus, "Etruscan Phrases") one should see declension and conjugation patterns: nouns and verbs. This was the first phase of my work, my having no intention to translate but rather to establish a "map" or grammar of the language.
As the grammar unfolded I saw clear relationships to Latin, and some to Italian and French. I pursued the relationships to examine how the grammar related to other Indo-European languages, as in "Etruscan Phrases" Table 1. Finding overwhelming evidence that Etruscan is a close relative of Latin, I have progressed to a Glossary and Grammar in Excel spreadsheets, where each word has its alphanumeric locator which can be scrolled to in the appropriate text(s) in the "Etruscan Phrases" website. (The spreadsheets should be self explanatory.) This process has allowed some translation of the words based upon their close relationship to Latin and measurable shifts to Latin, Italian and French.
I am now attempting to obtain photos of all the scripts I can get so to further verify and isolate the grammatical characteristics of the language. The photos are more importantly needed for the confirmation of the work, since all scientific inquiry is dependent upon independent corroboration. I have set up "Etruscan Phrases" so that anyone can research the site and make their own determinations from the images I supply on the site, the objective here being to obtain agreement on the grammar and glossary / translations. Also, the images have physical locations – museums and private collections – which need to be identified as well so that they can be examined if the need arises. This is the cataloguing phase. I hope to make "Etruscan Phrases" a complete catalogue of all extant Etruscan texts.
Now we can read the scripts, though progress is slow, since all of the words in the various scripts must be reconciled into one standing vocabulary (See Indo-European Table 1 (Table 1) and our 
new Etruscan Glossary. The Etruscan Glossary contains over 1,900 words, most of which – as can be seen in Indo-European Table 1 – are close to Latin. The words conjugate and decline in a regular fashion, and consistent shifts between Etruscan and Latin, Italian and French can be observed. Most of the words in the scripts covered by this site are in the Etruscan Glossary / Table 1 and are now being reconciled. Words that are not entered into the glossary include those that are in the Capua Tile, which has considerable damage, and areas of other scripts that have been damaged or are missing. What could not be read with confidence was not entered into the glossary. From the Etruscan_Glossary (the Excel format Etruscan_GlossaryA.xls is most current), we have prepared Etruscan_Grammar, showing rich conjugation and declension patterns. These patterns add further confimation in the identification of the Etruscan language as a tongue close to Latin, French and Italian. A more detailed Excel presentation of the Etruscan_Grammar, showing the location of each word, as listed in Etruscan_GlossaryA.xls, is available via Etruscan_Grammar.xls.
The Etruscan Glossary and Grammar provide a better view of the Etruscan grammatical patterns and phonetic styles than previously seen through Table 1. As better copies of texts that are difficult to read are obtained, and new texts are added to the site, the Etruscan Glossary / Grammar is updated. A recent update including a series of mirrors just added to this site (Miscellaneous_texts_d_html) has increased our confidence in the Declension Tables covering all words in the Etruscan texts. Mirrors contain names of heroes and gods, usually in action, and the spelling of the names as actors in a scene identifies the genitive or nominative case to which they belong. For instance, the character Ajax Telemenos clarified the nature of the frequently used suffix, "os." Telemon is the ancestor of the Ajax being described in the mirror. There was another Ajax in the Trojan War who was called "the lesser," noted as a great spearman but smaller in frame than Ajax Telemenos.
Myths, mirrors and Etruscan declension patterns
The myths of the Etruscans, like the Greeks and Romans, carried their history, and there are some good stories on the Etruscan mirrors, distributed from Italy and France to the Black Sea (See bilkent.edu.tr, "Second International Congress on Black Sea Antiquities.") The founders of cities, the loves and battles, are all connected to the gods, and many founders, as we shall see in examining a few Etruscan mirrors, were demi-gods. Enabling us to understand a bit more of the Etruscan side of the "history" is a new table: We have added to the Etruscan Phrases Grammar a Table of Declension Patterns as Etruscan _Grammar-2.html. This table allows us to examine Etruscan declension patterns and pronunciation more closely, since the names of historical and mythological characters from mirrors and paintings are incorporated in the table. For instance, the suffixes "ai" and "ei" appear in the name of Helen of Troy (See Divine_Mirror, Script DM) and also the name of Persephine – L. Proserpine, Etr. Phersipnei – (See Etruscan Mural of Hades, Script DH). The suffixes used in their names are "ai" and "ei" which can be confused with two other suffixes: "ia" and "ie." The latter suffixes refer to genitive cases, possibly with "ia" being masculine gender and "ie" feminine. But the name of Helen, spelled in two mirrors as ELENAI and ELENEI, shows two other declension patterns that are also found in the texts. Both of these would appear to be the same gender: feminine. However, in Script DM we have the name of AECAI, who is pictured as a young man. He is probably Aesacus, the son of Priam, king of Troy, who had prophetic powers and warned against Troy. Born to Priam by his first wife, Arisbe, some say that Aesacus, rather than his sister Cassandra, warned that Paris (Alexander), Priam's son by Hecuba, should be exposed at birth. Hecuba had a dream, that she had borne a firebrand that burned Troy, when she was about to give birth to her second child, Paris. Paris later abducted Helen, the wife of King Menelaus, brother of King Agamemnon of Mycenae. To recover Menelaus' wife the Greeks led by Agamemnon launched 1,000 ships against Troy and destroyed the city. The Trojan War is a popular theme on Etruscan mirrors, as will be seen below.
One of the mirrors contains an image of Peleus carrying winged Thetis. His name is spelled: Pele. From the context of the mirror we can see that his name is either genitive or nominative case, and this too clarifies the abundantly used "e" suffix. Two other mirrors of interest can be discussed here: Script MR, "Thetis with Eris and Minerva," and Script MG, "Judgment of Paris." There are several mirrors with Thetis.
Script MR contains the characters HERCLE (Heracles), MENRFA (Minerva), ERIS (Eris), and THETHIS (Thetis). Because Thetis is in the scene, the story called to mind is the wedding of the sea-numph Thetis to the mortal King Peleus, king of Phthia. Peleus was a son of Aeacus, king of Aegina, and Endeis. The marriage of the mortal to a goddess produced some anxiety and yet the gods were relieved to see the shape changing nymph married off. Catching her was the problem. The Old man of the Sea, Proteus, had informed Peleus that the only way he would be able to capture Thetis would be to hold her down while she was sleeping, and as he held her tightly she became sucessively fire, water, a lioness and a tree, but finally succumbed and consented to be his wife. Thetis and her husband, Peleus, are favorite themes on Etruscan mirrors, together with the story of Helen of Troy and the characters involved in the Trojan War. One character on a mirror, Ajax Telemon, gives us a better feeling for the Etruscan story-telling and their language. The name, Ajax, comes from the Greek word for "eagle." The Etruscan version of the name, EIFAS (CN-1), AIFAS (VA-1), translates the word "eagle" to the Etruscan / Latin word for a bird of omen: avis-is. Many Greek gods and heroes are conveyed in Etruscan mirrors with Etruscan names. The gods and heroes in the "Etruscan Phrases" site that can be confidently identified are as follows. There are many other names in the Etruscan Glossary spreadsheet that will be added to this list as their identities are firmed up. Proper names can be identified using the Declension Table as a guide. Most of the words that have the suffixes, um, em, im, ia, ei, le, er are nouns. This list of fifty gods, goddesses and heros will be appropriately expand into a more complete Etruscan Mythology, as new characters are discovered. There is a common thread to the stories: the Trojan War. Its heroes and gods tend to bleed into another, forming one storyline, all about Helen.
Raia (Rheia, a Titaness, mother of the gods, who married her brother Cronus. Cronus was told that he would be overthrown by one of his children, so he ate all of her children, but Rheia hid her youngest child, Zeus in Crete and fed Cronus a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes; when Zeus grew to manhood his first wife, Metis, gave Cronus an emetic so that he vomited up his children. Zeus' brothers, Poseidon and Hades, and his sisters, Hestia, Demeter and Hera, overthrew Cronus); Tinia (Zeus, the philandering father of gods and the popular heroes and heroines, Achilles, Heracles and Helen of Troy), Uni (Hera, mother goddess, wife of Zeus, jealous of Zeus' philandering and bitter towards Heracles in particular) Aita (Hades, king of the Underworld whose symbol was wealth); Lerni (This name appears as a region on the Piacenza liver. Lerna is a town south of Argos on the shore of the Gulf of Argolis, believed to be where one enters Hades. The swampy rivers in the region of Lerna supplied Argos with water, thanks to Poseidon's graciousness to Danaüs' daughter Amymone in return for her favors. They were also the haunt of the monster Hydra, which Heracles killed. The supposedly bottomless Alcyonian Lake, in this same region, was claimed by the Argives to be an entrance to Hades. The other entrance to the Underworld was believed to be in Sicily, under Mount Etna which was also the place where Hephaestus worked. Atne (Mt. Etna) and Henna, Henni (Henna, a city of Sicily and a noted site of the goddess Ceres are mentioned in the Etruscan texts.); Phersipnei (Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, abducted by Hades and ruled with him as the queen of the Underworld; to keep her happy Hades allowed her to be resurrected every Spring to roam the earth for six months);
Turan (Aphrodite, goddess of erotic love, born of the sea -foam, Gr. "aphros," near Cyprus, from the genitals of the god Uranus; she favored the Trojans and caused the Trojan War by rewarding Paris in The Judgment of Paris with the love of Helen), Apolo, Aplo (Apollo, son of Zeus and the Titaness Leto, god of youth, music, prophecy, archery and healing; he was born with his sister, Artemis, on the island of Delos. At an early age he traveled to Delphi and killed there a huge snake; later a temple was raised at Delphi for him, attended by a Pythia, or prophetess, who delivered his oracles. He supported the Trojans in the Trojan War.); Artumes (Artemis, daughter of Zeus and Leto, goddess of the hunt whose arrow never missed its mark; unusualy jealous over the honors given her, she was offended by Agamemnon and Admetus); Feltune (Poseidon, a god of the sea, of earthquakes, and of horses, may be his equivalent, and Fel tune may represent the words, "great thunder," – i.e., to thunder: L. tono-are; It. tonare; Fr. tonnerre, thunder –, and we see in a mirror Feltune standing, overlooking a haurspex, or augur, as he examines a liver in the presence of Tarkonos [Tarquin]. The Roman version of Poseidon is Neptune [L. Neptunus-i], a name curiously similar to Feltune.);
Hercle (Heracles, a hero involved in many Etruscan myths; son of Zeus and Alcmene, he was hated by Hera who attempted to prevent his birth and then, after Hera had been tricked by Alcmene's nursemaid, she put snakes in Heracle's crib; he had to perform 10-12 labors for Eurystheus, often facing hardship during them which was caused by jealous Hera; Zeus tricked Hera one day, causing her to suckle the babe Heracles while she was sleeping – the milk spilled and caused the Milky Way. An Etruscan mirror shows Heracles suckling at the breast of Hera as an adult! In the mirror, Tinia (Zeus) holds a writing tablet describing the odd situation; Atle (Atlas, a son of the Titan Iapetus by the Oceanid Clymene or by Asia, was the father of the Oceanid Pleïone, by Calypso, of the Pleiades, and some say, of the Hyades. His name is related to the Greek word "to bear," and is known as the divine giant that stood near the Pillars of Hercules holding up the world. While on the way to fetch the golden apples of the Hesperides, Heracles came across Atlas holding up the world. Atlas offered to fetch the apples for Heracles provided he held up the world for him. Heracles took the world on his shoulder while Atlas went on his mission. Atlas came back with the apples and suggested that he could deliver the apples to Eurystheus himself. Heracles saw that he was being conned and realized that he had to trick Atlas into taking the burden back on his shoulders, otherwise he would be stuck with the job. So Heracles asked Atlas to hold the earth while he put a cloth on his head to soften the weight of the world on his head. Atlas felt that he could at least do this for his friend and took over the weight. Heracles bade him goodby.);
Semle (Semele, daughter of Cadmus, king of Thebes and Harmonia; mother of Dionysus by Zeus; jealous Hera got Hermes to kidnap Semele's six-month-old child from the womb and he sewed the child in Zeus' thigh); Euple (Euippe, also called Athamas, was a king of Orchomenus, son of the powerful king Aeolus. For all of his prestige Athamas was one of the most unlucky men who ever lived. His troubles began with his decision to take a second wife while his first, Nephele, still lived. Athamas brought Ino, one of Cadmus' daughters, from Thebes and installed her in his palace. She bore him two sons, Learchus and Melicertes, but could not rest content while Nephele's children, Phrixus and Helle, lived, presumably because Phrixus might be expected to succed his father as king. Phrixus and Helle were saved from Ino's plot when a miraculus ram appeared where they were about to be sacrificed and they climbed on its back. The ram with the golden fleece flew off. Helle fell off the ram, however, as it crossed over the Hellespont, but Phrixus continued riding the ram until it came to rest in Colchis. Later, Jason, a grandson of Aeolus, led the Argonauts to Colchis to steal the golden fleece. After the ram died, the king of Colchis, Aeëtes, had placed the pelt in a tree in a sacred grove, guarded by a dragon. Jason was able to kill the monster and steal the fleece through the help of the king's daughter, Medea, who was a sorceress.); Fufluns (a name of Dionysus, the god of wine and vegetation); Efan (Euan, another name of Dionysus – The Romans called him Bacchus and Euan);
Atunis (Adonis, a vegetation god that died too young; the red anemone sprouted from the spot where his blood was spilled and he was worshipped in "gardens of Adonis." He is similar to the Sumero-Akkadian god of rebirth, Tammuz or Dimuzzi. There are two versions of the love affair between Aphrodite and Adonis. One version has her turning the child over to Persephone for safe keeping in Hades, because he was so beautiful. Persephone refused to give the boy up, and a judgment was called where Zeus may have had the Muse Calliope arbitrate the matter. She assigned half of the boy's time to each goddess, and Aphrodite was so furious over the ruling she caused the death of Calliope's son, Orpheus. The other version says that when Aphrodite saw Adonis for the first time he was already a handsome youth. She fell in love with him and spent much time with him. He loved to hunt and ignored her pleas to chase only small game. As a consequence he was killed by a boar. Aphrodite grieved for him inconsolably and caused the blood-red anemone to sprout from his blood.); Mehar or Snenar (Myrrha, mother of Adonis. Although Adonis in the Catalogues of Women is said to be the son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea, or according to Apollodorus, Adonis is a son of Cinyras, king of Paphos, in Cyprus, and Metharme, daughter of Pygmalion, the usual tradition is that he is the son of the incestuous union of Cinyras or Theias, king of Assyria, with his daughter, named Myrrha or Smyrna [Gr. smyrna = myrrh]. For not giving honor to Aphrodite, Myrrha was punished by the goddess with an uncomfortable love for her father. Myrrha satisfied her desire with the help of her nurse and became pregnant. When the father learned what had happened, he pursued the girl with a sword. The gods changed her into a myrrh tree, which split open in due course, revealing the infant Adonis inside.); Snenar / Snenao or Snenath (Goddess unknown, seen in Script DR. She holds a wand and unguent bottle like the goddess Lasa and is associated with the lovers Atunis and Turan. She may be Myrrha. See Script DR and DO for Atunis and Snenar, and DS for Atunis and Lasa); Tul Thieth (Theias, king of Assyria, husband of Myrrha and father of Adonis);
Ikra (Icarius, the first disciple of Dionysus who set off in a wagon filled with wineskins, with his faithful dog Maera, to spread the gospel of wine-making. He first met up with shepherds who, being drunk from the wine because they drank it unwatered, thought he had tried to poison them. They bludgeoned him to death with clubs and buried him. His daughter, Erigone, looked everywhere for him and finally went to the place where she heard the wailing dog and saw her dead father's grave. In grief she hanged herself from the tree that grew over his grave. His faithful dog Maera jumped into a well in grief. Ever since then, in remembrance of the tragedy, a festival was held each year in Athens where the young girls were placed in swings in trees where they would swing to the accompaniment of flutes and panpipes); Oso (Mt. Ossa in North Magnesia. This name appears on the "Icarius Mirror" which depicts Icarius driving a chariot pulled by two Centaurs. The home of the Centaurs is on Mt. Ossa. Ossa was one of the three mountains that Otus and Ephialtes piled up when they attempted to storm heaven. The Centaurs, descended from Centaurus, a son of Apollo, and of Stilbe or of Ixion and the cloud that Zeus substituted for Hera in Ixion's bed. The tribe of Centaurs are principally known for their famous battle with the Lapiths, another Thessalian mountain tribe. The conflict began when Peirithoüs, a Lapith king, inherited the rule of a pat of Thessaly from his father, Ixion. The Centaurs, who were also Ixion's sons (or grandsons), claimed a share in the rule. War ensued, but a peace was arranged. Later Peirithoüs invited the Centaurs to his wedding. Unused to wine, they became violent and, led by Eurytion, tried to carry off the Lapith women. The result was a bloody battle, which ended with the Centaurs being drived out of the region by the Lapiths. Heracles encountered the Centaurs in western Arcadia. He was being entertained by Pholus, a civilized member of the tribe, when the other Centaurs, aroused by the odor of wine, broke up the feast. Heracles killed many of them and drove away the others. Nessus ended up in Aetolia, where he ultimately took revenge uupon Heracles. Among many incidents, Heracles inadvertently caused the death of the wise Centaur, Cheiron, the king of the Centaurs who had reared Jason and Achilles.
Urthea (Aethra, daughter of Pittheus, king of Troezen, married to Aegeus, king of Athens, mother of Theseus by Zeus; abducted by Helen's brothers, "the Dioscuri" and given to Helen as a slave; she accompanied Helen when she was abducted by Paris and taken to Troy), These (Theseus, king of Athens, son of Aethra and the sea-god Poseidon, hero who wanted to be as great as Heracles: He killed the Minotaur that was fed the flesh of Athenian children in the Labyrinth of king Minos of Crete; he abducted Helen with his friend, Peirithoüs, when she was a child but released her, then the two went down into the Underworld to abduct Persephone where both were frozen in their stone seats called the "seats of forgetfulness"; Theseus was later rescued by Heracles who entered the Underworld to capture the three-headed dog, Cerberus; he accompanied the Argonauts, he was on the Calydonian Boar Hunt, and he accompanied Heracles in the War against the Amazons; and he was part of the Embassy to Achilles to persuade him to get back in the battle in the Trojan War);
Turms (Hermes, messenger of the gods, was the son of Maia, a daughter of Atlas and Pleïone, and a nymph that was visited in the night by Zeus whilst Hera was sleeping. He was precocious and a trickster even in the crib, noted for having left his crib one night and stole 50 head of cattle belonging to Apollo); Mean (another name for Artemis, the huntress), Maris (Ares, the only son of Zeus and Hera, the god of war, lover of Aphrodite; he opposed Athena in the Trojan War and was wounded by Diomedes and later flattened by Athena), Menrfa (Athena, goddess of crafts and war, born from the first wife of Zeus, Metis. Fearing a prophesy that his son would overpower him (Zeus had overthrown his own father) Zeus swallowed the pregnant Metis, but began to repent it and asked either the Titan Prometheus or craftsman-god Hephaestus to extricate him from the predicament. One or the other took an axe and split open his head and out jumped Athena, dressed in full armor. She, with Hera, sided with the Greeks in the Trojan war. Hephaestus made the prized armor of Achilles, over which Ajax committed suicide.);
Achmemnun (Agamemnon, king of Mycenae who commanded the 1,000 ship army that invaded Troy; who offended Artemis by claiming to be equal to her in archery; she required him to sacrifice his eldest daughter, Iphigenia); Menle (Menelaus, brother of Agamemnon, husband of Helen of Troy and king of Sparta); Cluthumustha (Clytemnestra, wife of King Agamemnon, daughter of Tyndareüs, king of Sparta, and Leda; and she was the sister of Helen of Troy. She bore several children to Agamemnon: Iphigeneia, Electra (Laodice), Chrysothemis, and Orestes. Agamemnon deceived her into sending Iphigeneia to Aulis, on the pretext of marrying her to Achilles; in reality he was preparing to sacrifice her to Artemis [Agamemnon had offended Artemis by boasting that he was a better archer than she, so she asked him to sacrifice his beloved daughter to make things right]. When Clytemnestra discoverd this treachery she conceived a great hatred for her husband and plotted with her lover, Aegisthus, to kill him on his return from the Trojan War. When Agamemnon returned, accompanied with his new concubine, Cassandra, daughter of King Priam, the two lovers killed him in his bath and Clytemnestra, herself, is reported to have killed Cassandra. Aegisthus and Clytemnestra had two children, Erigone and Aletees.
Orestes had been sent away as a child to Phocis by his sister Electra. There he was raised by Strophius, who had married Agamemnon's sister, Anaxibia or Astyoche. Orestes and Strophius' son, Pylades, became loyal friends, and Pylades accompanied Orestes in nearly all his subsequent adventures. Eight years after his escape from Argos, Orestes, now a young man, went to Delphi to ask of the oracle what it was his duty to do about his father's murderers, who were prospering in Agamemnon's palace. Apollo commanded him to kill them both. With many misgivings Orestes journeyed to Argos with Pylades and there made himself known to Electra, whom Aegisthus had married to a commoner or otherwise humiliated. Urged on by Electra, Orestes killed Clytemnestra and her lover.); Orste and Orosthe (Orestes, son of Agamemnon who killed his mother Clytemnestra over her adultry), Elchsuntre, Elchintre, Elachsntre (Alexander, Paris, prince of Troy, the second son of Priam, king of Troy and Hecuba. Alexander – whose name means, "defender of men," – had an inauspicious birth. His mother had a disturbing nightmare that she had given birth to a firebrand and her daughter, Cassandra, a soothsayer, warned that the child to be born would be the destruction of Troy. After the child was born he was exposed, then given to be killed to a shepherd on Mount Ida. Instead of killing him, the shepherd raised the child. When he reached adulthood Cassandra recognized him and he was welcomd back into the family. He was considered to be the handsomest man on earth and was selected as Zeus to judge who was the most beautiful of the goddesses, Hera, Athena or Aphrodite. Aphrodite was given the prize in exchange for the promise that she would deliver the most beautiful woman in the world to him. Fulfilling her promise, Aphrodite caused Paris to fall in love with the beautiful Helen, queen of Sparta, when he was a guest at the castle of Menelaus and Helen, in Sparta. Menelaus had to leave for Crete to attend his father's funeral, leaving his beautiful wife alone with Paris. Paris and Helen got together, fell in love, and he carried her and Menelaus' treasure off to Troy. Alexander the Great popularized the name, with many cities in the ancient world, such as Alexandria, Egypt, named after him. Kandahar, Afghanistan, is another "Alexandria" founded by his army. Modern Iran has a Russian-made (2004) missile, Iskander, named after Alexander, such are the variants in the spelling of the name.); Ralna, or Thalna (Nemesis, goddess of retribution, mother of Helen of Troy by Zeus; she changed into a goose trying to evade Zeus, Zeus changed into a swan and, aided by Aphrodite, he raped Nemesis. The egg produced by the goose hatched into Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world); Latfa (Leda, mortal mother of Helen of Troy, wife of Tyndareüs), Tuntle, Tuntles (Tyndareüs, king of Sparta, mortal father of Helen who is shown in Etruscan mirrors holding or receiving the egg that contained Helen); Elinei and Elinai (Helen of Troy, daughter of Zeus and Nemesis, raised by Leda and Tyndareüs of Sparta);
Amphiare, Hamphiare (Amphiaraüs, Argive warrior and greatest seer of his day; in Script DC he is involved in a scene with Ajax who seems to be lamenting the loss of Achilles armor and contemplating suicide. Although the seer is not described in the Greek myths involving Ajax, the reputation of Amphiaraüs being a great seer and officiating at funerals may apply here.); Tute (Tydeus, on of the Seven Against Thebes, married king Adrastus' daughter, Deïpyle); Atrste (Adrastus, king of Argos and leader of the Seven Against Thebes, driven from his throne in a feud with Amphiaraüs); Meliaphr (Meleager was a son of Oeneus, king of Calydon, and Althaea, daughter of Thestius. Immediately after the birth of the infant Meleager, the three Fates appeared in the mother's room. Clotho and Lachesis predicted that the child would be noble and brave, but Atropos, pointing to a stick burning in the fireplace, added that he would die the moment the brand was consumed. Althaea leaped from her bed, put out the flames, and hid the stick somewhere in the palace. He participated in the Calydonian Boar Hunt and is credited with having killed the boar that had been terrorizing his father's land. But a quarrel broke out between the Calydonians and their arch enemies over the prize from the hunt, and Meleager killed Thestius' sons, his mother's brothers. His mother cursed him and remembered the brand that the Fates had said was the key to Meleager's life. She took it from its hiding place and flung it into the fire.); Atlenta (Atalanta, the virgin huntress, gained fame from the Calydonian Boar Hunt. She was the daughter of either Iasus, king of Tegea, or Maenalus, by Clymene, daughter of Minyas. Her father could also have been Schoeneus, a son of Athamas. Wanting only sons, Atalanta's father exposed his infant daughter in a forest, but she was suckled by a bear and eventually found by hunters who brought her up. Atalanta grew to adulthood loving the hunt above all other things and wished to remain a virgin in oarder that she might continue to enjoy the sport. Some say that an oracle warned that disaster would result if she married. She participated in the Calydonian Boar Hunt together with some of the most famous men of her age. Her participation led to the death of some of the men, including the sons of Thestius and perhaps also of Meleager, who had falled in love with Atalanta.); Athrpa (Atropos, one of the three Fates. Clotho and Lachesis predicted that the child Meleager would be noble and brave, but Atropos, pointing to a stick burning in the fireplace, added that he would die the moment the brand was consumed.);
Eifas Telmonos, or Aifas (Ajax Telemonos, hero of Troy who committed suicide), Thethis (Thetis, a sea-nymph, daughter of Nereis. She was the mother of Achilles, the sulking hero of Troy who was killed by an arrow shot by Paris); Pele (Peleus, son of Aeacus, king of Aegina, and Endeïs, was the husband of Thetis and father of Achilles. He was a never-do-well in his youth, who, with his brother, Telemon, thought to kill their half-brother, Phocus. He wandered in exile and finally returned to Phthia where he became king. In the mean time Zeus had fallen in love with Thetis – who had been raised by Hera – and this, of course, encouraged Hera's wrath. The sea-nymph was a bit of trouble to both of them. Zeus had been warned that the child of Thetis would be greater than his father, so they decided they would pawn her off on a mortal. There was a problem with Thetis, however, since she changed shape. Zeus and Hera advised Peleus that he could probably win her – who would be unwilling to wed – if he would catch her when she was sleeping and hold her down. He caught her in her cave, and held her tightly while she was asleep. While holding her firmly she changed into fire, water, a lioness and a tree. After she succumbed to the idea of marriage, they invited all of the gods to their wedding. They did not invite Eris, the goddess of discord, and thus caused the discord that caused the Trojan War.); Achle (Achilles, son of Peleus and Thetis – hero of the Trojan War who at first sulked over the death of his friend Patroclus and killed the Trojan hero Hector), Eris, (Eres, goddess of discord who caused the Trojan War by throwing a golden apple inscribed with the words, "for the fairest" in the wedding of Thetis and Peleus. Hera, Aphrodite and Athena fought over who should receive the apple);
Aeitheon (Jason was the son of Aeson, half-brother to Pelias, king of Iolcus. Pelias and his twin, Neleus, had been exposed at birth and a horse herder accidentally discovered them, but a mare had trampled on Pelias' face, leaving a livid mark (pelios). When grown, Pelias revealed his violent nature by killing the stepmother of his mother, who was Tyro, daughter of Salmoneus and the god Poseidon. Pelias became one of the most powerful Greek kings of his day, but a prediction by the Delphic oracle came to his attention, that an Aeolid wearing one sandal would one day bring about his death.
The prophesy came true the day Jason returned to claim the throne of Iolcus. In crossing a stream on the way to the city he lost a sandal, and went on without it. The king was not present in the city when Jason entered it, but an official of the city heard the young man who was missing a sandal declaring his right to the throne, and he reported his sighting to King Pelias. Pelias recognized the boy and tricked him into going to Colchis to recover the Golden Fleece – which Pelias believed would be Jason's last voyage. While Jason was gone on his adventure with the Argonauts Pelias killed Jason's father, Aeson, and his brother Promachus, a mere boy. Aeson's wife committed suicide.
Pelias had from an early date offended Hera, in refusing to sacrifice to her, so Hera had taken sides with Jason, greeting him at the stream where he lost his sandal, and she contrived a complex plan of revenge against Pelias: to cause Jason to abduct the sorceress, Medea, who was the daughter of the king of Colchis where the Golden Fleece was kept. Hera caused Medea to fall in love with Jason, and Medea continued to be the main help for Jason, to kill the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece and to deliver the poison that would take Pelias' life. After Pelias was killed Jason and Medea took the throne of Iolcus and then went to Corinth to claim the throne there that had been in Medea's inheritance (Her father, Aeëtes, had been king of Corinth before he took the throne of Colchis). There presence in Corinth was not well received by the Corinthians.);
Alcsti, (Alcestis, daughter of king Pelias, wife of Admetus who was willing to die to save his life and then resurrected, either through the hand of Heracles or Persephone. Admetus had offended Artemis by not performing the proper rites honoring her at his wedding. She put snakes in his bed in revenge and he fell deathly ill. Pressed to save the repentent young man's life, Artemis consented that his life could be saved if someone were to die in his stead. Admetus asked his old parents if they might be willing to give their life for him. They declined, but his lovely wife, Alcestis, was willing to give her life up so that he could live.); Atmite (Admetus, king of Pherae, husband of Alcestis; he offended Artemis during his wedding night); Pheris (Pheris, father of Admetus who refused to give his life for his son); Chalchas (Calchas, seer who fortold the Trojan War), Charon (Charon, ferryman of Hades who hit souls on the head when they reached the Underworld, to make sure they were dead), Himrae (Hemera, goddess of the day; when she leaves the goddess of the night, Nyx, enters and she often spells doom), Tuchulcha (The Gorgons may be a form of this demon. Tuchulcha threated souls entering Hades with the three snakes that grew out of his head); Eos (Eos, goddess of the dawn, also called Aurora by the Romans, with her brother and sister, Helius[sun] and Selene [moon]), was a child of the Titans Hyperion or Pallas and Theia or Euryphaëssa. She personified the day and was thought to accompany Helius on his journey through the sky. She is often seen at the top of Etruscan mirrors, driving her four horsed chariot. This is to be expected, since everyone uses a mirror and more often than not the mirror is used in the morning as a person grooms for the coming day. Women comb their hair and put on makeup, and men shave or trim their beards. A mirror is, of course, no good at night and thus would represent the dawning day. Those of you who review the Rig Veda, quoted somewhat in the Banquet.html, will find that the goddess of the dawn held an important place in the worship of the early Aryans of India. Many verses are dedicated to her. The reason for this is due to the fact that their first and foremost worship service was held at dawn, when the worshippers prepared a special feast for the gods to attend, including Indra, who was the hero that defeated the dragon in the mountains. In the ceremony horses and other animals were sacrificed and vats of a liquor called Soma –made out of the marijuana plant – were offered to the gods who were bid to the feast, along with those in attendance. The early Persians had a similar practice, described in the Avesta, and they shared similar gods. Their god, Mithra, was the same as the Aryan god Mitra. Mithra was a member of the ahuric triad who maintained order in the universe and in his capacity he was the protector of truth and justice and the source of cosmic light. Because of the antiquity of this character, his equivalent ought to be somewhere in the Etruscan mythology. In the course of time, as with the Greek gods, their were wars in heaven and gods, like Cronus, were overturned. Saturn, Zeus, Cronos, etc. in Greek mythology attempted to consume their own children. The same battles, the overturning of gods, appear in the verses of the Rig Veda. The same contests between the sons of light and the sons of darkness also come into play and appear to be strong themes in the Etruscan presentations. The murals in Etruscan tombs are quite grim in some cases and one might wonder who on earth would want to be buried in a tomb with Tuchulcha or Typhon painted on the wall. In contrast to the grim murals from the Etruscan tombs, we have Etruscan mirrors portraying with the dawn the glory and loves of the day. Of interest is a phrase used several times in the Tavola Eugubine that refers to Eos and Phaebeto (See Etruscan Glossary spreadsheet for locations of the epithets), dawn and the sun god, perhaps Apollo?); Tages (no Greek equivalent) was a god of boundaries who appeared in a field one day as a child with a full, grey beard. He set the boundaries of the Etruscan cities.);
Pherse (Perseus was a king of Mycenae and Tiryns. His mother, Danaë, bore him in a brazen cell in which her father, Acrisious, king of Argos, had imprisoned her on learning from an oracle that a son of Danaë would kill him. Although Danaë claimed that Perseus was a son of Zeus, who had visited her as a shower of gold, Acrisius set mother and child adrift in a chest. Zeus saw to it that the chest containing Perseus floated safely across the sea to the island of Seriphus, where it was found by a kindly fisherman, Dictys., who took them in and raised the youth to adulthood. One day King Polydectes, Dictys' lustful brother, saw Danaë and wanted to marry her, but she was unwilling and the king did not dare to oppose Perseus, who defended his mother's decision. He therefore falsely announced that he intended to sue for the hand of Hippodameia, daughter of the Pisan king Oenomaüs, and required all of his subjects to contribute horses toward the bride-gift. Perseus, who owned no horses, rashly promised to bring anything else that the king might ask, even to the head of the Gorgon Medusa. Polydectes eagerly accepted this offer, knowing that no man had ever returned alive from an encounter with the Gorgons. The Gorgons were an invincible foe for an ordinary mortal: on foot he could not get near them; to esacpe after battle would be impossible, for they would follow on golden wings. To kill Medusa one would need to attack invisibly and then flee faster than her sisters could fly. Moreover, anyone who glimpsed a Gorgon's face would instantly be turned to stone. But Perseus had the help of Athena, who had her own reasons for killing Medusa. She appeared to him and explained how to proceed against the Gorgons. Their hair was surrounded with the petrified forms of men and animals that had looked at the Gorgons' faces. Perseus avoided this danger by keeping his eyes on the highly polished surface of his shield, in which the scene was clearly but safely reflected. Invisible, he soon found the Gorgons, hideous monsters with hands of brass and wings of gold; huge tongues lolled from their mouths between swine's tusks, and their heads were entwined with snakes. Perseus waited until they were asleep; then, avoiding the two immortal Gorgons, Stheno and Euryale, he crept toward Medusa. Watching her in his shield, he cut off her head with a single blow of the sikcle, stuffed it into the wallet, and felw off. The other Gorgons rose into the air, but, unable to pursue an invisible attacker, they returned to mourn their sister.); Metus (Medusa was one of the three snaky-haired monsters known as the Gorgons. Medusa, unlike her sisters, Stheno and Euryale, was not immortal. In late versions of the myth, she is said to have once been a beautiful maiden. Pursued by many suitors she would have none of them, until Poseidon lay with her in a flowery field. She incurred the enmity of Athena, either because the goddess envied her beauty or because Medusa had yielded to Poseidon in Athena's shrine. In any case, the goddess turned Medusa's lovely hair into serpents and made her face so hideous that a glimpse of it would turn men to stone. Having snatched away the head of Medusa, Perseus happened by Atlas who was king of the Hesperides and also was holding up the world. He also was guardian of the Golden Apples of the Hesperides and feared that Perseus might attempt to snatch them too. He had been told by the goddess Themis that a son of Zeus would attempt to steal them one day. The two began to wrestle but Perseus knew he would be no match for the Titan, so he drew the head of Medusa out of its pouch and showed it to Atlas. Atlas was instantly turned into a mountain, known today as Mount Atlas.);
Cerun, (Geryon, king of Cadez whose cattle Heracles raided as part of his 12 labors. In script PH we see Geryon standing before Hades, complaining to him about the theft of his cattle by Heracles. This is important to recognize, since one might have thought that he would have appealed to Zeus, king of heaven. But Hades was also the god of wealth, so it would follow that his appeal in the Etruscan view of things would be to Hades. The Romans called Hades by the name Pluto, meaning wealth. Cernnunos, the Gaelic horned god, is pictured with coins and a cornucopia, and it may be that the Celts appealed to Cernnunos in issues involving cattle raids, etc., just as Geryon did in the Etruscan mural before Hades.); Nike (Nike, Greek goddess of victory. Nike, though called a daughter of Pallas and Styx, was more a symbol than a mythological character. Like her brothers, Cratus [Strength] Boa [Force] and Zelus [Emulation], she was a constant companion or atribute of Zeus.); Tarkonos (Tarquin, king of Rome) and Tarkie (the Tarquins), Tankuilos (Tanaquil, Etruscan queen, wife of Tarquin the Elder, 5th king of Rome).
Unique Etruscan storylines
We do not know why Heracles is in the scene in Script MR, since he is not mentioned in the stories passed down to us by the Greeks and Romans of the wedding of Thetis and Peleus. However, Heracles is not mentioned in other stories covering the causes the Trojan War, and the Etruscans seem to have created several mirrors / stories that are unique to them. In any event the Etruscans have involved him in the "wedding" stories and several Etruscan versions are peculiar to the Etruscans. Script MS , "Icarius, the first disciple of Dionysus," for instance, is another mirror that carries a story peculiar to the Etruscans, where it combines two events in spreading the gospel of wine introduced by Dionysus: 1) the murder of Icarius with his faithful dog Maera, by shepherds, the first to get drunk from wine, and 2) the wedding of the Lapith king Peirithous, who was a son of Ixion and had inherited a part of Thessaly from his father. He invited the Centaurs – also sons of Ixion and bitter over the inheritance – to his wedding. (They had previously engaged in war over the inheritance, but peace was arranged). Wine was served at the wedding and the Centaurs, being unused to wine, became violent, and, led by Eurytion, tried to abduct the Lapith women. The result was a bloody battle, which ended with the Centaurs being driven out of the region by the Lapiths.
Later Heracles encountered the Centaurs in western Arcadia. He was being entertained by Pholus, a civilized member of the tribe of Centaurs, when the Centaurs, aroused by the odor of wine, broke up the feast. Heracles killed many of them and drove away the others, most of whom fled either to Malea, to Mount Pholoe (named after Pholus), or to Eleusis. Nessus, however, went to Aetolia, where he ultimately took a terrible revenge on Heracles. In Heracle's war with the Centaurs, Pholus had accidentally dropped one of the guest's poisoned arrows on his foot. (The poisoned arrows Heracles carried that were dipped in the blood of the Hydra somewhat bind the stories together).
Heracles had also inadvertently caused the death of the wise Centaur Cheiron, who had reared Jason and Achilles. When Heracles met Nessus again it was at the river Evenus, where Nessus provided a ferry service. Heracles hired Nessus to carry his new bride, Deianeira, across the river, and as Nessus was wading across the river Heracles heard his wife cry out. He went to the far shore and shot Nessus as he was in the act of raping his beautiful passenger. As Nessus lay dying he pretended to be remorseful and asked Deianeira to take his bloody tunic and smear it on Heracle's tunic. He told her it would serve as a love potion to keep his fidelity, as she was already concerned over her philandering husband who had earlier taken a concubine. However, the Centaur's blood had been poisoned by the deadly venom of the Hydra that Heracles had put on his arrow. Deianeira kept the tainted tunic aside, but when Heracles took another concubine, named Iole (the daughter of Eurytus, king of Oechalia, who owed her to him for winning an archery contest) , she sent the tunic to him. At once the Hydra's venom, which Heracles had used to destroy so many enemies, began to do its work, eroding his skin. He tore off the tunic, but the flesh came away with it. The dying Heracles returned to Trachis, where Deianeira, learning of the horror that she had unknowingly worked, killed herself. As a babe Heracles was known as Alcaeus.
Only once before had the gods attended a wedding: that of the mortal Cadmus, founder and king of Cadmeia (Thebes), and the goddess Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite. The wedding gifts for Harmonia, which included a lyre from Apollo and a necklace made by Hephaestus, proved to be a curse to those who later wore them – which is why the wedding of Thetis and Peleus was met with some misgiving. But the gods brought a number of splendid gifts in any event, among them a jeweled crown for Thetis and the immortal horses Xanthus and Balius for Peleus. Peleus and Thetis later bore a son, Achilles. It is believed that Thetis placed the infant, her only child, in the fire at night and anointed him with ambrosia by day, hoping by these means to make him immortal. Thetis knew that Achilles would die if he went to the Trojan War and thus attempted to make him immortal. (Another account claims that she dipped the baby in the river Styx, thus immortalizing every part of his body except the heel by which she held him.)
Achilles was the reluctant hero of the Trojan War, who grieved over the burial of his companion, Patroclus, and finally entered the battle when his mother, Thetis, brought him a shield and armor made by Hephaestus. Achilles finally engaged Priam's eldest son, Hector, brother of Paris and son of Hecuba, before the gate of Troy and, aided by Athena (Etr. MENRFA), killed him. He stripped Hector of his armor and dragged his body behind his chariot to his camp by the ships. He later defiled Hector's corpse and refused to give it up for burial, but finally ransomed it, heeding the advise of his mother, Thetis, to old king Priam.
Eris, the goddess of discord, was not invited to the wedding of Thetis – probably because of the prior adversity occasioned by the wedding of Cadmus and Harmonia – but went to the event anyway. She was refused admittance and in spite threw a golden apple inscribed, "For the fairest," among the guests. Three goddesses claimed the golden apple: VNI (Hera), TVRAN (Aphrodite) and MENRFA (Minerva). They asked Zeus to judge which of them deserved the apple.
As a side note, and to consider other possibilities for understanding the character, we note that AECAI in Script DM could be Aeacus, the first king of Aegina, who was the son of Zeus and Aegina. In his isolation as a youth he prayed for company and was blessed with a people who later became known as Myrmidons (from myrmex, "ant"). He acquired a reputation for piety and his respect for justice, and his prayers later relieved the Greek lands of drought. When Apollo and Poseidon were building the walls of Troy, they called on Aeacus for help. The walls were scarcely erected when three snakes attacked them. Two fell dead, but the third, which had assaulted the part that Aeacus had built, was able to enter. Apollo correctly interpreted this omen to mean that the descendants of Aeacus would bring destruction on Troy during three generations. After his death Aeacus is believed to have become either a gate-keeper or judge of Hades. Of interest, with regard to this and the "three snakes" version of this story, there is the Etruscan demon, TVCHVLCHA, who is seen brandishing three snakes at Theseus when he entered Hades to rescue his companion.
Since Apollo was involved in the "Aeacus" story, we would expect him to be one of the characters shown in the Divine_Mirror, Script DM. Apollo is not in the scene of Script DM, so we should identify the character AECAI as the son of Priam, Aesacus, who warned specifically against Paris of Troy. It is noted that in Script DM both the names of Aeacus and Helen carry the suffix, "ai." This suffix appears to be the "accusative" case and is no doubt the neuter gender since it is used with both feminine and masculine names.
We see here how the illustrations on mirrors help us understand Etruscan declension patterns and how an understanding of mythology is important to the understanding of Etruscan texts. Now the Etruscans would not have had to review both of the stories, of Aeacus and Aesacus, to understand Script DM. We, on the other hand, are attempting to understand how Aesacus shifts to AECAI in Etruscan, when Aeacus shifting to AECAI would represent a more logical spelling. To reconcile the differences we need more mirrors explaining how the Etruscans viewed the episodes.
Script MG, an Etruscan mirror, "Judgment of Paris," (one of several mirrors on the subject) follows the conventional story that has come down to us, where Paris is asked to judge "the fairest" of the three goddesses, TVRAN (Aphrodite), MENRFA (Minerva) and VNI (Hera). In this mirror we have a character who appears – based upon the Declension Table – to be the Titaness Rheia (L. Ops) mother of Hera, Zeus and Tethys. The script near her head appears to be a phrase: "AL RAIA," which involves an interesting word, "al," that is used in the scripts and appears to mean "to the." The suffix to the name is "ia," following the genitive case. She is standing behind the seated TVRAN (Aphrodite) as VNI (Hera) presents her with a crown. Behind VNI is MENRFA (Minerva) and ELCINTRE (Paris, Alexandar), who is holding a scroll, or perhaps a perfume bottle. The Greek story tells us that Zeus, wishing to avoid trouble over Eris' spiteful act, asked Paris – the handsomest man in the world in those days – to judge which of them is fairest. He sent Hermes, the messenger of the godes, to Mount Ida, where Paris was keeping his flocks; and Hermes – some say it was Apollo or possibly both – persuaded him to judge the beauties. The contestants immediately attempted to bribe Paris: Hera promised to make Paris ruler of the world, Athena vowed that he would always be victorious in war, and Aphrodite promised him the love of the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, daughter of Tyndareus, king of Sparta.
Paris gave Aphrodite the award. But Helen – who had most of the princes of Greece as her suitors – had chosen Menelaus, the brother of King Agamemnon, for his money. In Script DM, below the panel of the gods, are thus the main characters to the story of Helen of Troy: AECAI (Aeacus), MEAN (Artemis), ELCHINTRE (Paris, Alexander), ELINAI (Helen), MENLE, (Menelaus), and ACHMEMNVN (Agamemnon) and above them the gods, TVRAN (Aphrodite) HERCLE (Heracles), TINIA (Zeus) and the mother of Helen, RALNA (the goddess of retribution, Nemesis) whose child by Zeus was turned over to Leda, wife of King Tyndareus, who raised Helen as her own. In the scene ACHMEMNVN is shaking hands with ELENAI while MENLE seems to be touching her head, unaware of the crowning on the other side of the room. A household goddess, LASA (L. lasa) HIMRAE is leaving the room carrying a wand and either a perfume bottle (for the anointing) or the purse. AECAI, who wears a Phrygian hat, holds his hand over his forehead in shock. MEAN (Artemis, the huntress) awards ELCHINTRE (Paris) with a laural crown, showing that he is the victor. But the prophet AECAI knew, and he also knew why MEAN (Artemis) was crowning Paris. For Artemis was remarkably jealous of her honors. The name Menle confirms the "e" declension applying to Pele discussed above. Similar declensions involve "le" as in Hercle.
When Admetus (See Script V, "Alcestis and Admetus") inadvertently failed to include Artemis among those to whom he sacrificed at his wedding, he led his bride to their bedchamber only to find it filled with snakes. Oeneus, king of Calydon, once neglected to dedicate the firstfruits of the year's harvest to her and was punished when his entire land was ravaged by a monstrous bear. Agamemnon received even more severe treatment for idly boasting that he could hunt as well as Artemis. The goddess sent unfavorable winds to keep the entire Greek fleet, which Agamemnon commanded, at Aulis. She then demanded – if the priest Calchas (Etr. CHALCHAS) was to be believed – the sacrifice of Agamemnon's fairest daughter, Iphigeneia. Some say that when the sacrifice was carried out, she substituted a deer on the altar and spirited Iphigeneia away to the land of the barbaric Taurians to be her priestess there. Some accounts claim that the original cause of Artemis' enmity toward Agamemnon was no act of his but rather the failure, long before, of his father, Atreus, to sacrifice the best lamb of his flock to the goddess. He had promised it to her, but when it was born with a golden fleece, he hid it instead of sacrificing it.
The identification of HIMRAE was a problem, as the character "H" is difficult to read and contained in a cartouche of sorts. There are versions of the "H" with all sides closed, allowing us to read the character as an "H." HIMRAE is probably the goddess of the day, Hemera. She was born, together with Aether, from Erebus (Darkness) and Nyx (Night), and regularly emerged from Tartarus as Nyx entered it, and returned as Nyx was leaving. Since Eos (Dawn) was thought of as accompanying the Sun as well as heralding his rising, she tended to usurp the functions of Hemera and was often identified with her. In Script DM HIMRAE is exiting the room, and since she is Day, then what follows is Nyx (Night). Nyx was born, together with Erebus (Darkness), Ge (Earth), Tartarus and Eros (Love), out of Chaos. Apart from Aether (Upper Air) and Hemera (Day) she spawned a large and generally unpleasant brood that included Moros (Doom), Thanatos (Death), Hypnos (Sleep), the Fates, and Nemesis. The suffix, "ae" of Himrae occurs in the Declension Table, but only in a few instances at the moment.
Knowing that HIMRAE is leaving the room where terrible betrayals and bargaining is taking place, the story in the Divine_Mirror, Script DM, is clear. As HIMRAE leaves the room love will take over and bring forth Chaos. There will be Doom, Death and, for those wondering where it all began, you can look to RALNA (Nemesis) who was desired by Zeus at one time. She changed into verious forms in order to escape him and when she changed into a goose he changed into a swan, caught her and raped her. The result of this union was an egg that was given to Leda, the wife of King Tyndareus. The egg hatched into Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world. Thus, we have many directions to which the tale on the Divine_Mirror, Script DM points. And we have only discussed some of them! What master storytellers the Etruscans were, to have put all this into one mirror!
Agamemnon's fate in the story is death. He and his younger brother Menelaus were known as the Atreidae, that is, sons of Atreus. Agamemnon took his father's throne, ruling over Mycenae and possibly Argos and became the most powerful king of the Greeks. He led the expedition to Troy and was married to Helen's sister, Clytemnestra. Because he had offended Artemis, however, his fleet was delayed in Aulis by violent storms and he was forced to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigeneia, to appease Artemis. This induced the implacable hatred of his wife Clytemnestra.
While Agamemnon was engaging the Trojans, Thyestes' son Aegisthus, ignoring a warning from Hermes, killed a minstrel guarding Clytemnestra, seduced her, and made himself ruler of Argoplis. There are several variant stories as to how the seduction took place, and why Clytemnestra was unfaithful to her husband. One story suggested that Agamemnon was bringing Cassandra, Priam's daughter, back as his concubine. In any event, the two lovers, Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, maintained a watch for the return of Agamemnon over the course of the year and had contrived a plan to murder him. This included killing Cassandra and her children by Agamemnon, Teledamus and Pelops. One version of the murder describes the lovers throwing a robe over Agamemnon while he was at bath and killing him with an axe. They would no doubt have killed Orestes as well, but his sister Electra or some loyal retainer sent him away secretly to the court of Strophius, king of Phocis, where he grew to manhood. The vengeance of brother and sister on the murderers of their father is next taken up by the story of Orestes.
The Etruscans left us a mirror covering Orestes, Script MM, a mirror in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This mirror contains the following names: ELENEI (Helen of Troy), PHERIS, (Pheris, founder and king of Pharae inThessaly who faced the challenge of dying for his son Admetus. Admetus was Pheris' eldest son and crewed on the expedition to Colchis by the Argonauts. It turns out that Admetus had a reputation for piety as a young king but failed to pay homage to Artemis during his marriage rites to Alcestis. Apollo interferred on his behalf and got Artemis to agree that the dying young man could be saved if someone were to volunteer to die on his behalf. His aging parents were not willing to die for him, but Alcestis was, so she thus accompanied Thanatos, the implacable god of death, when he came to escort her to the Underworld. Admetus, though plunged into grief, did not refuse his wife's self-sacrifice. She was saved from her fate either because Heracles wrestled with Thanatos and brought her back or because Persephone, queen of the Underworld, sent her up again to the world of the living. Admetus and Alcestis are principal characters in Euripides' play, Alcestis, which tells of her death and resurrection. Other names on Script MM are VReSTE (Orestes) and MELPE, a name we cannot yet identify.
Now we may wonder whether the lamb hidden by Agamemnon was the same as the ram with the golden fleece that miraculously appeared to save Phrixus, the son of Athamas and Nephele. Ino, the second wife of Athamas, had forced him to sacrifice Phrixus, but the boy was saved at the appearance of the ram which carried him and his sister, Helle, off through the air. The ram flew over the strait now known as the Hellespont, and Helle fell off, but Phrixus safely reached Aea, capital of Colchis (now Georgia), a land at the eastern end of the Black Sea. At the ram's bidding, Phrixus sacrificed it and hung its fleece in a sacred grove of the god Ares. King Aeëtes welcomed Phrixus to his land and gave him his daughter Chalciope or Iophossa as his bride, and some say that Aeëtes killed Phrixus, having learned from an oracle that he would die at the hand of a foreigner. When Jason and the Argonauts arrived in Colchis and lifted the Golden Fleece from its grove, where it was guarded by an unsleeping dragon, they also abducted the daughter of Aeëtes, Medea, who was a sorceress, and took the son of Phrixus as well.
Aeëtes had formerly been the ruler of Corinth, and Medea had a strong claim to the throne. How Medea came to fall in love with Jason when he ventured to the land of Aea involves the nemesis of many Greek heroes: Hera. Hera made many attempts to destroy Heracles, and she was no more fond of Pelias, who had usurped the throne of Iolcus, in Thessaly, which should have fallen to Aeson as eldest son of Cretheus, the previous king. Aeson was the grandson of Aeolus.The deposed king continued to live in Iolcus and when his wife gave birth to a son they pretended the infant, Jason, had died and secretly sent him to Cheiron the Centaur in order to protect him from the enmity of Pelias. When Jason reached his twenty-first year, he determined to declare his right to the Iolcan throne, and this desire played right into the hand of Hera. For it turns out that he chose the festival in honor of Poseidon as the time when he would make his move to reclaim the crown. Pelias assured that all the gods would be given their due respect at the festival, except Hera, whom Pelias had scorned throughout his life. On the way to Iolcus, from the hills where he had been a shepherd, Jason had to cross the Anaurus river. Unbeknown to him an old woman, who was Hera in disguise, met him there and asked him to carry her across the stream. As he crossed the stream he lost his sandal. He went on without it, however, as he was running late for the festival.
For some reason Hera believed that only the sorceress Medea, granddaughter of Helius, the sun-god, would be clever enough to overthrow the powerful and treacherous king. But Medea lived in Colchis, at the farthest end of the Black Sea, and the inhabitants of Aea had a reputation for killing strangers. Hera contrived an elaborate plan to get Jason and the Argonauts to make the dangerous journey in spite of the difficulties.
After Jason arrived at the festival he laid claim to the kingdom. There had been a prophesy known to Pelias that a descendant of Aeolus – a man without a sandal – would one day cause his death. Someone noticed the young man without a sandal and, knowing about the oracle, quickly reported the sighting to King Pelias. The king then drove straight to the festival in his mule-drawn chariot. There he saw the a youth wearing the rough trousers and a pantherskin cloak of a Magnesian. One of his feet was bare. When Pelias demanded to know his name, Jason not only gave it but announced that he had come to claim the kingdom. Recognizing the difficulty of destroying the lad in the witness of the crowd at hand, Pelias asked Jason what he would do if there were an oracle that said a certain citizen were to kill him. The youth replied without hesitation, "I would order him to bring back the golden fleece." Seizing upon these words, the king commanded him to do precisely that. When he reached Colchis Hera made Medea fall in love with Jason, and through her sorcery – she killed Pelias by a trick – she allowed the band of fifty-two Argonauts to take the city. But Jason and Medea did not stay there for long and moved to Corinth where, by some accounts, he became king of the city by virtue of Medea's hereditary claim. He turned over the Iocan throne to Acastus, but when Jason's son Thessalus returned to Iolcus he is believed to have succeeded Acastus on the throne.
According to Greek and Roman writers, such as Herodotus and Strabo, the Etruscans – who called themselves Rasna – came from Lydia, migrating to Italy because of a long drought following the Trojan War. The war lasted ten years, suggesting that the countryside would have been plundered and ravaged throughout those years. As a historical fact, as evidenced in the ancient "Linear B" scripts from Mycenae – as well as the fortified towers that arose after ~1180 B.C. – the whole region, from the Hellespont to Italy was being raided by pirates, etc. The Trojan War, perhaps, is the recollection of the early days of the raids of the Sea Peoples recorded by the Egyptians and others. As it turns out the Etruscan mirrors reflect a strong bias, favoring the Trojans and the distribution of the mirrors was as far as the further reaches of the Black Sea. Of interest is Virgil's work, the Aeneid, which traces Roman ancestry to Aeneas, who led refugees from the ruined country of Troy to Italy and founded Rome. Other mythologies, such as the Parisians,' trace their ancestry to Trojan refugees.
The Etruscan language is, as confirmed herein, Indo-European
A recent study published by a professor at Stanford University claims that the Etruscans were not Indo-Europeans. The article based its conclusions on DNA analysis of selected Etruscan remains (about 27 samples dating from an unspecified period of time).
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Racial charateristics – images of Etruscans by Etruscan painters, indicating a fair-haired people.
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They probably included a mixed population from their trading inside Europe and around the Mediterranean. They favored cremation over inhumation, so DNA analysis would be limited. As a whole they seemed to fill the void in explorers left after the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization, the time of the Trojan War, destruction of the Hittite Empire, and a period when fortified towers were raised around the Mediterranean. The gay scenes in their tombs remind us, in fact, of Mycenaean and Cretan murals. As can be seen in the collage the blond haired fellow and friend are resting on a blanket that resembles a Scottish tartan.
For those interested in the Etruscan language, the method I use in isolating grammatical characteristics of the language is to keep this page open and open the Excel spreadsheets, Etruscan Grammar and Etruscan Glossary, noted below. When I wish to check the location and use of a particular word, using this page I open the appropriate text and review the grammatical forms and usage in the Etruscan Glossary and Grammar. I've set the site up so that the work can be scientifically confirmed by anyone who wishes to do so.
To help you appreciate this work observe "The Battle of the Greeks and Amazons" from a sarcophagus from Tarquinia, now in the Archeological museum in Florence: There were two major mythological battles of the Amazons. The earlier involved a battle with Priam, king of Troy, in his youth. A later battle took place when the Amazons invaded Attica (Athens). "The Battle of the Greeks and Amazons" seems to have been misnamed as the text appears to relate to the abduction of Hecuba, the wife of King Priam of Troy, following the destruction of Troy by Agamemnon's Greek alies. To view more murals and paintings click on the panel below:
There are many myths about the origin of the Etruscans, as will be discussed on this site, but the Battle of the Greeks and Amazons says it all. The words above the battle are reconciled through the overall Etruscan vocabulary developed by the author through Table 1 and refined in the Etruscan Glossary). The script above this battle scene reads, as shown in Translation_Short_Scripts.html, "I have/ am of Tirai (Tyrsenus) the king of the cause of Ati (Atys) born of the god royal." This scene leads us back to the old myth involving kings Priam and Atys the Lydians. There are several references to Ati, and the sons of Ati, the locations of which can be determined using Etruscan Glossary spreadsheet. Many of the mythological stories recounted on this site are based on The Meridian handbook of Classical Mythology (Originally published as Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology), by Edward Tripp, 1970. The photo of the Battle of the Amazons is courtesy of the Skira book on Etruscan Painting, a volume of the Collection, The Great Centuries of Painting, 1952. Many of the paintings and murals in the Etruscan tombs deal with Trojan themes. Probably emulating the Etruscan tombs were Thracian tombs. To view a Thracian mural click here.
A theme in the Etruscan tombs follows the principal line of the Rig Veda, which I call, Banquet of the gods. Many stories in mythology begin with a banquet of the gods, and the heros and kings of men are immortalized within that theme. Also associated with the Banquet of the gods.html is a separate work on Hittite & Mitanni documentes, Hittite_Treaties.html. The Hittites and the Mitanni help set an important date with regard to the formation of the Indo-European languages, particularly with respect to their relationship to the Latin-Etruscan and Germanic languages. The Treaty of Mitanni, for instance, invokes the gods Indra, Mithra, Varuna and the "twins," of the Rig Veda. The treaty dates to about 1380 B.C.
"The Banquet of the gods" is a term used in the Rig Veda but is most appropriately viewed in Etruscan murals. While the Etruscan murals certainly reflect Greek mythology, the scenes of a banquet in death are best matched with those of the Egyptian tombs. Nothing reminds us of this close relationship more than the Zagreb Mummy text, a text written in Etruscan on a woman's mummy found in Egypt. A significant breakthrough occurred with the translation of a text on a mirror, MS 565 /2 in the possession of the Schoyen Collection. The mirror contains a scene involving Icarius, the disciple of Dionysus, who set off with his faithful dog to spread the knowledge of wine making. Because we knew the subject of the mirror from the illustration, and because words in the text are used in other texts, we were able to make a literary step in proving the Etruscan Glossary. Of interest in MS 565/2 is a particular word, 8RATER (brater, frater), meaning "brother." This word declines in the Tavola Eugubine, scripts N, Q, R and G (see glossary). The Tavola Eugubine contains many names of gods and goddesses, Greek references, and is highly religious in nature, containing considerable repetition, as would be expected in religious tracts.
Battle of the hero god with the dragon: the victory of light over darkness
Herodotus tells us through his inquiries in Egypt he believed that the Greeks got their gods directly from Egypt (except for Poseiden, who came from Lybia, it was claimed). In The Histories (440 B.C.), he says:
Book II.L. In fact, the names of nearly all the gods came to Hellas from Egypt. For I am convinced by inquiry that they have come from foreign parts, and I believe that they came chiefly from Egypt. Except the names of Poseidon and the Dioscuri, as I have already said, and Hera, and Hestia, and Themis, and the Graces, and the Nereids, the names of all the gods have always existed in Egypt. I only say what the Egyptians themselves say. The gods whose names they say they do not know were, as I think, named by the Pelasgians, except Poseidon, the knowledge of whom they learned from the Libyans. Alone of all nations the Libyans have had among them the name of Poseidon from the beginning, and they have always honored this god. The Egyptians, however, are not accustomed to pay any honors to heroes.
Among the major gods and godesses in Egypt Herodotus links Dionysus with Osiris, Isis with Demeter. The children of Osiris and Isis are Apollo (Egypt. Horus) and Artemis (Egypt. Bubastis). The nurse of Horus is the goddess Leto, of whom Herodotus says:
Leto, one of the eight gods who first came to be, who was living at Buto where this oracle of hers is, taking charge of Apollo from Isis, hid him for safety in this island which is now said to float, when Typhon came hunting through the world, keen to find the son of Osiris. Apollo and Artemis were (they say) children of Dionysus and Isis, and Leto was made their nurse and preserver; in Egyptian, Apollo is Horus, Demeter Isis, Artemis Bubastis. It was from this legend and no other that Aeschylus son of Euphorion took a notion which is in no poet before him: that Artemis was the daughter of Demeter.
Leto is mentioned in the Etruscan scripts and among the (Greek) legends shown in Etruscan tomb murals is Typhon. The Greeks called Leto "the goddess of the night," says Herodotus. It may be that the Etruscans will be a link between the Greek and Egyptian memories of these myths.
The battle of the hero with a dragon, as Osiris (Dionysus) with Set (Typhon), refers us back to the common formative theme in the Rig Veda of Indra and Vrtra, and other Indo-European myths, including Beowulf and Grendel. The Dragon-killer motif is also Mesopotamian, being a core theme in the Gilgamesh Epic, in the story of Ishtar and Tammuz. Tammuz was a diety of agriculture and flocks, personifying the creative powers of spring. His consort was the goddess Ishtar who is reported to have gone into the underworld to recover him when he died (as Isis recovered the body of her husband, Osiris or as Persephone helped restoreTheseus and Alcestis.).
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Dumuzi, left, bound in hands and feet, before a god(dess) flanked by snakes. A storm god (right) stands atop a dragon (from bibleorigins.net; See also the seal of Ningishzida: http://www.bibleorigins.net/TammuzDumuziDamuSeal.html) |
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Ningishzida with serpent dragon heads on his shoulder presenting King Gudaea of Samaria. Note dragon later known as the god Marduk on the left. (from bibleorigins.net) |
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Tile of Marduk from the Ishtar gate of Babylon |
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Tuchulcha threatening Theseus; Etruscan Tomb of Orcos, Tarquinia. See Etruscan_Murals.html. A similar scene, Script V, "Alcestis and Admetus" shows Tuchulcha threatening Admetus while his wife Alcestis offers to die in his stead. Like Theseus who was rescued from Hades by Heracles, Alcestis is said to have been rescued from Hades by Persephone. Another script that has an illustration corresponding to the text is Script MS, "Ikarius" the disciple of Dionysus. |
1: When King Astyages was laid with his fathers, Cyrus the Persian received his kingdom.
2: And Daniel was a companion of the king, and was the most honored of his friends.
3: Now the Babylonians had an idol called Bel, and every day they spent on it twelve bushels of fine flour and forty sheep and fifty gallons of wine.
4: The king revered it and went every day to worship it. But Daniel worshiped his own God.
5: And the king said to him, "Why do you not worship Bel?" He answered, "Because I do not revere man-made idols, but the living God, who created heaven and earth and has dominion over all flesh."
6: The king said to him, "Do you not think that Bel is a living God? Do you not see how much he eats and drinks every day?"
7: Then Daniel laughed, and said, "Do not be deceived, O king; for this is but clay inside and brass outside, and it never ate or drank anything."
8: Then the king was angry, and he called his priests and said to them, "If you do not tell me who is eating these provisions, you shall die.
9: But if you prove that Bel is eating them, Daniel shall die, because he blasphemed against Bel." And Daniel said to the king, "Let it be done as you have said."
10: Now there were seventy priests of Bel, besides their wives and children. And the king went with Daniel into the temple of Bel.
11: And the priests of Bel said, "Behold, we are going outside; you yourself, O king, shall set forth the food and mix and place the wine, and shut the door and seal it with your signet.
12: And when you return in the morning, if you do not find that Bel has eaten it all, we will die; or else Daniel will, who is telling lies about us."
13: They were unconcerned, for beneath the table they had made a hidden entrance, through which they used to go in regularly and consume the provisions.
14: When they had gone out, the king set forth the food for Bel. Then Daniel ordered his servants to bring ashes and they sifted them throughout the whole temple in the presence of the king alone. Then they went out, shut the door and sealed it with the king's signet, and departed.
15: In the night the priests came with their wives and children, as they were accustomed to do, and ate and drank everything.
16: Early in the morning the king rose and came, and Daniel with him.
17: And the king said, "Are the seals unbroken, Daniel?" He answered, "They are unbroken, O king."
18: As soon as the doors were opened, the king looked at the table, and shouted in a loud voice, "You are great, O Bel; and with you there is no deceit, none at all."
19: Then Daniel laughed, and restrained the king from going in, and said, "Look at the floor, and notice whose footsteps these are."
20: The king said, "I see the footsteps of men and women and children."
21: Then the king was enraged, and he seized the priests and their wives and children; and they showed him the secret doors through which they were accustomed to enter and devour what was on the table.
22: Therefore the king put them to death, and gave Bel over to Daniel, who destroyed it and its temple.
23: There was also a great dragon, which the Babylonians revered.
24: And the king said to Daniel, "You cannot deny that this is a living god; so worship him."
25: Daniel said, "I will worship the Lord my God, for he is the living God.
26: But if you, O king, will give me permission, I will slay the dragon without sword or club." The king said, "I give you permission."
27: Then Daniel took pitch, fat, and hair, and boiled them together and made cakes, which he fed to the dragon. The dragon ate them, and burst open. And Daniel said, "See what you have been worshiping!"
28: When the Babylonians heard it, they were very indignant and conspired against the king, saying, "The king has become a Jew; he has destroyed Bel, and slain the dragon, and slaughtered the priests."
29: Going to the king, they said, "Hand Daniel over to us, or else we will kill you and your household."
30: The king saw that they were pressing him hard, and under compulsion he handed Daniel over to them.
31: They threw Daniel into the lions' den, and he was there for six days.
32: There were seven lions in the den, and every day they had been given two human bodies and two sheep; but these were not given to them now, so that they might devour
Daniel.
33: Now the prophet Habakkuk was in Judea. He had boiled pottage and had broken bread into a bowl, and was going into the field to take it to the reapers.
34: But the angel of the Lord said to Habakkuk, "Take the dinner which you have to Babylon, to Daniel, in the lions' den."
35: Habakkuk said, "Sir, I have never seen Babylon, and I know nothing about the den."
36: Then the angel of the Lord took him by the crown of his head, and lifted him by his hair and set him down in Babylon, right over the den, with the rushing sound of the wind itself.
37: Then Habakkuk shouted, "Daniel, Daniel! Take the dinner which God has sent you."
38: And Daniel said, "Thou hast remembered me, O God, and hast not forsaken those who love thee."
39: So Daniel arose and ate. And the angel of God immediately returned Habakkuk to his own place.
40: On the seventh day the king came to mourn for Daniel. When he came to the den he looked in, and there sat Daniel.
41: And the king shouted with a loud voice, "Thou art great, O Lord God of Daniel, and there is no other besides thee."
42: And he pulled Daniel out, and threw into the den the men who had attempted his destruction, and they were devoured immediately before his eyes.
Texts & Translations (~6000 words)
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nslation: Schøyen Mirror, "Ikarius," Script MS, 6th Century B.C. [~26 words] This mirror is interesting since it contains many words in Indo-European Table 1 and Etruscan Glossary & Grammar. It contains the word 8RATER, brother, that corresponds to Latin frater-tris, with several declensions, in the Tavola Eugubine, Scripts N, R and G. The text can be seen to relate to the story written on the mirror. This is, thus, the first of the Etruscan "literature," that can be demonstrated. The story depicted on the mirror is of Icarius, the first disciple of Dionysus, the god of wine. The story of Icarius is unusual since it involves his faithful dog Maera who sets off with him in a chariot to spread the word of wine cultivation to the world. The first encounter they had was with shepherds who got drunk from the wine and thought Icarius had possessed them. They killed the disciple of wine and left his faithful dog wailing beside Icarius. Icarius' daughter came out looking for her missing father and the wailing dog led her to his burial place. She was so bereaved over his death she hung herself in the tree beside her father's burial. Then the dog jumped into a nearby well. The Athenians afterwards created a festival in honor of the event, where young virgin girls would swing in trees during the harvest of grapes. While the character in the mirror could suggest Dionysus himself, the image of the dog prancing alongside the chariot established that the story was of Icarius. The first word of the text is IKRA.
Other, important scripts reflecting a coincidence between a scene and its script is the "Battle of the Amazons," reviewed above (1.31.06) the Volterra Mirror (2.01.06) and Script V: "Alcestis and Admetus."
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he Piacenza Liver, Script PL, [~34 words] An Etruscan model of a sheep liver used for instruction in divination. This is the latest and one of the more exciting of the Etruscan Phrases translations. Most of the words in the text are repeated in other Etruscan Phrases texts, and thus, using Table 1 Vocabulary, this text was relatively easy to understand. The words / locaters of the liver have been added to Table 1. The liver is read from left to right. The right-hand side leads up through the "eternal gods" through the "arch of god" and to the "Net of Propitiation" which begins with "The Law of the Sheep-fold" and salvation / healing. Links to the correlating words and texts are provided in Script PL (5.11.06)
Translation: Chiusi Fibula, Script VF, [~6 words] Villanovan, 7th Century B.C., Louvre Museum. This fibula is interesting since it clarifies words in Indo-European Table 1 and the Etruscan Glossary and Grammar. It is a gold clasp / brooch with an inscription, "my gold brooch of praise, Nasia Maximas / Nasia the greatest." The word for gold, "ara" is confirmed by this brooch as well as the word for praise. (9.14.06)
Translation of the Chimera_Script, Script CA [ 3 words] (7.17.04)
Translation: Cippus Perusinus, 5th Century B.C., Script "J" [~56 words] This appears to be a poor copy of the lateral side of the Perugia Cippus, Script K. When I locate the version of the text from which I made the copy, Script "J" will be updated or deleted, as the case may be. (12.25.06; Text last updated 10.12.03)
Translation of the Perugia Cippus, Script K. [~195 words] It contains a list of queens and refers to their power and relationships. Much of the script seems to be a record of a Queen Sarina. Her bust is in the Louvre Museum. She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, as can be seen from the bronze bust. The bronze has her na
me inscribed on its forehead. I have updated the translation reflecting findings from the other scripts and reviewing a better copy of the script supplied by the Perugia Museum. We can confirm the word, RINA, queen, used throughout this text with a name, like SARINA, through the bronze bust in the Louvre. The text is unusual since it lists queens and no king is mentioned.
The cippus is proving to be a history and most interestingly seems to have identified a Queen Hinera of the Valley of Fiesole (ancient Florence) – see K65, K66 – whose name also appears in the Zagreb Mummy's wrappings closest to the mummy's body. This has to be verified, but it may be that between the two documents there is a disclosure of not only the Queen of the Etruscan city Fiesole but also the name of the person of the Zagreb Mummy, who died in Egypt, Hinera, the queen of Fiesole (Florence)? This is, thus, becoming an Etruscan history, not from others, such as the Romans and Greeks, but from the Etruscans themselves. K65 is the beginning of a new section of the text, suggesting that the previous section deals with a dynasty of the Clensi, featuring Queen Sarina (K45-K52). The Clensi are mentioned in the text on the bronze statue of Prince Metelis. So far, we have three documents being linked together in the Perugia Cippus.
Of interest are words on the lateral side of the cippus that seem to be more related to the Italian language: K188 – RONCHVLeR (RVNKVLeR), to swallow up (It. ringolare – ringhiottire) or to recoil, fall back, withdraw (It. rinculare; reculer; L. recello-ere) and K194 – CECHASI (CEKASI), (It. checchessia, anything, everything, chicchessia, anyone, anybody; Fr. quelquechose). This is the more challenging part of the text which seems to conclude: "and indeed the gods there to swallow up, fall back, I bind; as far as anything you inhabit." On the front of the monument may be the name of Perugia (Perusia) which begins with a phrase: LERI TEVeNS (TE8eNS) TEIS, the lords divine (L. dius-a-um; adj. divinus) of the gods RASNE SIPA AMA HENNA PER the Etruscans (Rasne) she encloses (L. saepio, saepire, saeps, saeptum) she loves Henna (L. Henna [Enna], f. city of Sicily with a temple of Ceres); through, by (L. per) XII FEL RINA RVRAS ARAS, twelve of the great (Fel) queen (L. regina-ae, f.; It. f. regina; Fr. reine, f.) (PE)RASCEM VLiM, at Perusia (Perugia, Perusia, Tuscan town; "em" suffix, accusative) at times, for a long time now, often (L. olim). The cippus may be the most important Etruscan text found to date. (Updated 12.25.06).
Translation of theMagliano Lead Disk, Script M. [~87 words] Probably the oldest of the texts dating from circa. 600 B.C. It is written in a spiral (labyrinth) much like the Phaestos Disk. It uses the TH more extensively than other scripts. This script, like the Tavola Cortonensis, is a 
military document, and it too invokes Dione, Minerva and Tinia in the defense of its oration.(Updated 6.16.06). This script has been updated in correspondence with our Etruscan Glossary.
Translation of the two Lemnos stele, Script S [~60 words] (6.13.06)
This script is being reworked and seems quite poetic, repeating the word eternal (L. aevus-i; Etr. AFIS).
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Script AL
Prince Metelis |
Script T
Prince Serelus |
Script HA Haruspex |
Script AK Kylix from Tarquinia
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Translation of Miscellaneous Short Inscriptions, Scripts A, P, AB, AD, AE, AF, AG, AT, AJ, AK, AL, TA, AN(1), AN(2), AN(3), AP, HA, LF, AM, T ; See also Script PH, "Phersipnei," above. (12.03.06) [~226 words]The orator of Script AL is Prince Metelis who appears to be of the clan Veleres, a name appearing in many scripts, including the Zagreb Mummy. The text (still in work) indicates that he holds the chair of Turin. The gens. Clensi are mentioned in this script (CLENSI). The Clensi (K52) are associated with Queen Sarina in the Perugia Cippus, Script K, a stele of kings and queens. (9.23.06)
Script HA is on the left leg of the haruspex (seer), saying, "Behold! He atoned for the faithful offspring." This also falls within the category of "Illustrated Etruscan literature," and we should expect the text to explain the image. Since it does not contain a personal name, we can presume it was not of any particular seer.
Script T – This stele is of Prince Serelus, which has been called the Avle Luske stele, a misnomer. His armor is like that described in the Iliad and the sword pointing up between his legs may indicate his power as a great warrior. Images of Mycenean swords have been found carved on stonehenge, among many places, thus indicating a tradition, perhaps indicating that he is under the protection of the god of War (Roman Mars; Greek, Ares). Part of the text is damaged but it appears to say, "To Prince Serelus a lamentation we sing; I write in love; in the least he comes from Achaea."
Translation of Miscellaneous Short Inscriptions.a.html, Scripts BS, AQ, LS, FT, NC, AR, HT, MF, V [~90 words] (11.26.06) The Banquet scenes and Script HT, a tile identifying the precinct of Hermes, are shedding considerable light on the Etrusan beliefs. In Script For instance, Hermes plays an important role in the burial chambers, where he is the escort of the de
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Script BS-6, a mural that refers to the Chaneri (BS17) royalty who are also mentioned in Script VP
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Script BS-1
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Script HT
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Scripts BS-1 and BS-6 – In Banquet BS-1 there is an offering of an egg, and on the mirror where the goddess Uni is suckling Heracles a child-like angelic being (Epe?) is offering an egg. In this scene a person who appears to be the departed matron of the family is offering an egg to the man. The same man appears to be in Script BS-1, in the same tomb, and there he is offering a bowl (containing a mead-like drink?) to a younger woman, who appears to be his wife. These banquet scenes fall in the category of "Illustrated Etruscan literature" where the script should reflect the illustration. Script BS-6 contains the name of a family name, Chaneri (KANERI) who are mentioned in an earlier sarcophagus (Script VP) from Tarquinia, of the 4th- 5th century B.C. The Banquet scenes, Scripts BS, are in the "Tomb of the Shields," Tarquinia and dated the 3rd century B.C. The "Velthur Partunus" Script VP is about "Alisa of the clan Rameras and she is "to us of the Chaneri royalty."
Translation of Miscellaneous Short Inscriptions.b.html Scripts MA, RA, VP, BT, LP, TB, FR, BB, BC, VC, OM [~170 words, "LP" largely unreadable] An interesting script is BT, which has nail holes on its right hand side, indicating it was posted against a wall, like the Pyrgi gold tablets, as opposed to the Tavola Cortonensis, a bronze plate
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Script BT
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"Laris Pulena" Script LP
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"Velthur Partunus," Script VP
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Script VC
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Script VP is interesting, located in the Museo Archeologico, Tarquinia. It dates from circa. 480 B.C. - 320 B.C. and is of "Alisa, of the clan Rameras, the new Cocle." Horatius Cocles, is the Roman who defended the bridge over the Tiber against Porsenna, after the Romans expelled Tarquin the Proud in 510 B.C. Tarquin the Proud, also called Lucius Tarquinius Superbus or Tarquin II, was the 7th and last king of Rome. He ruled for 24 years, from 535-510 B.C. The deposed monarch, whose family was of Etruscan origin, appealed to the Etruscan king, Lars Porsena, of Clusium (now Chiusi), for assistance in suppressing the new Roman Republic, and Lars Porsena agreed to help.
There are two other scripts that refer to the Tarquins. Script A identifies the tomb of Tanaqil, the wife of Tarquin the Great (Lucius Tarquinius Priscus), 5th king of Rome. She and her husband, Tarquin the Great, are depicted on a mirror, Script DL, "Mirror from Tuscania" where an augur reads a sheep's liver in the presence of Tarquin, Tanaqil and the god Veltune. He says, "Fear Tarquins" (Pave Tarquii). Tanaqil was a highborn and ambitious Etruscan woman who urged her husband to move from Tarquinia to Rome in order to advance his fortunes. Her training in the Etruscan art of augury often aided her husband in his affairs. At his death her strong-mindedness and quick thinking assured the throne to their son-in-law, Servius Tullius, in accordance with her husband's wishes.
Script VC, a vase from Cerveteri, may be a serving jar for the table which appears to be a measure, one cup of sweet wine with what appears to be instructions, "one part to 12." This 6.5" High vase is in the Vatican; a measure of its liquid capacity and contents by the Vatican should prove interesting. (02.01.07)
Translation of Miscellaneous Short Inscriptions.c,html Scripts GA, MR, MM, OU, VG, VA, CH, MG, MH, PF, LM, DP, DQ, DR, DS, PF Script GA is from the necropolis of Gouraya near Algiers, Algeria. Script MR is a mirror containing what appears to be the Nereid Thetis, the goddess of wisdom, Minerva, the goddess of discord, Eris and Heracles. The connection of these characters is throug
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Script MG,"Judgment of Paris"
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Script VG, amphora. Museum Villa Giula
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Script PF, stele from Fiesole of a Parthian
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Script PF appears to be a stele of a Parthian warrior, with an inscription: PARTHIAM JEPI. Jepi declines, appearing in other texts: Jepo, Jepie. The stele is dated c. 520 B.C and may relate to the invasion of Greece by the Persian king Xerxes in 483 B.C. (2.01.07)
Translation, Aph.html, an inscription from Santa Marinella. This text is on two sides of a lead foil, found in a temple precinct believed to be dedicated to the goddess Minerva (Gr. Athena). We believed that the text related to the goddess Aph, but begins rather with an address to Uni (Juno; Gr. Hera) . Uni's name declines in the Etruscan scripts, following the grammatical, genitive case of an "ia" suffix. Although there are claims that this is dedicated to Minerva, 
her name is not on this image or the transcriptions seen on the lead foil. We cannot discount the Aph connection, however. The Pyrgi scripts mention a controversy over the goddess Aph, and she is described in connection with a cow. The mother-goddess of Mesopotamia, Ishtar, Isis, the mother-goddess of Egypt and Ashtar, the mother-goddess of the Phonecians, are symbolized by the horns of a cow, signifying fertility and abundance. Ashtar is mentioned on the Punic gold tablet found with the Etruscan gold tablets, the three of which are called the Pyrgi Scripts. We are attempting to obtain a photo of the other side of the lead foil. (12.11.06).Translation of Miscellaneous Short Inscriptions.d.html, Scripts AC, BR , AV, SC, BM, DJ, DG, DD, DC, DB, DA, DE, DF, DG, DK, DN Script AC is written around an aryballos. We need an image detailing the other side of the aryballos to complete a translation. It refers to the mistress Turan (Aphrodite, Venus). Script BR is a bowl /
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Script AC, aryballos from Cerveteri
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Script SC, shard from Cetamura
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Script SC is a small shard from Cetamura and indicative of the importance of a small piece of pottery carrying text, for the text is LAVS INI...The word, LAVS (L. laus, laudis, praise) is used in Script TC, Tabula_Cortonensis.html, TC-211 is in the following context: LAVS ISA. The Cortonensis text appears to controvert the translation of the Cetamura shard by Dr. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, Florida State University, who stated that the shard contains the name of the owner: "Lausini."
Translation of Miscellaneous Short Inscriptions.e.html, Scripts PA, PB, PC, PD, PE, PJ, PK, PL, PM, PN, PO, PQ
Translation of Miscellaneous Short Inscriptions.f.html, Scripts from the multivolume work, "Corpus Speculorum Etruscorum," CAA, CB, CC, CD, CF, CG, CH, CI, CJ, CL, CM, CN, CO, CP, CQ, CR, CS, CT, CU, CV, CX, CY (2.17.07). These include mirrors in museums and private collections published under the auspices of the International Scientific Committe for the Corpus of Etruscan Mirrors. The mirrors are important since they carry an illustration of an event and the characters associated with the event, including the Etruscan name of the character. The name and words help to reconcile declension and conjugaation patterns of the texts on the "Etruscan Phrases" site. We reviewed all of the "Corpus Speculorum Etruscorum" volumes and found only these mirrors that contained text that could be verified. A few mirrors were in such bad condition, though the "Corpus" editor(s) produced a transcription, I could not verify the results from the image(s) supplied in the "Corpus" and thus chose not to include them here.
The images produced on this site from the volumes focus on the text of the mirror, which explains why the reader will often see only a portion of the mirror. We will, of course, supply better images when we get them. The mirrors may be objects of art to art history buffs, but to the Etruscans they were essential to their daily grooming and were obviously in high demand, with over 3,000 mirrors extant. They were found with grave goods intended to accompany the departed in his / her quest for eternal life, through the Underworld. Erebus (Etr. Arepes?) and the throne of King Hades (Etr. Aita) and Queen Persephone (Etr. Phersipnei). The stories on the mirrors were derived essentially from Greek myths, but from the spelling of the names, such as APVLV (Apollo) we note that the mirrors were intended for Etruscans who could read the Etruscan language. Of interest with regard to this point is the fact that the mirrors were found throughout the western Mediterranean, from Central France to the upper reaches of the Black Sea. Today there are about 3,000 mirrors extant, most of which do not carry writing.
The Etruscans were known for their seamanship and in the myth of Dionysus, the god of wine, we are told that he was kidnapped by Tyrrhenian pirates (Etruscans), and during the episode he cast a spell on the ship, causing it to be invaded by wild animals, including lions, panthers and tigers. This frightened the pirates such that they jumped overboard, leaving Dionysus alone on the ship. Dionysus continued his journey through Egypt to spread his cult of wine around the world. It would be informative to find a mirror that told the Etruscan version of the pirate story. We do have their version of the story of Dionysus' first disciple, Icarius, which is on the Schøyen Mirror, MS 565/2.
The story of Helen of Troy on an Etruscan Mirror, Divine_Mirror.html, Scripts DM and OB [~19 words/names] This mirror has the names of the characters in the story and is an excellent illustration of the Etruscan ability to tell an entire story through graphic images. The story is told from the Etruscan point of view, with a Lydian bias, as it were. It is important because it defines the gods used in the mirror in the context of the story of the Iliad. We can see that the consort of Tinia (Zeus) is Ralna (Nemesis).
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| Mirror, DM | Mirror, DL | Mirror, AH |
Translation of the Mirror from Tuscania, Script DL , [10 words] that shows the divination of a liver for lord Tarquin (AUL TARCHONOS). "Fear Tarquins," (TARCHIE) it concludes. (05.08.06)
The Volterra mirror, Script AH, [~11 words] "Uni Suckling Hercules.html" containing heroes and a script common to the Divine_Mirror.html. (Updated 9.26.06). The Volterra mirror is another script falling into the category, "Illustrated Etruscan literature," and thus we can expect the text to coincide with the illustration. The genitive case of Uni, VNIA, is used in this script, as well as Au-13. The page also contains a mirror of Dionysus, Semele & Apollo, Script SF. More mirrors are at Miscellaneous Short Inscriptions.d.html: BM, DD, DC, DB, DA, DE, DF, DG, DH, DK, DN, DO Script DF carries another complex story, combining that of Orestes with Jason, the leader of the Argonauts who sought the Golden Fleece. Both stories involve the revenge of the son of the father's murder. Orestes took revenge upon Clytemnestra, his mother, and her lover, over their murder of Agamemnon. Jason, son of Aeson, took revenge upon Pelias who had murdered his half-brother, Aeson, for the throne of Iolcus.
Partial translation of the Capua Tile, Script CP [~126 words that can be read – script largely unreadable] This script is so badly damaged only a portion of it can be made out at the moment. I need a better copy of the tile! It contains the name of the goddess Aph, a partial genealogy of the Etruscan gods which appear to have been born out of Aph, including the god Tini and an interesting reference to HIPA RIV, the "river horse" which may relate to the Egyptian goddess of fertility which had the body of a hippopotamus with human breasts and features of other animals. Places and boundaries, providing somewhat of a geography lesson from Etruscan times, are mentioned, including rivers relating to the people of Pisa and the Oscans. This is so far the most interesting of the Etruscan scripts. The Aph.html relates to the fertility goddess and is written on the waistline of a statue of a woman. The shape of that disfigured fragment appears to reflect the ancient fertility goddess: wide hips, pronounced vulva, etc. It would be interesting to find a complete image of that Etruscan goddess, since there was a controversy over her according to the Pyrgi gold tablets (10.06.01).
Translation of sheet 1 of the Pyrgi Gold Tablets, Script Au. [~72 words] These gold tablets were found in the sanctuary of Pyrgi, dating circa. 5th century B.C. This is an oration during the Festival of Hera with regard to a controversy (polemic) involving the goddess Aph. The Etruscan tablets are a dedication to Uni, the Roman Juno, and affirms her seat as the main sigoddess of the site. She is addressed in the two tablets both as Uni, the Etruscan Juno, whose name may also be in the text as IVNO. Juno is the mother and fertility goddess of the Romans and the occasion of the dedication is on the feast called Heraea (L. Heraea-orum). The oration calls Uni and Janus, the god of wisdom, to the rock together before the Italian magistrates' seats to resolve a controversy (polemic). The beginning of the oration a
cknowledges the goddess Thia, (L. Dia-ae), mother of Mercury (Gr. Hermes) "to you Maia" and the god Janus. Maia was the oldest daughter of Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione. One of the Pleaides, Maia was shy and lived quietly in a cave on Mount Cyllene, in Arcadia. Zeus seduced her, from which a son, Hermes, was born. Hermes was a precocious child and while still in swaddling clothes stole the cattle of Apollo, hiding them in his mother's cave. Hermes (Roman Mercury) seems to have played a very strong role in the Etruscan religion, and a dedication of his feast days can be read at Script HT. Mercury seems to have had a large presence in Celtic religion as well.
May is named after the goddess Maia, the wife of Mars. May is a month of purification and religious ceremony in honor of the dead. Hermes (Mercury) was the messenger of the gods and appears to play a major role, as the transporter of the soul, in the Etruscan view of the afterlife. Janus was the doorkeeper of heaven in Roman mythology and the god of beginnings and endings. He was originally a supreme deity, like Zeus and Jupiter, and was the mediator of prayers and petitions to the other gods. His blessing was asked at the beginning of every day, month and year. January was named after him. He also presided over the sowing of crops, and Roman commanders departed through the doors of his temple, which were closed only in times of peace. He was represented in art with two faces, looking in opposite directions, symbolizing his knowledge of the past and future.
The Pyrgi Gold Tablets are curious from the standpoint that they are a dedication of the Festival of Hera (Heraea). The festival – games for young virgin women – in ancient times preceded the Olympic Games held for males. Both games were associated with lunar calendar dating systems, often varying among the Greek City States. The date of the games served to regulate the calendars, and sometimes the Olympiad and the Heraea conflicted in their timing, so the dates of the festivals were reset to avoid the conflict. The conflict and dates of the festivals is described by http://phoenixandturtle.net/excerptmill/harrison.htm:
We have seen that the Olympic festival was a moveable feast, and occurred alternately in Apollonios and Parthenios, which were probably the second and third months of the Elean year. This variation of the month is a strange and inconvenient arrangement. Moreover it is unique. The Pythia also were held at intervals of 50 and 49 months, but the incidence of the intercalated months of the octennial period was so arranged that the festival itself always fell in the same month (Bukatios) of the Delphic year. In the same way the Panathenaea, though penteteric, always fell in Hekatombaion. There must have been some very strong reason for the troublesome variation of months in the sole case of the most important of panhellenic gatherings.
Weniger finds the reason in the existence of an older immovable festival at the very season at which the reconstituted Games were to be fixed. Every fourth year a college called the Sixteen Women wove a robe for Hera and held games called the Heraea. The games consisted of a race between virgins, who ran in order of age, the youngest first, and the eldest last. The course was the Olympic stadium, less about one-sixth of its length (i.e. 500 instead of 600 Olympic feet). The winners received crowns of olive and a share of the cow sacrificed to Hera. ÔThey trace the origin of the games of the virgins, like those of the men, to antiquity, saying that Hippodameia, out of gratitude to Hera for her marriage with Pelops, assembled the Sixteen Women, and along with them arranged the Heraean games for the first time.Õ
It is highly probable that these games of virgins (Parthenia) gave its name to the month Parthenios, and were in honour of Hera Parthenos—Hera whose virginity was perpetually renewed after her sacred marriage with Zeus. It is also probable that they were held at the new moon, that is, on the first day of Parthenios. Further, if these games gave the month its name, in that month they must always have fallen. Thus the octennial period of the Heraea is of the usual straightforward type, which keeps always to the same month. The natural inference is that the Heraea were first in the field, and that, when the menÕs games were fixed at the same season, it was necessary to avoid this older fixed festival. At the same time, if the games of Zeus were allowed to be established regularly in the middle of the previous month Apollonios, it was obvious that the Heraea would sink into a mere appendage. Zeus, on the other hand was not inclined to yield permanent precedence to Hera. The deadlock was solved by a characteristic compromise. The octennial period for the Games of Zeus was so arranged that in alternate Olympiads they should fall fourteen days before, and fourteen days after, the Heraea (on Apollonios 14/15 and Parthenios 14/15). By this device of priestly ingenuity the honour of both divinities was satisfied, and so the inconvenient variation of months for the Olympic festival is explained.
The Heraea, then, were probably older than the reconstituted Olympia; and if they gave its name to the month Parthenios, they must have been annual before they were octennial or penteteric. They carry us back to the old lunar year, which preceded the combined sun-and-moon penteteris.
If the reference to Maia also acknowledges the calendar date of the Heraea held in Pyrgi, we are tempted to postulate that the confusing, mysterious date for the Heraea, at least among the Etruscans, coincided with the later Roman month of Maius. Like the old Greek lunar calendars, the early Roman calendar involved 10 months: Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Iunius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November and December (September, "seventh month," October, "eighth month," November, "ninth month," and December, "tenth month." The calendar was later revised to include ianuarius and Februarius. In order to keep the calendar year roughly aligned with the solar year, Numa, the second king of Rome (715-673 B.C.), added an "intercalated" month every other year at the end of February of 22 -27 days, called the Interclaris, or Mensis Intercalaris, sometimes also known as Mercedonius or Mercedinus. The leap month was added from time to time at the end of February, which was shortened to 23 or 24 days. The resulting year was either 377 or 378 days long.
We know that the Etruscans used "Roman numerals" in their dating system, seen in Scripts AN, for instance. Since the Romans received their alphabet (that which is used for English) from the Etruscans, we can rightfully assert that the Roman Numerals should be called "Etruscan Numerals," setting the heritage where it belongs. The Roman Calendar may also owe its origin to the Etruscans, who no doubt were influenced by the Greek calendars of 10 lunar months. As may be revealed in the Pyrgi Gold Tablets, the Etruscan calendar may, in fact, be influenced by the date of the Heraea Festival, just as the Greek calendar(s) were influenced by the Heraea and the Olympiad held every four years. The following, which is relevant to the date of the Pyrgi Heraea, is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympiad:
An Olympiad, especially in ancient literature, was a period of four years (Polybius, Histories 9.1.1) counting inclusively (the fifth year during which the games were held was also the first year in the beginning of the new cycle), starting with the games at Olympia. The ancient Olympics, it is believed, originated from Heracles, the eldest of five brothers, who matched them in a race and crowned the winner with an olive branch. The games, in accordance with the number of brothers, were held every fifth year (Pausanias, Description of Greece (Elis 1) 5.7.6-9). By our modern calendar system (Gregorian), the first Olympiad is reckoned to the year 776 BC, which year is arrived at deductively. The first year of the common era (1 CE/AD) is equivalent to the seven-hundred and fifty-fourth year from the founding of Rome (AUC 754) according to the Varronian epoch. The founding of Rome, in turn, is testified as being April 21, in the third year of the sixth Olympiad (OL 6) (Plutarch, Romulus 23-24; Eutropius, History 1.1). So deductively speaking, the first year of the games and the start of the first Olympiad was the summer of 776 BC.
We may conclude that the Festival of the Heraea referred to in the Pyrgi tablets has to do with the first month of the Etruscan year, probably coinciding with the Elean month Parthenios. That the mother of Mercury is addressed in the Pyrgi dedication – both as Dia and Maia – suggests a coincidence with the old Roman month, Maius (May). Uni (Juno) and Ianas (Janus) are addressed in the scripts. The month of June (after Juno) follows May and January (named after Janus, the god of ports and doors, beginnings and endings, became the 11th month, after which February was added. We may assume for the moment that the Etruscans at Pyrgi had only a 10 month calendar, and beginning with Martius as the first month would celebrate Juno's feast day, March 1, called the Matronalia, the primary feast of Juno, the chief Roman goddess. On this day, lambs and other cattle were sacrificed to her. Also on this day the Feriae Marti, the festival of Mars, the Roman god of war, was held. March 1 is also New Year's Day in the old Roman calendar.
Maius is the third month of the old Roman calendar, and on May 1 a cow was sacrificed to Maia, the mother of Mars (Gr. Ares). May 1 was also the Celtic feast of Beltane, marking the first day of Summer. May 15 was the festival of the Mercuralia, the festival of Mercury, the Roman god of merchants and travellers. April 9 was the feast of Ishtar, known today as Easter, and April 18 was when the festival of Maia began (see http://syrylynrainbowdragon.tripod.com/april.html). It may be that the Etruscan Heraea was coincident with the Feast of Ishtar then in the 6th century B.C., somehow relating to the "3rd month," of Maius (May). Perhaps further examination of the Pyrgi Gold Tablets will clarify this.
The third sheet is in Punic and refers to the goddess Ishtar. Updated 9.14.06)
Translation of sheet 2 of the Pyrgi Gold Tablets, Script Au, [~105 words] This page carries the second page of the Pyrgi script. Also on the page is a third gold tablet which is in Phoenician, "Lamina B" script. Images of the gold sheets are from "The Etruscans." (5) It
s translation by Sabatino Moscati is:
To [our] Lady Ishtar. This is the holy place // which was made and donated // by TBRY WLNSH [= The faries
Velianas] who reigns on // Caere [or: on the Caerites], during the month of the sacrifice // to the Sun, as a gift
in the temple. He b//uilt an aedicula [?] because Ishtar gave in his hand [or: raised him with her hand] // to
reign for three years in the m//onth of KRR [=Kerer], in the day of the burying // of the divinity. And the years
of the statue of the divinity // in his temple [might be ? are ?] as many years as these stars.
The Etruscan scripts largely coincide with the Phoenician. There are some corrections, however. Velianas is Fel Ianus (the great Janus).
Fel is a term meaning "great" used frequently in the Etruscan scripts on this site. The name Caere is read as "heart" in the context of getting to the heart or kernel of the matter which concludes acknowledging the polemic involving the goddess Aph. Updated (9.14.06)
Translation of the Tavola Cortonensis, Script TC, [~284 words] the latest find of an Etruscan script. This is a letter of demand which appears to relate to passage money and is addresssed to a commander of the Etruscans. Rasna, the name of the Etruscans, is mentioned twice in the text. The sender appears to be of the Latins. The text is amazingly consistent with the body of the other Etruscan texts and from it I have acquired more vocabulary. It seems to involve a conflict over passage through a domain that also has a complaint regarding daughters-in-law (nuora), thus suggesting a family alliance that has been broken. A short introductory text is on one side and on the reverse one finds the rest of the message. Shades of French and Italian are strong in this text. I am revisiting the text for the fourth time, reconciling it to the other scripts. (11.21.05).
Translation of the Zagreb Mummy, Script Z, [~1900 words – many unreadable] a long script on mummy wrappings which is a prayer. The prayer is concerned about the day of wrath (an ap
peal to the gods to mitigate it). An illustration of this judgement and the fear of it is found in an illustration of Charon, the Ferryman of the Underworld in the Miscellaneous_Scripts.html . Images of Tuchulcha, a demonic being which has a beaked nose and pointed ears, who brandishes three snakes, seem to echo in the considerable fear of wrath in the script, though Tuchulcha is not mentioned thus far. The Chimaera is mentioned several times, however. The script is very grim, with the focus being escaping from wrath, the gods of wrath and the day of wrath. Most of the gods and goddesses mentioned are Greek names with the exception of Tini and Uni. The Underworld is a very dark world where all of the gods possess wrath/judgment which must be avoided. In fact escaping the darkness is a theme and the mummy wrapping, being joined, is viewed as a means of escaping the underworld. Some of the instructions to the mummy include the fact that it spues out the resin which covers it and it will stand up rigid. It also spues out food. There is a trinity of gods involved in the passage of the soul. Also the process of mummification is described, and it appears that the panels were applied in sets of three. In the first panels on the body is an instruction of wetting the head, draining the body and pulling out the entrails. In both the top and bottom fragments and sheets it appears that goat's serum / blood is used in the binding process. The text refers to the leg of a goat.
The soul has a "double" into which the departed transforms, similar to the "ka" in the Egyptian religion. The passages are verse-like and often do not contain complete sentences, just phrases. There is much repetition of ephitets mixed together from one verse to another. The script is very close to Latin. Towards the end of the script, at Z1334, she is referred to as the grand-daughter of king Lais. Laius is the name of the father of Oedipus Rex. If this section of the text the writer refers to Troy and the Trojans.
The name of the person of the mummy seems to be of a place or name, Veleri. The word declines: Veler, Velere, Veleres, Veleri. It also appears in script AL. However CN is an often repeated abbreviation referring to the mummy and there appears to be other names which have been assigned to the deceased, such as Seramus. CN is an abbreviation in Latin for the Roman praenomen Gnaeus-i. So CN may be the daughter of a king Gnaeus.
Throughout the text there is reference to the king, and it may be from indications in the "instruction" panels that the fabric was composed for mummification of the kings, one of whom was king Lais. It is an interesting script and needs more refinement with regard to the decipherment. Other scripts will no doubt purge some of the errors or doubtful interpretations – there are not many.
Each panel of the wrapping carries a set order of lines (usually six) and the cadence tends to weigh towards ten words per line. There appear to be 40 panels and ten fragments. The punctuation marks in this script force the verses to read like poetry. Many verses appearing on one line in a panel (the script refers to the panels as wrappings) will appear spread across two or three panels. Also, as in poetry it the scribes would carry a phrase over and over while substituting one or two words or shifting their position. There are some clumsy parts of the script--mostly having to do with the interpretation of certain prepositions and conjunctions, such as: an, al, si, sin and chis.
Most of the scripts have been reconciled to the Zagreb Mummy Script, and I am now making a second pass in reconciling the Tavola Eububine scripts.
For some disclosure on the Zagreb Mummy Wrapping from the point of view of the Zagreb Museum click here (10.13.03).
The Tavola Eugubine Script N is being updated based upon better images of the tablets. [~755 words] A general note on the Tavola Eugubine should be listed here. The vocabulary is consistent with the vocabulary used in the other Etruscan scripts on this website.
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Tavola Ia: Script N-1 to N461
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Tavola Ia: Script N462 to N753
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The text is a blessing where the Lord Titus is standing on the battlements addressing the people in detail, from beginning to end. He is seen at the end of the script pouring water in the blessing. The blessing involves a vision through which the lord addresses certain gods/goddesses to keep away. The narrative focuses on what appears to be temple virgins (sisters). The phrases of the formulas are interchanged and juxtaposed, thus creating a lot of repetition.
The narrative acknowledges that there is a truce/covenant which provides for eternal life. I die, we die but the skin is restored. The close of the narrative acknowledges that the people being addressed are of the line of the god Tages who in the end is called the hairy Pesnimus. (01.24.07).
Translation of the Tavola Eugubine Script Q [~920 words] – Script "Q" is a funeral oration and like Script N interchanges repeated formulas which contain the names of gods who were on the side of Troy during the Trojan war. We have added copies of the images, from Citta di Gubbio to complement / verify our transcription.
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Tavola IIb: Script Q-1to Q277
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Tavola III Script Q278 to Q542
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Tavola IV: Script Q543 to Q918
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Translation of the Tavola Eugubine Script R. [~671 words] This is a blessing of the people through supplication of the gods. It is a feast of lights, and it begins with an address to Oph (L. Ops, goddess of abundance?): "you pull, bring forth the day." The blessing refers to a pyre and various images, linking the light of the pyre and the sprinkling of water in the names of specific gods and godesses. The orator calls out/summons Apollo, Phabia, the goddess of the moon, Lune (Diana), Phobea, etc. in addressing the castle which is apparently located in Pisa. The ritual connects an ancient form of Apollo (Phoebus) with Helios, the sun, and in the middle of the text the orator contrasts a goddess of the earth, Eph, with the moon and the sun. The fire and the sun is that which gives birth to nature, makes the moon go away, and that which devours what it created. The more we analyze this script the clearer the appeal to the light becomes. This may have been a ceremony performed at dawn and at the setting of the moon. R133 says, "the staff of the moon I am called, named," where the appeal seems to reveal a coming forth again in the names of the gods and goddesses in the script. The pattern recalls Christian prayers: to become one with Christ, one with the light, as it were or those of Egypt, to be one with Osiris.
Tavola II para. 2 appears to be a letter, addressed to the descendents of Atigerius in Achaia; it also addresses the same in Gordos, and the port of Pyrae. It complains about the sacrifice of mares without blemish, endorsing the sacrifice of lambs. It is a celebration of light which is illuminated by Script "G" which repeats some phrases (R164; R204) in script "R." And these repititions are connected with the aegis of Jupiter/Zeus which is the source of lightning. The Etruscans interpreted lightning bolts. (Being updated, reflecting the Etruscan Glossary and Grammar, 1.13.07).
Translation of the Tavola Eugubine Script G. [~45 words] A short text which is written by another hand which renders the "T" as a "Y". The hand that wrote Scr
ipt "N" and "Q" is not the same as the one that wrote script "R," and "G" is completely different. See comment on Script "R," for both scripts cover a festival of "lights" which refers to a three-fold supremacy or monarchy: that of three planes. Three are noted: the goddess Eph, who is of the earth; Jupiter, the sky-god; and Lune, the goddess of the moon. The pyres appear to be related to the worship of Eph and also Pha and symbolic of the light of the sun and the moon; and Jupiter/Tini/Zeus rule over all through their shield (aegis) of lightning bolts. The introductory phrase of this script is a repeat of a phrase in script R. The script concludes, "I go before the arbitrator himself." (9.29.06)
Translation of the Novilara Tablet, Script L . [~76 words] It was found near Pesaro and dates around the 5th to 4th century B. C. This script uses characters common to the Osco-Umbrian scripts. (9.10.06).
Translation of the Siculian Tablet, Script F. [~ 29 words] It is a short letter from a grandson, Brutus, to his grandfather dating around the 5th century B.C (9.11.06)
Translation of Lydian, showing its relationship to the Etruscan language (new 6.26.06).
Translation of Phrygian, showing its relationship to the Etruscan language (new 4.17.07).
Translation: The Etruscans' view of their faith – after death – Etruscan_Faith.html
Hittite Treaties.html
LINKS of interest (Etruscan_Phrases_d.html)
Visitors. I am overwhelmed by the amount of response to this site and thank you for visiting what I believed over the years to be an esoteric work.
Notes:
(1) Illiad, translated by W. H. D. Rouse, A Mentor book, 1938, pp. 265 ff. All quotes on the Illiad are from the Rouse translation.
(2) Praying to the North Wind and the West Wind. Compare the importance of the Wind gods in the ceremony to their function in the Rig Veda, quoted in Banquet of the Gods.
(3) Following this Achilles began the games, consisting of chariot races, boxing and wrestling matches, spear throwing, throwing a lump of iron, and other feats.
(4) An interesting comment by the Roman historian Suetonius (70 A.D. - 130 or 140 A.D) refers to an Etruscan word. About 100 days before Augustus Caesar's death a bolt of lightning struck a statue of Caesar near the Campus Martius. A bronze plaque on the statue contained the word, Caesar, and the bolt melted the "C" in his name, leaving the letters, aesar. The "flash of lightning ..was interpreted to mean that he would live only a hundred days from that time, the number indicated by the letter C, and that he would be numbered with the gods, since aesar (that is, the part of the name Caesar which was left) is the word for god in the Etruscan tongue." [Lives of the Caesars, Suetonius, "The Diefied Augustus," XCVII]. There is one Etruscan word, AIS, that comes near to "aesar," and it appears in the Zagreb Mummy Script. In most instances it appears as a single word, AIS, and in a compound, AIS AN. At the end of the script, Z1861, the contruction, AIS ERAS appears. I translated AIS as "bronze object" and its use was in the context of worship, i.e., Z1861 "they shall turn / change; to the bronze you wander; to Zeus of the serene trellis you assemble."
(5) "The Etruscans," Federica Borrelli and Maria Cristina Targia, translated by Thomas Michael Hartmann, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2004, J. P. Getty Trust.
(6) Bibliographical Data from our earlier work, "Catalogue of Etruscan Words," 1981, pdf file.
(7) Comment on Sources: Sources used in "Etruscan Phrasaes," are quoted in situ, as we prefer to place a link to the source where it applies. It is easier to update and, for the reader, easier to use. We may not agree with the data in all sources linked in "Etruscan Phrases."
All of the data pertaining to the translation, grammar, and process of translating, the Etruscan language is original to this work and not developed from any other source. Because the common understanding among Etruscologists was that the "Etruscan language is not Indo-European and an isolate, unlike any language, modern or dead," which is contrary to the presentation of "Etruscan Phrases," there has been no need to refer to those sources, except as noted in situ on these pages. We credit sources on photographs, etc., where possible.
My commentary relative to the history of the Etruscans is a composite, sifted from many works, including those listed in the "Catalogue of Etruscan Words," bibliographical data which include perhaps one of the best works on the Etruscans: "The Etruscans," by Massimo Pallottino, Indiana University Press, 1975 (first published in 1942). An Etruscologist from Italy categorized the "Etruscan...non-Indo-European theorists" in an email to the author as the "Pallottino School," an appropriate nomenclature, I think. However, my "Catalogue of Etruscan Words," 1981, used examples from Staccioli's works to illustrate the erroneous linguistic view we can call the "Pallottino School." Pallottino's Part 3, "The Etruscan Language," includes a short "vocabulary" and pronunciation table that is based on the study of short inscriptions, usually on tombs. His analysis covers the efforts of those who preceeded him. Their conclusions on the language have been misleading scholars at least since 1942.
I am indebted to Edward Tripp's "The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology," New American Library, 1974 for the Greek Mythology used in "Etruscan Phrases." It is by far the best work on Greek Mythology compiled and includes, often in situ, source references for the stories he compiled. We hope that his work will be placed on the internet one day.
(Etruscan_Phrases_b.html)
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