Shane Roosa on the Etruscans
The Etruscans were a mysterious and enigmatic people who inhabited the central regions of Italy just to the north of Rome from just after the Bronze Age collapse onward. The area was called Etruria by the Romans and roughly corresponds to the modern region of Tuscany. Much like their contemporary Greek and Roman neighbors, Etruscan civilization centered around the city-state, the twelve or thirteen largest of which formed a loose coalition that we call The Etruscan League. During the height of Etruscan power in the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, Etruria had the highest concentration of cities anywhere on the planet that we know of. Etruscan culture heavily influenced the development of the early Romans and Latins during this period, in addition to the Greeks from the south in Magna Graecia.
One of the reasons the Etruscans are so enigmatic is that current scholarly theory is that they arrived in Italy prior to or concurrently with the arrival of the first Indo-European language speakers. Etruscan was not a member of the Indo-European language family, and has no known modern derivative languages, though it is thought to be related to a contemporaneous language spoken in the Swiss alps (called Rhaetic) and another spoken on the island of Lemnos (called Lemnian). They used an early form of the Greek alphabet to write, and they wrote initially in a boustrophedon format, meaning the first line would start either right-to-left or left-to-right and then following lines would alternate directions (both script and characters), but over time shifted to a right-to-left orientation only. Because there are no modern languages to work backwards from, Etruscan has not been fully deciphered, so despite having many surviving Etruscan inscriptions, much of what we know about them comes from later, very biased Roman and Greek authors.
Etruscan sarcophagus with an inscription in the still relatively unknown Etruscan language.
Etruscan Necropoleis at Monterozzi and Banditaccia
At Monterozzi outside of the ancient Etruscan city of Tarchuna (Tarquinii to the Romans), there is a massive necropolis containing an estimated 6100 individual tombs. It’s thought to have been in use from as early as the 9th century BCE. Many of the tombs at this site are called hypogea, literally meaning “below earth” and they had tumuli covering their entrances in antiquity. They are cut directly into bedrock and are shaped internally in a facsimile of a traditional Etruscan home. The deceased would be laid in a brightly painted stone or terracotta sarcophagus and provided with burial goods consisting of votive offerings and personal effects. Many of the hypogea have well-preserved frescoes on the walls, painted in bright colors and a wide variety of motifs. Most are large enough to have supported shared burial space for immediate family. Unfortunately, as is often the case, most of the tombs were robbed sometime between antiquity and the present, so remaining grave goods are scarce.
Photos 2 & 3 - Interior of a Monterozzi hypogeum (left) helmet, sword, brooch, and candelabra left as grave goods (right)
At Banditaccia outside the Etruscan city of Caisra (Caere to the Romans), the necropolis is much larger in area but contains only about 1000 tombs, despite being in use during the same time periods. These tombs, however, are much larger in size than those at Monterozzi, and could potentially have supported shared burial space for multiple generations of a family. Banditaccia’s tombs are also cut into the bedrock, but their tumuli coverings have not been excavated or demolished as at Monterozzi. Also present are smaller tombs (still larger than Monterozzi) called “dice tombs” which are rectangular spaces cut into the bedrock, again mimicking the interior of a house, and flanked along the inside walls by large benches or beds where the deceased would be laid out. With the exception of some of the older tumulus tombs, at Banditaccia the majority of tombs have no surviving wall frescoes. The site is laid out intentionally, as if following an actual city plan (unlike Monterozzi where the tombs were scattered haphazardly) with streets and blocks. Again here, many of the tombs were robbed in antiquity, but as at Monterozzi, some things have been preserved and are on display in local museums.
Photo 4 - Tumuli exteriors at Banditaccia
Photo 5 - Interior of dice tomb at Banditaccia