522 MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



route direct from the yEgean and Lydia (Asia Minor). They are 

 the Thessalian Pelasgians whom Hellanikos of Lesbos brings to 

 Campania, or the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians transported by Antiklides 

 from Asia Minor to Etruria, and he is "quite sure that the archaeo- 

 logical facts in Central and North Italy... prove the truth of this 

 tradition 1 ." Of course, until the affinities of the Etruscan lan- 

 guage are determined, from which we are still as far off as ever 2 , 

 Etruscan origins must remain chiefly an archaeological ques- 

 tion. Even the help afforded by the crania from 

 Origins?' tne Etruscan tombs is but slight, both long and 

 round heads being here found in the closest associa- 

 tion. Sergi, who also brings the Etruscans from the east, explains 

 this by supposing that, being Pelasgians, they were of the same 

 dolicho Mediterranean stock as the Italians (Ligurians) themselves, 

 and differed only from the brachy Umbrians of Aryan speech. 

 Hence the skulls from the tombs are of two types, the intruding 

 Aryan, and the Mediterranean, the latter, whether representing 

 native Ligurians or intruding Etruscans, being indistinguishable. 

 " I can show," he says, "Etruscan crania, which differ in no respect 

 from the Italian [Ligurian], from the oldest graves, as I can also 

 show heads from the Etruscan graves which do not differ from 

 those still found in Aryan lands, whether Slav, Keltic, or 

 Germanic 3 ." 



1 The Tyrrhenians in Greece and Italy, in Jour. Anthrop. Inst. 1897, p. 

 258. In this splendidly illustrated paper the date of the immigration is referred 

 to the nth century B.C. on the ground that the first Etruscan sseculum was 

 considered as beginning about 1050 B.C., presumably the date of their arrival 

 in Italy (p. 259). But Sergi thinks they did not arrive till about the end of the 

 8th century (Arii e Italici, p. 149). 



2 On the linguistic side of the question see especially Dr Carl Pauli's 

 Altitalische Forschungen, Vol. II. Leipzig, 1894. This philologist treats the 

 famous inscription of Lemnos as pre-Hellenic, and as "Pelasgic," a language 

 which he holds to have been closely related to Etruscan. The inscription, 

 presumably a funeral epitaph, he refers to the jth century B.C., and all previous 

 essays at interpretation are qualified as "equally valuable, i.e. equally worth- 

 less." Much use is made of the mummy swathing from Egypt lately found at 

 Agram, which contains the longest extant Etruscan text. Looking at the 

 question a priori one might suppose Etruscan = Pelasgian, where both members 

 of the equation are unfortunately unknown quantities. 



3 Op. cit. p. 151. By German he means the round-headed South German, 



