1890.] 41 [Brinton. 



eyes, and bore the name, at once Libyan and Etruscan, of " Taia." 

 She was probably a Libyan by birth.* 



The most important general migration of the Libyan tribes seems 

 to have taken place about 1300 years B.C. At that time, as we are 

 informed by an inscription of Meneptah II. on the wall of the great 

 temple of Amnion at Api, the king of the land of Libu, by name 

 Mar-ajui, a son of Did, led a great army composed of his own 

 troops and mercenaries from other nations into Egypt, entering 

 near the city of Prcsopis. He was defeated with heavy loss, and many 

 thousands of his soldiery were slain. f Among his allies were the 

 " Tursba," who are considered by some Egyptologists to have been 

 the nation called in classic writings, Turseni or Tyrrheni, i.e., the 

 Etruscans. This identification is rejected by Dr. Brugsch Bey, who 

 ventures the yet wilder theory that they were Taurians. Halevy, 

 on the other hand, is inclined to see in this and the other names 

 given in the list of allies merely various Libyan tribes, neighbors of 

 the Lebu ;\ and this is quite probable when we consider, the imprac- 

 ticability of large bodies of soldiery being transported across the 

 Mediterranean in that early age. It is possible, therefore, that the 

 "Tursha" were the " Turseni," and that in consequence of this 

 defeat they left their native land and founded the Etruscan colonies 

 on the west coast of Italy — which were commenced about that 

 time. 



Dr. Deecke has already .pointed out the probability that the 

 Tuirsa who attacked Egypt by sea in the time of Ramses III 

 (twentieth dynasty, 980-810 B.C.) were the Turseni or Etruscans. 

 They are represented on the paintings with pointed beards and hel- 

 mets of Etruscan fonn.§ The very early signs of Egyptian culture 

 visible in ancient Etruria, on which Deecke lays stress, may be 

 explained by the proximity of the Libyo-Etruscans — the Tuirsa — 

 to the Nile valley before they founded their Italian colonies. It is 

 quite sure that the main body of the army of Mar-ajui was composed 

 of the blonde type of the Berbers, as the Egyptian name applied 

 to them on the monuments is thuheni, "the light-colored or fair- 

 complexioned people." 

 # 



* On the presumably feminine termination in Etruscan aia, see Deecke in Miiller, Die 

 Etrusker, Bd. i, s. 475. 



t Dr. Brugsch Bey, History of Egypt, Vol. ii, p. 129. 



% Essai d'Epigraphie Libyque, p. 170. 



g See his note in Miiller, Die Etrusker, Band i, s. 70 . 



PR0C. AMER. PHILOS. £0C. XXVIII. 132. P. PRINTED MARCH 1, 1890. 



