ETRURIA CAPTA. 



145^ 



widely known than the Eugiibine Tables, I propose to commence my 

 story of decipherment with them. 



THE ETRUSCAN CHARACTERS. 



The radical mistake of all who have sought to read the Etruscan 

 inscriptions has been their acceptance of the assertion, hardly ever 

 called in question, that the phonetic values of the characters are 

 those of the Roman, Greek, or Phoenician letters, with which they 

 •correspond in form. Thus, we are treated to such combinations as 

 Siathlarnthu avils mealchlsc, and others much more barbarous, which 

 mean nothing in any language on the face of the earth. For this 

 radical error classical writers are not responsible, for the words 

 given as Etruscan by Yarro, Festus, Hesychius, and others, bear no 

 resemblance to the uncouth forms of Etruscan as now read.^ The 

 fault lies with the thirty or more complete bilingual inscriptions, 

 some of which, whether accidentally or through, ignorance on, the 

 part of the writer of the Latin letters, may easily be made to 

 'Coincide. Of these, the most misleading is the first in Lanzi's 

 Saggio, which reads in Latin Lart. Caii Cavlias, and, in correspond- 

 ing Etruscan, L. Gae. Cauliam. If there be a real correspondence of 

 phonetic chai'acters, such as this example would seem to indicate, 

 between the Etruscan and the Latin, the work of decipherment has 

 been proved an impossibility by the labours of nearly three cen- 

 turies.^ I shall show shortly that there is no real coincidence of 

 phonetic values, and that the apparent coincidences in form of 

 character are partly accidental and -partly the result of ignorance or 

 a desire to assimilate on the part of the engraver of the Roman 

 letters. 



It is now generally agreed that the Etruscans were a Turanian 

 people ; the representations of their physical features, their arts and 

 customSj tending all in that direction.* Now, while European 



2 These are referred to on i)age 154. 



3 "E uaturale rimmaginare die gl'ingegnosi Toscani abbiano preso cura d'illustrare il loro 

 aiitioo suolo, ina un forestiero vi ha fatto le piu grandi fatiche, cioe I'inglese Tommaso Demstero. 

 Prima di lui peru I'aretino Attilio Alessi aveva posto la maao a questa masse, formato un 

 alfabeto etrus^^o, e riportate delle iscrizioni fiao dal secolo XVI." Pignotti, Storia della 



■ Toscana, lib. I., p. 8S. 



* By Turanian I mean neither Indo-European nor Semitic^. Apart from the intruding Turks 

 and the Tartars of southern Russia, the existing Turanian populations of Europe are the 

 Ugrians, (Finns, Lapps, Esths, Magyars, etc.,) and the Basques. The Lydian origin of the 

 JEtruscans, in spite of the objections of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, has been generally accepted 



