November 8, 1889.] 



SCIENCE. 



311 



To this venerable site the priests and soothsayers resorted from all 

 parts of Etruria to perfect themselves in the pure and ancient 

 ■" Etruscan discipline." Here their hero-god Tages, a wondrous 

 gray-haired boy, sprang into life from a ploughed furrow, and 

 taught their ancestors the mysteries of the diviner's craft and the 

 nobler arts of life. This locality, I say, according to uniform 

 tradition, was where their progenitors first established themselves, 

 crossing the sea from somewhere to the south. Such a tradition, 

 so definitely preserved, cannot be cast aside without sound rea- 

 sons. 



The date of this landing has been given by Miiller at about two 

 hundred and ninety years before the founding of Rome, while other 

 writers are inclined to put it earlier by five hundred years. Be- 

 tween a thousand and twelve hundred years before the Christian 

 era is probably as near as we can now fix it. 



Now that the extensive excavations in Etruscan sites enable us 

 to have a survey of the whole field of their operations, it is con- 

 ceded more and more that the line of their rnigration was from 

 south to north, from cisapennine to transapennine localities. Their 

 settlements at Marzabotto, Bologna, and beyond, were visibly later 

 and of briefer duration than in Etruria proper. The Etruscan 

 alphabet of North Italy also reveals plain marks of degeneration, 

 and the forms of the inscriptions are less archaic. 



We do not have to depend upon guess-work for a knowledge of 

 the physical features of the Etruscans : we have a vast realm of 

 mimetic art preserved, much of it unquestionably faithful to the 

 originals ; and, in spite of the frequent custom of incineration, 

 hundreds of genuine Etruscan skeletons have corae down to us in 

 a good state of preservation. 



It surprises me, that in spite of this, and although the anthro- 

 pometric results I am about to quote have been published for 

 years. Dr. Deecke, in his recent edition of Miiller's " Etrusker," 

 takes no note of them, but repeats the old statement that this 

 people was short in stature, heavy-set, obese, and dark. Of course. 

 Dr. Isaac Taylor, in order to give countenance to his theory that 

 the Etruscans were Turanians, is glad to adopt this opinion. He 

 would not have liked to take cognizance of the modern anthro- 

 pologists who have studied the subject, for nothing more fatal to 

 his theory can be imagined than their results. 



The old notion seems to have arisen from expressions in two late 

 Roman poets, Virgil and Catullus, who speak of the Etruscans as 

 fat. Pingiiis Eir2isctis and obesus Eirtiscus are their words. It 

 has also been commented on that the Etruscan cinerary urns fre- 

 quently represent short, stout men, with disproportionately large 

 heads and arms. This, however, was merely a technique of the 

 national artists. They often put all their work on the upper, and 

 effaced the lower portion of the figure, as not presenting individual 

 characteristics. Where the full figure is shown, as in some beauti- 

 ful specimens in the Museum at Florence, the squat appearance 

 referred to is not apparent. 



Fortunately we do not have to rely on the contradictory testi- 

 mony of art to learn the stature of the Etruscans. The Italian 

 anatomists have measured two hundred of their skeletons, and 

 from these have deduced, in accordance with well-known osteologic 

 rules, the height of the average individual. The result shows them 

 to have been an unusually tall race, the average of the two hun- 

 dred persons having been 1.75 metres, or very nearly five feet nine 

 inches. This is greater than the average height of our soldiers 

 during the war, which was 1.70 metres, and is rather above the 

 average of the soldiery of any European nation to-day, though less 

 than some of the picked corps, — the French carabineers, for ex- 

 ample. It is a little more than the average stature of the Algerian 

 Kabyles, who, nevertheless, are a tall race, averaging above 1.70 

 metres. 



Dr. Taylor and his followers do not fare better when it comes 

 to cranial measurements. The typical skull of the Turanian stock 

 is short and roundish, — brachycephalic ; that of the Etruscan was 

 markedly of the long type, — dolichocephalic. MM. Hovelacque 

 and Herve quote the results of three extended measurements 

 of the cephalic index by Italian craniologists as showing 75.6, 

 76, and 77.3. Less than a fourth of the crania can be called 

 brachycephalic. 



It is interesting to compare these figures with measurements 



from the skulls of the modern descendants of the ancient Liby- 

 ans, — the Kabyles. According to data furnished by two excellent 

 observers, MM. TopinJird and Lagneau, these are respectively 

 76.7 and 77.3, almost absolutely the same as for the old Etrus- 

 cans. 



There is a current tradition in Italy that the Etruscans were 

 blondes, with light hair and blue eyes. I met a Tuscan wine- 

 merchant who lived near Florence, and he pointed with pride to 

 his handsome blond beard, informing me that his family claimed 

 Etruscan descent, and that his beard was proof of it. There is 

 evidence from ancient art that this piece of folk-lore is correct ; and 

 the eminent anthropologist I have just quoted, M. Topinard, sums 

 up, with his usual correctness, our anthropologic knowledge of this 

 people when he says, " From the evidence before us, we may de- 

 cide that the Etruscans were of large stature, blondes, and doli- 

 chocephalous ; while their predecessors, the Umbrians, were small 

 and brachycephalous." 



In all these physical traits we discover a coincidence with the 

 ancient Libyan or true Berber type, as seen in the Kabyles of the 

 Djurdjura Mountains, the Rifians of Morocco, and the former in- 

 habitants of the Canary Islands, theGuanches. There is no doubt 

 but that the last mentioned were a true branch of the Berber stock. 

 The fragments of their language, which have been collected and 

 critically edited by Sabin Berthelot and others, prove that it was 

 closely allied to the dialect of the Morocco Rifians. Their skele- 

 tons show them to have been an unusually tall race, quite a num- 

 ber of individuals ranging from six to six and a half feet in height. 

 Their skulls present the same dolichocephalic index as the Kabyles ; 

 and that they were largely jalondes, is attested by the early navi- 

 gators, who speak of their long yellow hair reaching down to below 

 their waists. The presence of these blondes on the Canaries de- 

 stroys the theory sometimes advanced, that the blond hue of the 

 Kabyles arose from admixture with the Goths at the period of the 

 dissolution of the Western empire ; for the Canaries were peopled 

 by the Berbers long before the Christian era, and Dr. Verneau has 

 quite recently discovered Numidian inscriptions there. But, for 

 that matter, this hypothesis is untenable for other reasons. The 

 blond Berbers are referred to on Egyptian monuments ; and, as for 

 the Goths in Africa, they had entirely disappeared as early as when 

 Procopius wrote his history. 



All this goes to show that the physical type of the ancient Etrus- 

 cans was the same as that of the ancient Libyans, and entirely dis- 

 tinct from any then existing on the Italian or Hellenic peninsulas. 

 This identity can be traced in other features of importance to the 

 anatomist. The orbital index of the modern Kabyles is 88. i ; of 

 the Etruscans, 87.4, a remarkable approximation. The nasal in- 

 dices of both range between 44 and 49. In both there is a lack of 

 accentuation of the cranial prominences. 



Wherever the first settlers of Tarquinii came from, they do not 

 seem to have brought with them the higher arts of life. Most of 

 these were later acquisitions, learned from their neighbors, the 

 Greeks of Sicily and Magna Grecia, and in longer voyages for 

 trading and piracy, which extended to Greece itself, to the coasts 

 of Asia Minor, to Egypt, and to the Semitic cities of Palestine and 

 their colonies at Carthage and elsewhere. Etruscan art yields 

 positive testimony to all these influences, especially that of the 

 Greeks. The Etruscan alphabet appears to me to have been 

 derived directly from the Greek, and not from the Phoenician, as 

 Rawlinson and others have thought. We must carefully exclude 

 all these external borrowings if we would make a correct com- 

 parison of real Etruscan culture-traits with those of other na- 

 tions. When this is done, it will be found that in some char- 

 acteristics they stood in bold relief from all the nations I have men- 

 tioned. 



No one of these is more conspicuous than the position assigned 

 to woman in Etruscan civilization. It was in astonishing contrast 

 to her place am.ong the polished Greeks, and still more so to her 

 station in Oriental life. With the Etruscans, evidently a strictly 

 monogamous people, she was the equal and the companion of her 

 husband. She sat by his side at the feasting-board ; she was 

 cared for in the most attentive manner ; her image was carved 

 with his on their common tomb ; and there are a thousand evi- 

 dences that she was not merely the idol, but the honored help- 



