202 
Conestabile, the most eminent of Italian archaeologists, has just 
announced a discovery which throws great light on this question. 
From archaeological evidence alone he has come to the conclusion 
that there were two races in Etruria. He thinks there was an 
earlier aboriginal race who practised the cremation of their dead, 
and who were the subjects or slaves of a later race of conquering 
invaders who buried their dead. My own philological investi- 
gations entirely support this conclusion. It seems to me that 
the inscriptions on the cinerary urns, which are usually poor 
and cheap, can as a rule be best explained by means of the Finnic 
languages,* * * § whereas the inscriptions on the costly sarcophagi con- 
tain words more closely akin to the Tataric languages, f 
The belief is becoming generally accepted that, before the advent 
of the Aryans, the whole of Europe was occupied by a race of 
Turanian aborigines, to whom the Siculians, Pelasgians, Iberians, 
Ligurians, Aquitanians, and Silures belonged, and whose language 
is now represented by the speech of the Finns, Lapps, and Basques. 
I believe the older race in Etruria belonged to these Finnic or 
Pelasgic aborigines, who, about ten centuries’ B.C., were invaded 
and conquered by a horde of Tatars — the Rasenna or Tursenna, — 
who swooped down on Italy, just as in later times the kindred race 
of the Huns swept over Gaul and Italy ; as the Magyars settled 
on the Danube plain, already occupied by kindred hordes of Bul- 
garians, Huns, and Turks; as the Seljuks settled on the Bosphorus, 
or the Tatars in the Crimea. 
Such an hypothesis will explain every difficulty. No other 
hypothesis has been suggested by which the admitted facts can be 
accounted for. 
The Chairman.^ — If I may judge from the very close attention with which 
the paper has been listened to, I have no doubt that I shall do right in at 
once tendering to Mr. Taylor the thanks of all present for the great pleasure 
he has given us. I shall now' be very happy to hear any remarks which any 
one may like to make upon the subject. 
Lord Talbot de Malahide.§ — I cannot help expressing the gratification 
* For proof that cremation was once universal among the Finnic races, 
see Donner, Vergl. Worterb., p. 106. 
f We have, for instance, two sorts of decades in - thrum and -lechl, one 
Tataric, the other Finnic in type. The Tataric decades have as yet only 
been found on costly sarcophagi, obviously the resting-places of wealthy 
nobles. Again, the words tiiui and lupu seem nearly synonymous, both 
meaning mortuus est. The first, a Finnic word, is usually found on cinerary 
urns, the second, a Tataric word, on sarcophagi. 
j; Rev. Robinson Thornton, D.D., Vice-President. 
§ President of the Royal Archaeological Institute. 
