The Etruscans are rightfully considered one of the most amazing mysteries in history. Scientists do not know exactly where they came from and what language they spoke. The question of a possible connection between the Etruscans and the Russians has not yet been clarified.
Under the veil of secrets
In the middle of the 1st millennium BC. on the territory of Italy, between the rivers Tiber and Arno, the legendary state of Etruria stretched, which became the cradle of Roman civilization. The Romans eagerly learned from the Etruscans, borrowing from them the control system and the gods, engineering and mosaics, gladiator fights and chariot races, funeral rites and clothing.
Despite their fame, the Etruscans are one continuous mystery for us. A lot of evidence has been preserved about the Etruscans, but they do not give us a convincing and reliable picture of the life of this people. Scientists do not know for certain how the Etruscans appeared and where they disappeared. The exact boundaries of Etruria have not yet been established and the Etruscan language has not been deciphered.
The Roman emperor Claudius I, who ruled in the 1st century AD, left to descendants a 20-volume "History of the Etruscans", as well as a dictionary of the Etruscan language. But fate wanted these manuscripts to perish in their entirety in the fire of the Library of Alexandria, depriving us of the opportunity to lift the veil of secrets of the Etruscan civilization.
People from the East
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Today there are three versions of the origin of the Etruscans. Titus Livy reports that the Etruscans penetrated the Apennine Peninsula from the north, together with the Alpine Rethy, with which they were related. According to the hypothesis of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the Etruscans were the aborigines of Italy, who adopted the achievements of the previous Villanov culture.
However, the "Alpine version" does not find any material evidence, and modern scientists increasingly associate the Villanov culture not with the Etruscans, but with the Italians.
Historians have long noticed how the Etruscans stood out from their less developed neighbors. This served as a precondition for the third version, according to which the Etruscans settled in the Apennines from Asia Minor. This view was held by Herodotus, who argued that the ancestors of the Etruscans came from Lydia in the 8th century BC.
There is a lot of evidence of the Asia Minor origin of the Etruscans. For example, a way to create sculptures. The Etruscans, unlike the Greeks, preferred not to carve the image out of stone, but to sculpt it out of clay, which was typical of the art of the peoples of Asia Minor.
There is also more important evidence of the eastern origin of the Etruscans. At the end of the 19th century on the island of Lemnos, located near the Asia Minor coast, archaeologists discovered a tombstone.
The inscription on it was made in Greek letters, but in a completely unusual combination. Imagine the surprise of the scientists when, comparing this inscription with the Etruscan texts, they found a striking similarity!
Bulgarian historian Vladimir Georgiev proposes an interesting development of the "Eastern version". In his opinion, the Etruscans are none other than the legendary Trojans. The scientist bases his assumptions on the legend according to which Trojans led by Aeneas fled from war-torn Troy to the Apennine Peninsula.
Georgiev also supports his theory with linguistic considerations, finding a relationship between the words "Etruria" and "Troy". This version could be treated with skepticism if in 1972 Italian archaeologists had not excavated an Etruscan tomb-monument dedicated to Aeneas.
Genetic map
Not so long ago, scientists from the University of Turin, using genetic analysis, decided to test the hypothesis of Herodotus about the Asia Minor origin of the Etruscans. The study compared the Y chromosomes (transmitted through the male line) of the population of Tuscany and residents of other regions of Italy, as well as the island of Lemnos, the Balkan Peninsula and Turkey.
It turned out that the genetic samples of the inhabitants of the Tuscan cities of Volterra and Murlo are more similar to those of the inhabitants of the Eastern Mediterranean than the neighboring Italian regions.
Moreover, some of the genetic characteristics of the inhabitants of Murlo absolutely coincide with the genetic data of the inhabitants of Turkey.
Researchers from Stanford University decided to use the method of computer modeling to reconstruct the demographic processes that have affected the population of Tuscany over the past 2500 years. This method initially involved the data of anthropological and genetic expertise.
The results were surprising. Scientists have succeeded in eliminating the genetic link between the Etruscans, the ancient inhabitants of central Italy and the modern inhabitants of Tuscany. The data obtained suggests that the Etruscans were wiped out by some kind of catastrophe, or they were a social elite that had little in common with the ancestors of modern Italians.
Anthropologist Joanna Mountain, head of the Stanford project, notes that "the Etruscans were different from the Italians in all respects and even spoke a non-Indo-European language." "The cultural and linguistic features have made the Etruscans a real mystery to many researchers," sums up Mountain.
Etruscan is Russian
The phonetic closeness of the two ethnonyms - "Etruscans" and "Russians" - gives rise to hypotheses among researchers about a direct connection between the two peoples. The philosopher Alexander Dugin understands this connection literally: "Etruscan is Russian." The self-designation of the Etruscans - Rasenna or Raśna - also gives this version credibility.
However, if the word “Etruscan” is compared with the Roman name of this people - “tusci”, and the self-name of “Rasene” is associated with the Greek name for the Etruscans - “Tirsene”, then the proximity of the Etruscans and Russians does not seem so obvious.
There is ample evidence that the Etruscans could have left Italy.
Climate change, accompanied by drought, may have been one of the reasons for the exodus. It just coincided with the disappearance of this people in the 1st century BC.
Presumably, the migration routes of the Etruscans were to extend to the more favorable north for farming. Evidence of this, for example, are found in Upper Germany urns for storing the ashes of the deceased, which are similar to Etruscan artifacts.
It is likely that part of the Etruscans reached the territory of the present Baltic, where they could assimilate with the Slavic peoples. However, the version that the Etruscans laid the foundations of the Russian ethnos is not confirmed by anything.
The main snag in the absence in the Etruscan language of the sounds "b", "d" and "g" - the structure of the larynx did not allow the Etruscans to pronounce them. This feature of the vocal apparatus rather resembles not Russians, but Finns or Estonians.
One of the recognized apologists of Etruscology, the French scientist Zachary Mayani, turns the vector of the Etruscan settlement immediately to the east. In his opinion, the descendants of the Etruscans are modern Albanians. Among the justifications for his hypothesis, the scientist cites the fact that the capital of Albania, Tirana, bears one of the names of the Etruscans - "tyrrens".
The overwhelming majority of scientists believe that the Etruscans simply disappeared into the ethnos of the peoples inhabiting the Roman Empire. The rapidity of assimilation of the Etruscans may well be a consequence of their small number. According to the assumption of archaeologists, the population of Etruria, even at the time of its heyday, did not exceed 25 thousand people.
Lost in translation
Etruscan writing has been studied since the 16th century. What languages were not taken as a basis to decipher the Etruscan inscriptions: Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Celtic, Finnish, even the languages of the American Indians. But all attempts were unsuccessful. "Etruscan is not readable," said skeptical linguists.
However, scientists still achieved certain results.
They found that the Etruscan alphabet originates from the Greek and consists of 26 letters.
Moreover, the alphabet borrowed from the Greeks did not correspond much to the peculiarities of the phonetics of the Etruscan language - some sounds, depending on the context, had to be designated by different letters. Moreover, the later Etruscan texts sinned by missing vowels, which created an almost insoluble problem of deciphering them.
And yet, according to their words, some linguists managed to read some of the Etruscan inscriptions. Three scientists of the 19th century - Pole Tadeusz Volansky, Italian Sebastiano Ciampi and Russian Alexander Chertkov - declared that the key to deciphering Etruscan texts lies in the Slavic languages.
The Russian linguist Valery Chudinov followed Volansky's footsteps, suggesting that the Etruscan language be considered the successor of the "Slavic runic writing". Official science is skeptical about Chudinov's attempts to "make the Slavic writing more ancient" and his ability to read inscriptions where an inexperienced person sees "the play of nature."
Modern researcher Vladimir Shcherbakov tries to simplify the problem of translating Etruscan inscriptions, explaining that the Etruscans wrote as they heard. With this method of deciphering, many Etruscan words in Shcherbakov sound completely "in Russian": "ita" - "this", "ama" - "pit", "tes" - "forest".
Linguist Pyotr Zolin notes in this regard that any attempt to read texts of such antiquity using modern words is absurd.
Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrei Zaliznik adds: "An amateur linguist willingly immerses himself in the discussion of written monuments of the past, completely forgetting (or simply not knowing anything) that in the past the familiar language looked completely different from what it is now."
Today, most historians are convinced that the Etruscan inscriptions will never be deciphered.