The Etruscan People and culture Fred Hamori December 4, 2005 Introduction Also available on this website are the sound rules and dictionary of vocabulary, by clicking on the following titles. Etruscan Dictionary Etruscan Sound Rules for proto FinnoUgrian The Etruscans and their civilization has long disappeared from Europe, but their legacy lives on in many ways, even though often it is not recognized for what it is. The first builders of arches and aqueducts in Europe, underground sewers, city planning, iron and bronze working, and hundreds of culture words, including the calendar, that were adopted by the Romans and then later spread throughout their empire is from them. They also introduced the alphabet to the Romans from a Phonecian and Greek combination. The Etruscans also introduced the horse and charriot to Italy as well as quite a large body of culture words which we still use today such as ferrum=iron, horta=goddes of agriculture (hortaculture), litera=writing (literature), numa=sign, notch, coinage(numismatics), urbs=city (urban) , element, miles/milites(millitary) etc. As a people and a language, they were unique. They were not just another ancient nation that died off, but the descendant of the most ancient people of Europe, which was unique in customs, religion, language and their exceptional engineering and artistic skills. The center of Etruscan culture was located mainly in northern Italy and their modern day namesake is the area known as Toscany, in northern Italy. They eventually were conquered by the Romans and were granted Roman citizenship. They represented the core patrician class of the Rome, that gave many rulers and statesmen to the new empire. Their earliest writing is from 700BC, although as with most other early civilizations writing came much later then their existence there. Smaller Etruscan texts have also been found on the island of Lemnos while a very famous text was found in Egypt written on the linens of a mummy. Apparently the cloth "book" was cut up to use as bandages for a mummy. Unfortunately most of the extensive literature of the Etruscans was destroyed by the book burning Christians. What made the Etruscans unique was their prominent position, their well planned cities and their many innovations, that eventually elevated the nearby Latin people also from their simple shepherd life to a great empire that influenced European civilization. The Etruscans founded many cities on the Italian peninsula, including the city of Rome. Because they were seafarers and tradesman they had to compete with the Phonecians and Greeks. Some of the Roman rulers and prominent families claimed their origin from Etruscan families and some of whom even wrote books about the Etruscans. Typically names ending in O in Latin were Etruscan in origin, but the
Transcript
The Etruscan People and culture
Fred HamoriDecember 4, 2005
Introduction
Also available on this website are the sound rules and dictionary of vocabulary, by clicking on the following titles.
Etruscan DictionaryEtruscan Sound Rules for proto FinnoUgrian
The Etruscans and their civilization has long disappeared from Europe, but their legacy lives on in many ways, even though often it is not recognized for what it is. The first builders of arches and aqueducts in Europe, underground sewers, city planning, iron and bronze working, and hundreds of culture words, including the calendar, that were adopted by the Romans and then later spread throughout their empire is from them. They also introduced the alphabet to the Romans from a Phonecian and Greek combination. The Etruscans also introduced the horse and charriot to Italy as well as quite a large body of culture words which we still use today such as ferrum=iron, horta=goddes of agriculture (hortaculture), litera=writing (literature), numa=sign, notch, coinage(numismatics), urbs=city (urban) , element, miles/milites(millitary) etc. As a people and a language, they were unique. They were not just another ancient nation that died off, but the descendant of the most ancient people of Europe, which was unique in customs, religion, language and their exceptional engineering and artistic skills.
The center of Etruscan culture was located mainly in northern Italy and their modern day namesake is the area known as Toscany, in northern Italy. They eventually were conquered by the Romans and were granted Roman citizenship. They represented the core patrician class of the Rome, that gave many rulers and statesmen to the new empire. Their earliest writing is from 700BC, although as with most other early civilizations writing came much later then their existence there. Smaller Etruscan texts have also been found on the island of Lemnos while a very famous text was found in Egypt written on the linens of a mummy. Apparently the cloth "book" was cut up to use as bandages for a mummy. Unfortunately most of the extensive literature of the Etruscans was destroyed by the book burning Christians. What made the Etruscans unique was their prominent position, their well planned cities and their many innovations, that eventually elevated the nearby Latin people also from their simple shepherd life to a great empire that influenced European civilization. The Etruscans founded many cities on the Italian peninsula, including the city of Rome. Because they were seafarers and tradesman they had to compete with the Phonecians and Greeks. Some of the Roman rulers and prominent families claimed their origin from Etruscan families and some of whom even wrote books about the Etruscans. Typically names ending in O in Latin were Etruscan in origin, but the original Etruscan form was U. Some of the Roman gods were also of Etruscan origin. Even the Roman myth of origin from the twin boys Romulus and Remus that were raised by a female wolf, was probably from the Etruscans. The likelihood of this is that because this story is also found in the myths of origin of other eastern cultures, whose languages are related to Etruscan.
It also appears that they gave the "calendar" term and the first six month's names to that calendar. January from (i)ANI the god of the sky, Ferbruary from Februs the god of the underworld, March from Masan, which is possibly from the upper level clans Mas, Mech in Etruscan, April from Aber-as is the name of the lower level clans,May is from Mach =the Etruscan numeral 5, June is from UNI the chief goddess and wife of the chief god TIN. The other month's names are Latin and may have replaced the older Etruscan names. July and August are late additions that are from Julius and Augustus Cesar, and were names of Roman Emperors. Their insertion into the list causes a displacement of two with the subsequent months September = numeral 7, October =numeral 8, November =numeral 9, December = numeral 10.
Some have claimed that they were in Italy before the coming of the Latins, while others claim their origin from Anatolia or Troy. The newest explanations are that they had some contacts with the area of Hungary. There is no agreement. Some claim their known presence from about 1600BC to references as late as 400AD, while others claim only 700BC to 14AD, when writing proves their presence.
Etruscan origin is a highly controversial subject, which often tends to repeat the old disproven ideas for the most part. The latest opinion is that they came to Italy after the Latins, who were already living there from about 1850 BC. Some classical writers such as Dionysus of Halicarnassus, argued that the Etruscans were the original people of the peninsula while others like the Greek Herodotus, claimed that they were colonists of the Lydians. However, since their language wasn’t like Lydian that cannot be true. Hellanicus of Lesbos however seems closest to finding the proper link, when he writes that Tyrrhenians, who were previously called Pelasgians, the pre Greek inhabitants of Greece and surroundings. The Etruscans received their present name after they had settled in Italy. These are his words in the Phoronis: "Phrastor was the son of Pelasgus, their king, and Menippe, the daughter of Peneus; his son was Amyntor, Amyntor's son was Tutamides, and the later's son was Nanas. In his reign the Pelasgians were driven out of their country by the Greeks, and after leaving their ships on the river Spines in the Ionian Gulf, they took Croton, an inland city and proceeding from there, they colonized the country called Tyrrhenia."
Because their culture and their many innovations weren’t present in earlier times on the Italian peninsula, they probably weren't there yet. Their latter arrival brought their many new contributions. Some archeologists like Hugh Hencken claim they came from the area of Hungary. Barfield called this area of Europe the "heartland of technology of the Bronze Age". The American archeologist, Hugh Hencken has claimed their origin was from Hungary due also to the similar type of Urn burial customs and metallurgy, which was present there, and the bronze technology they brought from there, as well as their equestrian customs. The senior Italian linguist Mario Alinei has done extensive comparisons of the language of the Etruscans and has come to the conclusion that it was an archaic form of Hungarian and its predecessors the Ugrians. His theory of origin was that the ancestors of the Hungarians were living in Hungary at the end of the 3rd millenium BC, long before they were supposed to have arrived from the nearby Ukraine at 896AD. The main confusion factor in regards to Hungarians is that they had several fairly widely separated colonies in the Caucasus Mountains, in the Volga region and the supposed birthplace of the nation near the Sea of Azov (Meotis). Hencken also claims that the Etruscans were part of the people who attacked Egypt under the confederation known as the Sea People. Therefore they also had colonies on the island Lemnos in the Aegian Sea and Anatolia (Troy).
The most recent linguistic origin theory, claimed by Mario Alinei, that ties Etruscan to Ugrian, had several previous champions, besides Alinei, but they were much less detailed than the new theory. This theory still has a lot of biases to overcome in the linguistic community, which is infamous for its extreme conservatism and reluctance to change as well as its willingness to persecute those who stray from the "established" facts without even checking it out. However there is no reason to think that the Etruscans didn’t have ties to several other places, such as Troy, the island of Lemnos, the Balkans as well as the Carpathian Basin in their early history. When we try to trace their origins through Europe back through their source nations, it becomes very likely that there was a link through different branches of these related people.
A Historic Hunt for the origins of the Etruscans
Lets attempt to trace them backwards in time and see where that takes us. The Etruscans are generally associated with the Villanovan Culture of Italy. This culture entered Italy from the south, from the direction of the Balkans, where traces of the Etruscans were also found. One of the early Greek writers even stated that the Etruscans were related to the pre-Greek aboriginals of Greece, known as the Pelasgians. The archeologist Hencken has stated that the Italian Villanovan Culture that entered Italy is Balkan in origin. This area was for a long time inhabited by the people known as the Thracians, whose very name sounds much like "Tursci", which is the local Latin name of the Etruscans. Thrace had a very long history from about 1800BC to the start of the Christian Era. Later they also spread to the Eastern Carpahian Basin under the name of Dacian, a name which sounds a bit like the early ethnic designation for Turk or the Scythian tribe known in the east as Daha.
The names Thraci-an and Troja-n are names that sound very similar, especially if we assume that the internal C was more like a ch, which is a distinct possibility after we compare the Etruscan words to its derivatives. Thrace and Troyas were in fact on the opposite sides of the Aegian Sea, before the entrance to the Sea of Marmara, and guarded the access to the Black Sea. The European side of this area was called Thrace while the Asian side was
once Troyas. It seems that both sides were inhabited originally by the ancestors of the Etruscans since the Trojans were claimed to be the ancestors of the Etruscans. See map below.
The map illustrating the early European cultures including the Cimmerians of central and eastern Europe. To be consistent with the newer theories the Iranians probably entered their homeland also from the west, through Anatolia south of the Black Sea where originally there were several early IndoEuropean nations, like the Hittites. Early references to the Mitani also mention the Iranians. The Cimmerians neighbors to the north are shown to be Slavs and Balts in the west and FinnoUgrians in grey on the northeast.
The Thracians came from the east and were part of a larger group of related people stretching from Central Europe to the edge of eastern Europe to the Ural Mountains and the Caspean Sea, who were once known by the ancient Greeks as the Kimmeroi (Cimmerians). This was before the coming of the Scythians in the 7th century BC, who pushed them out or took over as rulers of some of these groups of people. The royal clans of the Cimmerians originally lived in and near the Crimean Peninsula that juts into the Black Sea from it's northern shores. A lot of their royal tombs were found here and around the local Sea of Azov, which was a bay of the Black Sea. The following links to the Cimmerians of the people of the Thracians and Dacians is claimed by several historians, however the link to the Etruscans is my own association. The linguistic link between these people is impossible to prove however, due to the insufficient linguistic material that exists. A few names can never be sufficient to prove a language, especially if its after the Scythian conquest. There are also claims that the Cimmerians came from the Middle East based on the fact that the earliest records of their names is from Assyrian sources. This in itself doesn’t prove the case if there was no one around them to record it. So I think we need to trust in the early Greek historians as they were the first one to remember and record this nation.
The Scythians coming from the east in the 7th century BC, conquered much of the eastern Cimmerians, who were pushed out from mainly their south-eastern territories, but many also remained around the Crimea and the area around the Sea of Azov under Scythian rule. They also remained in the northern forest zone as well as in the Balkans and Hungary even after the birth of Christ. Some of the Eastern Cimmerians escaped and crossed the Caucasus Mountains and established a large but short lived kingdom in Anatolia and destroyed the empire of the Hittites. A few of their leaders are recorded by documents from the Near East. They are remembered in the Bible as the sons of Gomer, whose sons were Askenaz, Riphat and Togarma. Assyrian records also called areas of the empire which were under the control of Cimmerian mercenaries, by the name Gamir. The name which thereafter became the name for all dreaded nomadic horsemen, including their enemy the Scythians. We can only assume that those who stayed behind thereafter came under Scythian domination and were called Scythian afterward, simply due to their rulers and the subsequent combining of the two cultures. The other languages in the area of
the Northern Black Sea, known later as Scythian were not all related but required at least seven translators according to the early Greeks. Therefore the people named collectively Scythian, could not have been a single people, because their languages were not related. The real Scythians were called the Royal Scythians. So the question becomes, who were the Cimmerians and some of these pseudo Scythians? Where they always here or did they come from another place? Some claim them to be simply an early western branch of the Scythians and IndoEuropean in language, but without any proof whatsoever. This is one of many gross oversimplifications of modern and ancient historians.
The following is my own idea about Cimmerian origins, which really are in the process of being developed. I warn the readers that there are currently three different ideas about Cimmerian linguistic origin, but none can be absolutely proven, only possibilities based on a few facts can be listed. My main reason to believe there is a link with FinnoUgrian and Cimmerian is that I believe that the Etruscans and Trojans are the same and that they originate from the Thracians. If that is the case then the Cimmerians who were related to them must have had a similar in language. The following associations could also be used as possible proofs that the idea is correct.
Homer writes the following about the origin of the Cimmerians, in the Odyssey, XI, 14:"Ardys took Priene and attacked Miletus. Thus she brought us to the deep Rowing River of Ocean and the frontiers of the world, where the fog bound Cimmerians live in the City of Perpetual Mist. When the bright Sun climbs the sky and puts the stars to flight, no ray from him can penetrate to them, nor can he see them as he drops from heaven and sinks once more to the earth. For dreadful night has spread her mantle over the heads of those unhappy folk. " What did this mean? Perhaps the following information from other Greek references can explain this darkness. The Cimmerian name also sounds unusually similar to the FinnoUgrian term *kumer, which in the Züryen (Komi) daugter language is kimmer, Finnish kumuri (Sumerian ki+muru =foggy land) and means cloud, misty, shadowy. This sound unusually similar in pronunciation and in meaning, to the description of Homer, who wrote of the dark, shadowy Cimmerian lands.
According to Plutarch, the Cimmerians were the first to be known to the Greeks, took flight and were driven from their land by the Scythians. The others lived at the ends of the earth, near the Hyperborean Ocean, (Arctic Sea) in a land covered in woods and dense shade, where the sun rarely penetrates the forests so huge that they spread into the Hercynian forest. They were situated under the part of the heavens where the slope of parallel circles makes the pole so high that it is virtually the zenith of these peoples and the year is divided exactly in half by days which are the same length as nights.
While some of this may sound a bit strange and even exaggerated, a few things become quite obvious. They come from the far north toward the arctic where days and nights can last for days, in deep and impenetrable forests, where no Scythian would ever put his foot into, because they were plains dwelling people, whose main occupation was herding animals, on the grasslands. Yet the southern branches of these Cimmerians also did adopt the plains customs, long before the Scythians ever came, while some of them also practiced agriculture, which was less common among the Scythians. Archeologically speaking this culture was called the "Yamna Culture" in Russia, which first domesticated the horse. Their northern relatives also originated from the southern Ukraine, before the Ice Age according to the Uralic Continuity theory, then many went north following the herds, which was their chief livelihood. This region once was predominantly FinnoUgrian but many others later also came and went. The Cimmerians adapted their typical water nomadic life of the FinnoUgrian ancestors to horse nomadism and also seafaring, by building larger boats and eventually became quite familiar with the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The Etruscans are known also from history to have participated in the attacks on Egypt under the collective designation of "the sea people", since they are named by the Egyptians by their actual later known name. Their name could not have been a later day invention or a name derived from an early leader as the Greeks have stated on more than one occasion.
The Cimmerian name reminds me also of another famous people, who came from this area, on the north eastern side of the Black Sea or perhaps from the northern Caspean. These were the Sumerians, who later moved to southern Mesopotamia following the flooding of the Black Sea around 5000 BC. Today there is an ongoing underwater investigation looking for their remnants in the shallow areas of the Black Sea. Their language was also not IndoEuropean, but quite similar to an earlier form of FinnoUgrian and Turkic. The origin of the Sumerian Flood Story is being searched for in the area of the Black Sea, however the Caspean also experienced this major event and can be linked to it. Quite a few of the divinity names of Sumerian and Etruscan agree. Unfortunately we know next to nothing about Cimerian but rather could guess that some of the Scythian names were Cimmerian in origin.
Indeed names like Artemis from Scythian Artimpaz, are the same as Etruscan Artume (night,death), possibly linked to Sumerian *Eret >> Eres (KiGal).(goddess of the underworld,death).
The religious or cultic center of the Ob ugrians is tir, just as Sumerian tir-azag, and just as Etruscan tru-t =a sacred act, Hungarian tor=ceremony for the deceised. Similarly the Cimmerians buried their royal family along the river Tir(as) according to Herodotus. Similarly rites and ceremonies in proto FinnUgor is sar-ne, in Etruscan its zeri, in Sumerian its zur, in Hungarian its szer which got into Latin from Etruscan as ceremonia.
A title of a Cimmerian king recorded in the Middle East was Lugdame (Dugdame according to other references), which if we take Sumerian equivalents of certain FinnoUgrian words as a guide j>g become Lugal=ruler,big man, thus Lugdame is but Ludjame, which is the same as Etruscan Lucumu meaning king or leader, since Etruscan intervocalic c can be a sibilant or ch but not a k. The Sumerian term gal is the same in meaning as mah, which is big. These have their Etruscan equivalents (m>n) nac=big. (Hungarian nagy), which is a fairly basic and acceptable sound change.
The son of Lugdame was a war leader Sandak -satru in Lycian documents. The god Sandak only appears once in Lycian writing so it was probably also foreign and probably also Cimmerian. The god is associated with darkness and Hades. In FinnoUgrian languages, there is a similar word in the form of *čette= dark, early dawn, which becomes set-ét=dark in Hungarian, sitik in Estonian for "black"currant and becomes *šu-du > ud-šu =dark (metathesis) =become/time dark in Sumerian. To historian linguists such a miniscule list is useless in comparing language types, yet even less was accepted to link it to Scythian and IndoEuropean. So lets not quibble about double standards here.
Another Cimmerian ruler's name was Teush-pa which sounded a bit like Hurrian Teshub, and thus was immediately explained by that since the meaning of the name isn't really known. Of course that kind of sound alike linguistics is open to a lot of diverse explanations but none can be really certain. To cut the field down to something closer in line to what we propose, lets assume that perhaps Etruscan is linked to Cimmerian as we maintain. In Etruscan TESH=to take care, to cure like a medicine man or shaman. PA=head, chief in a bunch of languages from FinnoUgrian, Altaic and although less common in Sumerian its also found there. Etruscan has the word in the form of PAPN, which is the reduplication of chief, meaning chief of chiefs, similar to Hungarian föfö (p>f). This "Teush" all goes back to a FinnoUgrian term for shaman, found in Hungarian as TAL-TOSH, for the chief shaman.
Kimm-er is the name of the Cimmerians, where the ending er is the plural. Just as in Etruscan, modern Turkish ler, and I believe also found in several ethnic names, like Sum-er. Magy-ar, Kaz-ar, Sab-ir etc. The root word KIM is common in FinnoUgrian and Altaic for the name for man, male. Etruscan also has this in a title of the chief LU-CUM-U which is the "Lead Man".
The map above, from Archeologist Kaalevi Wiik, illustrates the slow retreat of the northern FinnUgor hunters to their present areas.This occurred until they finally had to adopt agriculture or stock herding. Among the first FinnoUgrian nations, that still exists, to adapt were the Hungarians and they were never pushed far north like the others. Their national tradition, "The Legend of the Stagg", claims their origin from the area around the Sea of Azov, which was the same location as that of the Cimmerian Royalty.
The Cimmerians appear to be tied to the Etruscan language, even though very little is known about the Cimmerian language, besides the previously mentioned few names. Similarly the Cimmerian royal tribe, the Tauri is much like Tursci name of the Etruscans, so that it can be traced from the royal Cimmerians, known much later as the "Tauri" Scythians, to the Balkans as Thracian and to eastern Hungary as Dacian, then to Troy as Trojan and are also known in Greek as the Tyrsenoi, then to Italy where the Latins called them Tursci while the area of their past homeland is remembered today as Tosc-an. There is strong evidence that the Etruscans were not Indo Europeans, however much less is known about the Thracians or Cimmerians. If they were all linked then the Scythians were probably from the east of the Caspean and were the Turks, because there are a lot of Turkic influences on the languages of the Southern Finno-Ugrian languages and also in some Eastern European languages, especially in a southern Finno-Ugrian nation like Hungarian. Similarly there are also Turkic links in Etruscan or at least words that only survived in Turkic today. Such words as mother "ati" which is much like Turkish "ede". A lot of their words can be described with Ugrian or Turkic.
The Scythians or Turks were predominantly animal herders of the steppes that were nomadic. Their many tribes stretched from Europe to China over the grasslands. Their separation into various dialects however is not that long ago, indicating that their western branches were absorbed or barely survived in a few languages like Chuvash. The later Cimmerians, who are known by archeologists as the "timber grave culture" after the manner of their burials and the early Scythians "Kurgan Culture", had a long history of common development in this area, which is the reason that there is so many common terms in the FinnUgor and Turkic languages, from the most ancient times. Yet they weren't the same people, or at least they diverged a long time ago. Their languages were quite similar but also not necessarily the same. At least there were more pronounced differences between the eastern Turkic languages and the west. Most FinnoUgrians were forrest dwelers and hunters and fishers and water nomads, while most Turkic people were herdsmen of the plains. However there were some FinnoUgrians who like the Hungarians, adopted the herding and agricultural lifestyles quite early. The similarity of their languages was the reason for the idea that there once might have been a common Ural-Altaic language family. If that was true it must have been from a very early time, and must have been originally in Europe and not in Asia. Most of the common shared words are later borrowings back and forth between the two groups, but there are some words that are of common origin from very early times.
The name Kimmer (Cimmerian) name as well as several so called Scythian names that were recorded by Herodotus, can be explained from FinnoUgrian as well as Altaic name for man "Kujme" in FinnUgor and "Kum"
in Turkic just as the Tursci name can be explained in Hungarian to mean "tribe, society" as Törzs. The ending -"er" originally was probably a plural suffix, just as the Etruscan animate plural suffix is "r". The Hungarian ethnic designation also ends with "r", while only the early western Turkic groups have "r" instead of the "z" suffixes found in most Turkic ethnic designations. Some have claimed that Etruscan should also be linked to the name Turk. However that name wasn’t used yet by them at this early time.
In Europe in recent times the Scythians were claimed to be IndoEuropeans , who supposedly overran the continent very quickly and changed the languages of the local population. This Indo-European invasion theory from the east, known as the "Kurgan Theory" of Marija Gimbutas cannot be supported, for it causes too many conflicts with the linguistic links of Finno-Ugrian, Altaic, Sumerian and Dravidian languages, which would have isolated them. There isn't a shred of trustworthy linguistic evidence that can stand up to scrutiny for the Iranian or Indo-European origin of early Scythian culture or language, even though the later Andronovo Culture complex, centered around the Urals and Caspean Sea had Fino-Ugrian, Turk and major Iranian elements in it. A culture complex however doesn’t have to have a common language! The Kurgan Theory would place the Indo-Europeans into central Europe much too late in time, not allowing enough time to develop the huge differentiation between languages, cultures and ethnic groups that are very self evident to the historic linguists or archeologist. To simply explain this diversity away with a small elite that settled over a much larger population throughout Europe at such a late time, with the coming of the Scythians and then leaving supposedly next to no trace of the local languages among entrenched farmers is totally unbelievable. Sure the "Kurgan" people made many inroads into Europe, but they didn’t give their language to it aside from some new culture words. They eventually melted in. I realize that I am oversimplifying the theory, but this whole idea was done at the expense of mislabeling the Cimmerians and Scythians also as "Indo-European", which they weren't. This fallacy has finally become very self evident to the leading historians and linguists, like Diakanov, Collin Renfrew, Mario Alinei and many others causing the radical revision of the origin of indo-European languages to a south central area, within Europe. The consequence of this is that the Scythians will no longer be the linchpin that ties together the whole theory of IndoEuropean origin. Hopefully this will end the random claims of origin from so many distant areas in Eurasia and totally maligning the history and cultural ties of the remnants of the non-Indo-European language groups of the continent who were treated as late immigrants to this land rather than the aboriginals who were here first. Unfortunately there are still others who are trying to salvage and accommodate the outdated "Kurgan Theory" in any way they can. They were only able to keep this theory in place by inventing a totally misleading and racist idea that most Uralic (FinnUgor) were originally mongoloid.
A recent PBS television show in 2005 was researching the origin of the Scythian warrior women, known by the Greeks as the Amazons. To make the story short, genetic material was collected from the Kurgan burials of Amazon women in Russia and a search was made to find a close genetic link. A match was not found in Europe, but a perfect match was found among the Khazak Turks living in Mongolia. There have been a lot of misunderstanding and problems caused by the simple fact that Europeans have labeled all non Indo-Europeans to be originally non Caucasian, but Mongoloid, based on some fringe elements found among small eastern branches of the FinnoUgrians and the among eastern Turks, who settled in the far east for a time. Location is everything, and had changed the racial types of the Turks of the far East a lot, yet early references to the Khazakh Turks in these areas, have stated that they were originally red haired and blue eyed people, like the Scythians, and quite unlike today, but they weren't Indo-Europeans in language. These tidbits of information have been known for a long time but always swept under the rug and ignored and replaced by racist stereotypes. Such mislabeling and distorted information was also made concerning the so called "Uralic Type", which is ancestor to the FinnoUgrian language family, placing them into the far eastern racial types by the famous Carfali -Sforsa genetic research team, whereas most of them by far are classic European types and only a very insignificantly small eastern fringe element, living east of Europe have considerable Mongoloid elements due to their northern neighbors the Samoyeds. These people became orientalized when they moved east and intermarried with the northern reindeer people and had them also adopt the Finno Ugrian language. Yet this small group is claimed to be the original Uralic type. This assumption has now been proven totally wrong using genetic and archeological research, which shows their spreading from Europe toward the east. Yet some people are still using this outdated idea to misrepresent the whole group.
This seemingly unrelated discourse into the history of Eastern Europe and Southern Russia was necessary to lay the foundation for the Etruscan origin from that region. We have all probably heard the story of the Trojan war and the supposed cause of it, however just as in most wars there had to be a more substantial reason then simply to recover Helen from Troy. Something so important that it temporarily united the eternally feuding Greek city-
states for a common cause, booty and a lucrative trade area. I do not want to give away the plot, which is told quite convincingly at the following site The Trojan origin of Roman Civilization. (www.scientiapress.com/findings/torc.htm).
II Etruscan Religion
The Cimmerians and some Scythians had a very egalitarian and respectful attitude towards women, who not only could have their own properties but could rule a nation or lead an army to war. This attitude was also common among the Etruscans and also reflected in their religion. These traits definitely did not endear them to the very staunchly patriarchal societies of the Romans, Greeks or most early Indo-European cultures, who originally before their separation did not worship feminine deities and only later adopted local goddesses to their pantheons, under local foreign influences. A few examples of Etruscan goddesses may be worth considering, which were adopted by the Greeks and Romans. The Roman goddess of wisdom, known as Min-erva, the goddess of wisdom, is from Etruscan and can be interpreted from Finno Ugrian and Hungarian to mean "young woman/wife of reason" as "menye-érv". The goddess Artemis, was also worshiped by the Etruscans as "Artuma", but Artemis originally was a Thracian and Scythian goddess that the Greeks adopted, from these people. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, her Scythian name was Artim-PAZ. However the term PAZ is Ob_Ugrian for god, divinity not Iranian and not Turk. The name Artem- however, has cognates in both Turkic and Hungarian, meaning virtuous "érdem". Others have claimed that PAZ does not refer to God, but to the head as in Turkish BAS or Finnugor PA, so that Artim-paz refers to the "head of righteousness". I leave it to the reader to pick what makes more sense, since both seem to be logical possibilities.
By no means were these the only links to the names of the Etruscan gods and goddesses. The Etruscans were a highly religious and even superstitious people, according to the Romans, having different types of "shaman" like priests, who were famous for their fortune telling. According to their legends their sacred books, were given to them by the god Tages, who sprang forth from the plowed field. He conversed with the Etruscans and thought them various things from foretelling the future to the proper way of doing things. For even things like finding the best location and orientation of building they had specialists. This reminds me of similar customs in China, Korea and Japan rather than anything in early European Culture. Due to the many similarities in Etruscan and Sumerian, I have included a comparison column for Sumerian in the following list of Etruscan deities.
proto Finno Ugrian Etruscan Divinities > Latin (C=K) Equivalent Sumerian divinity
*sanke > teng = sky, god(s>t in Ob ugrian)
TIN =chief god; TAGE=god born as a boy, to teach men.
DING-ir =god, divinity , represented by a star.
*sanke =sky, god _ ANI =sky god #s/blk > Janus>January _AN =sky, chief god
*nume =high _Uni =goddess of the cosmos >Juno >June NU-mah =goddess of the cosmos
*leile =breath, spirit RIL (L>R) =spirit (en) LIL =god of winds, atmosphere, soul
Kwor-es=sun god, time god/Ug XUR =time (X is a hard H)ITU=time >> Latin Ides= division of time
KUR=the rising sun, time; UTU=sun god, UD= time
*koje =dawn, *kälä=arise,ford
au-KÉL =aurora, dawn, CEL 2=dawn, goddess of the dawn
GAL-am=arise
Kal-Thes =goddess of dawn, wife of the chief god, mother goddess.
CEL =goddess of birthTHES-an =goddess of dawn, childbirth
GAL-ama=great mother goddess
*kul =death, (also in Turkic)kul-ater=devil, king of hell.
CUL-su=demones of the underworld. GALA =demons of the underworld.
*pels =inside, inner + *tume =to stuff into, to burry.
VOL-TUMA =god of the afterlife (P >V) DUMU-ZI=god of death, resurrection, spring.
*torem = creator god , the sourceof all knowledge and the universe
?.Turan= perhaps his wife, goddess of love, health, fertility.
Daramah, enKI, Ea =all names of the magician of the gods, the wiseman of the gods, and creator.
ARTU-ME =goddess of night and death(ama > eme =mother) >> Artemis
*ERET > ERES' (KI-GAL) =queen of the underworld elder sister of Inana.
*miñe =young wife, *arwe=ripen,value, understand
MIN-ERVA =goddess of wisdom.
*kunta > *xont =war, army CATHA=war, LAR-an =god of war GUD-bir=war; NER-(gal)="the great victor"
While the names of some of the Etruscan gods and goddesses are at times similar sounding to some Greek ones, their function is far from identical and cannot be simply functionally linked to be the same, based solely on the sound of their name. At the same time the names of the major Sumerian divinities are very similar in name and function to the Etruscan ones. The Etruscans were greatly influenced in their beliefs by the Greeks but also had a very distinctive religion that was independent in most ways. Their religious beliefs remind me of the Sumerian ways and beliefs. Both believed that most of civilization was not man made but its knowledge was god given. Both were shamanistic in ideology and origin, often consulting with the spirits of the deceased. Both cultures strongly emphasized religion and lived under a theocracy, which in the end was their undoing. Since both Etruscans and Sumerians lived under a theocratic system with a polytheistic religion. They both lived in city states where the interpretation of the will of god was the main source of guidance in crucial decisions. The Etruscans even had books that codified the teaching of god and what to do in certain cases. Since each city would have its local god there was a tendency to not get along with other city states, with a lot of conflicting religious views that prevented them from uniting except in dire situations. With an enemy like the Romans, that knew them for a long time, they were probably very predictable. This identical problem was found with the Sumerians. Despite their very advanced civilization, they couldn’t unite and spread their culture, because of their
disunity. If these nations were different and more practical minded, like the Romans, and the most advanced in their regions, most of Europe and the Near East would be speaking the same type of language today, one with an Etruscan dialect and the other in a Sumerian dialect.
The custom of Gladiatorial "sports" was Etruscan in origin, however it was totally perverted by the Romans to be a public spectacle rather than a religious rite. It became more for the living than for the dead. To the Etruscans it was a ceremonial act to honor a prominent deceased leader. This was a way to help send the deceased to the afterlife, with a guardian and a servant. Such customs were very common among the Sumerians, Cimerians and Scythians who all buried servants and sometimes even family members with their rulers for the purpose of serving them in their afterlife. Even more than a millenium after this time it is echoed in the story from the early Hungarian Chronicles about the death of an important Hungarian tribal leader, LEHEL, who was captured following a major campaign in Germany. The story goes that, he was lead in front of the German Emperor and due to his prominent position was asked for his last wish, before dying. Lehel then requested his elephant tusk horn so he could blow it one last time, but when he received it, he jumped in front of the Emperor and dashed it on his head, killing him instantly. Then he said that now he has a servant in the afterlife. The custom more akin to the formal Etruscan gladiatorial fights is also recounted among the Cimmerians. The Greek version of this story about the Cimmerians is probably totally misrepresented, because it was claimed that the Cimmerian royal family was paired off and fought to the death, upon hearing that the Scythians had conquered their lands. This was so that they could be buried in their homeland, along the river Tyras along with their ancestors, rather than moving away. Certainly there is a bit of truth in this, but the reasons are very doubtful.
III Etruscan Genetic types
DNA analysis of Etruscan remains has revealed their links to Anatolia, where Troy was located, but found no similarity in that area to their language, during those historic times, except on the island of Lemnos. The Etruscans have picked up a lot of the local characteristics of the people around the ancient Mediterranean and local Mediterranean racial types, during their wanderings. They appear to have been a minority in Italy that was in positions of leadership and who often intermarried with the local "Latins". Therefore their original founding genetic types are probably less than obvious in the wonderful bronze sculptures and murals they left behind, after their long separation from their original homelands and their many associations with the people of the Mediterranean Sea surroundings
.
Several Etruscan city names shown here end with the name sin or sina, which is in proto Finno-Ugrian "as'a + na=locative" means "settlement, to make a camp. Such names as Fel-sina (upper settlement), Vel-sna "velsina" (central settlement) or Al-sina (lower settlement, near the port of Pyrgy/Caere). Clev-sin is possibly from Cel 2, a goddess of the dawn that is associated with the east, the rising sun.
IV Some of the main characteristics of the Etruscan language
The number of Etruscan words, that are understood, is not very large and is in excess of about 200 words, while the grammar is still only roughly understood. There are few long documents written in Etruscan that survived, even though they once had libraries and an extensive literature. Many short phrases have been deciphered, based on circumstances and pictures associated mainly with burials or boundary markers. That is why the burial custom of these people are so well known, since they built a whole underground decorated homes for their deceased prominent leaders, somewhat like the Cimmerians and Scythians, except more elegant.
Their written language is alphabetic and is easily read, even though the Romans called it illegible, pertaining not so much to readability as understandability. Etruscan was very hard for the Romans to understand. Latin was based on Indo-European vocabulary with a layer of Etruscan culture words as well as the influence of Etruscan grammar as spoken by the upper class of Romans, while Etruscan was not an Indo European language at all. While it had some loanwords from IndoEuropean neighbors its grammar was totally unlike any of them.
Etruscan was an agglutinated language like FinnoUgrian , Altaic, Sumerian and Dravidian of India. It didn’t have voiced stops like (b,d,g) just as early Finno-Ugrian, these were rarely used.Words put the emphasis on the start of the word as FinnoUgrian and Altaic.Words were of the "open structure" type where they ended with a vowel, such as old FinnoUgrian languages.The language has many signs that vowel harmony was used, just like Finnougrian , Altaic and Sumerian.Vowels in suffixes are meaningless and adjust to the sound harmony of the root word. The normal word order is Subject, Object, Verb as it is also in Finno-Ugrian and most agglutinated languages, although it is possible to vary that order for special emphasis. Etruscan had no letters for o, ö, w, j (y) just like Sumerian.Etruscan also has many common words with Finno-Ugrian and Sumerian and some Turkic languages but especially with its southern Ugrian, Hungarian which was geographically much closer to it.Many of its words and morphemes that link with root words are nearly identical to Hungarian, but some common words are found in other FinnoUgrian languages also.
Naturally in the amateur linguist community of the Internet there is a great amount of disagreement about who the Etruscans were, and where they came from, just as there are about just about anything, however professionals claim that Etruscan was not Indo-European, but of unknown isolated origin. The two labels "not Indo-European" and "isolated" unfortunately normally goes hand in hand in dealing with old extinct culture languages. One of the stranger things about the Etruscan orthography is that it occasionally reverses the starting Consonant Vowel at the start of the word or simply drops the first vowel. Something like this occurred in short Sumerian root words also. This perhaps was to simplify the writing with the presumption that the vowel will be reconstructed in sounding out the initial consonant.
Pronouns, Numbers, Word morphemes
Additions by Fred Hamori from Mario Alinei’s work 2005 and my own grammatical analysis.
Definition Etruscan pronoun FinnUgorpronoun
Hungarian pronoun
Finnpronoun
Turkic
1st . I, me mi=I, mini=me *ime én (m>n) minä ben (#m>b)
2nd you ti *ti te si-na (#ti>si) sän
3rd he/she _an (#s>blk) *so(n) _ö_ (#s>blk) hen (#s>h) o, _ol
1st pl. we mi-r *mi-n mi ma mi-z
2nd pl. you ? *ta-n ti si-z
3rd pl. they _ein (#s>blk) *se-n _ö_-k (#s>blk) on-la (anc)
profession or participle -u *wa or *pa -o -va
relative pronoun fas, fashe
plural suffix (animate) -r *n -k n -lar
plural suffix(inanimate)
-xva n -k
Ethnic names of southern FU may have had r plurals, Cimm-er-(ian), Magy-ar, Mari, Tau-ri scythian.
Definition Etruscan FinnUgor Hungarian Finn Turkish
one (thu) *üηeśe>ükse egy=1, (egész=whole)
yksi
two ( zal, es(a)l ) *käktä két,kettö kaksi
three ci_ (deleted -am) *kor’ma,*kol-ma
hár-om kol-me üch
four ( sha_ variant of 2) *naljä négy nelja
five max** ( m~w) *witte _öt viisi
six hut *kutte hat kuusi
seven semφ, sempf(p>mp)
*sapte (IE?SM) _hét
eight nur-p (L~R) X nyol-c (2x4)
ten -alx (suffx)sar
*luke=count,10,decipher
_olv_=read–on= -l0 ( L~N)tiz < desa /IE
alk=10/Vogul on
hundred X száz < *sat-em /IE(t/z/V_V )
thousand"miles"
etera X ezer =1000( t/z/V_V)
times zar szer, szor
The original FinnUgor number system was base 6, not base 10 and because of that the base numbers can only be derived from 1 to 6, and afterwards they become combinations, 7 through 9 are derivations, and 10, 100 are sometimes loans from other languages or adaptations of the old multipliers. Strangely enough what we know about Etruscan number names comes from a set of dice, which has six sides and where the name of the number was written instead of the usual dots. There are still some disagreements about which name is what number.
Noun Case Markers
In comparison to many agglutinated languages Hungarian has a very large set of case markers(21?27), which in other FU languages is less extensive and were probably also less extensive in Hungarian in the past. Some case markers are simply the joining of two cases. Some of the added cases originated from independent words that became case markers later. So in comparison to Etruscan it should be expected that there will be a simpler, more original form to some of these cases than there are today with similarity to the derivatives. All particles suffixes, prefixes, case markers, mood etc use vowel harmony, when added to the root word. The root however doesn’t change, except the shorthand of scribes, who deleted some internal vowels to shorten their writing. There appears to be something like that or at least the remnants of that in Etruscan, since the particles vary in the type of vowels that use them, indicating that the vowel usually doesn’t matter, but the consonant has most of the information.
Most examples are just too few in number to be absolutely certain about their precise function, only their approximate meaning is certain. However that may be, a case can be made for the following.
Definition Etruscan example Hungarian example
Nominative -ca -blank apa=father (no marker)
Accusative -cn -Vt (was *m) t is unlike Uralic and is a later change from m.
Genitive (of)and Possessivecase
-na,
-ni,
(-al is claimed)
ais-na=of the godsspur-na=of the citylein-e=(at) the age oftuthi-na =of the public <tuthi=public;ras-na =of Etruria
api-ase=in Aprilceli-us =in Septemberxur-var=in the season/timeacal-vi=in June (p>v >u)lai-va= left side (in the left?)heram-ve=the place of Hermeskelu-ben=in placepul =in, at an-pile =in May
-ba-n, -be-n<< *pälse
ház-bel -sö=inner
Sublative (onto/into/ from)
-ra,-re tame-ra=upon the grave(e)s-re-n=realize? /MA
-ra, -re<ränke
teme-tö-cemetery.
th-ra lu-ri=from him
ész-remind", notice
Adessive (at)or just locative
-na cexa-na=(at) the summit?mountainete-nel =at/with this
-nál, -nél< nä= locative
hegy-ez-nél
Lative -e kl-umi-e= at the oven’s opening -e, -ol, -ul, -ülalso see next
mesz-tel-efel-eal-ulfel-ül
Ablative (away from)
-ale, -al, -l-ri
(-als, alas & es)
arithi-ale=from AratheaUni-al=from UniRasna-l =from Etrurialu-ri =from him
-to-l–bo-l –ro-l
Estonian -lt
-tol=from beside -bol=from inside-rol =from off of,from( el = away )
Terminative(as far as)
-ce–x
ar-ce =reached, attained (ar=build)avil-x -val=until the end of the year
-ig ház-év-ig
Time Locative -an thes-an =at dawnus_l-ane =at noon
-án, -en tél-enrég-enkor-án
Locatives -na, -ni,
auri-na=(at) town; lu-xum-na=palace<<lu-xum=kinghup-ni =sepulchral place
-(V)n < *nä vár-on=Budapest-
Locative(in/at)
-tu, ti, thi fala-tu =sky <abovecela-ti =in/at the gravetush-ti =in/at the fireUni-al-ti =from (place of) Uni
-(v)tt <*ttä fel-etben-köz-öPécs-(mostly replaced by the innesive, but not in ObUgrian)
Noun formatives, modify noun root words to create variations. There are a lot more in Hungarian than this.
deverbal and noun formatives
-tala, -tale ca-us-tla =undieable, (immortal)selei-tala =border area
The initial dictionary was borrowed from the collection of Neil Gratton 2002-203 and additional data was added from the works of Mario Alinei and others, with Finno ugrian references by Alinei and myself as well as the
analysis of grammatical particles and the tables of numbers, pronouns, cases and suffixes. This dictionary is still in the process of development because there are many other Uralic and Altaic links that need to be researched and included. This represents my first major attempt at explaining the basic words from FinnUgor. I am not trying to decipher texts and guessing at possible meanings, but left that to those who do it for a living. Rather I am only trying to give close equivalents to the presumed meanings that are already stated by others.
