The Etruscan civilization was an ancient civilization created by the Etruscans, a people who inhabited Etruria in ancient Italy, with a common language and culture who formed a federation of city-states. After conquering adjacent lands, its territory covered, at its greatest extent, roughly what is now Tuscany, western Umbria, and northern Lazio, as well as what are now the Po Valley, Emilia-Romagna, south-eastern Lombardy, southern Veneto, and western Campania.
Etruscan religion comprises a set of stories, beliefs, and religious practices of the Etruscan civilization, heavily influenced by the mythology of ancient Greece, and sharing similarities with concurrent Roman mythology and religion. As the Etruscan civilization was gradually assimilated into the Roman Republic from the 4th century BC, the Etruscan religion and mythology were partially incorporated into ancient Roman culture, following the Roman tendency to absorb some of the local gods and customs of conquered lands. The first attestations of an Etruscan religion can be traced back to the Villanovan culture.
Aita, also spelled Eita, is an epithet of the Etruscan chthonic fire god Śuri as god of the underworld, roughly equivalent to the Greek god Hades.
Tarquinia, formerly Corneto, is an old city in the province of Viterbo, Lazio, Central Italy, known chiefly for its ancient Etruscan tombs in the widespread necropoleis, or cemeteries, for which it was awarded UNESCO World Heritage status.
Cerveteri is a comune (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Rome Capital, in the Italian region of Lazio. Known by the ancient Romans as Caere, and previously by the Etruscans as Caisra or Cisra, and as Agylla by the Greeks, its modern name derives from Caere Vetus used in the 13th century to distinguish it from Caere Novum.
Vulci or Volci was a rich Etruscan city in what is now northern Lazio, central Italy.
The Sarcophagus of the Spouses is a tomb effigy considered one of the masterpieces of Etruscan art. The Etruscans lived in Italy between two main rivers, the Arno and the Tiber, and were in contact with the Ancient Greeks through trade, mainly during the Orientalizing and Archaic Period. The Etruscans were well known for their terracotta sculptures and funerary art, largely sarcophagi and urns. The sarcophagus is a late sixth-century BCE Etruscan anthropoid sarcophagus that was found at the Banditaccia necropolis in Caere and is now located in the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, Rome.
Etruscan art was produced by the Etruscan civilization in central Italy between the 10th and 1st centuries BC. From around 750 BC it was heavily influenced by Greek art, which was imported by the Etruscans, but always retained distinct characteristics. Particularly strong in this tradition were figurative sculpture in terracotta, wall-painting and metalworking especially in bronze. Jewellery and engraved gems of high quality were produced.
In classical antiquity, several theses were elaborated on the origin of the Etruscans from the 5th century BC, when the Etruscan civilization had been already established for several centuries in its territories, that can be summarized into three main hypotheses. The first is the autochthonous development in situ out of the Villanovan culture, as claimed by the Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus who described the Etruscans as indigenous people who had always lived in Etruria. The second is a migration from the Aegean Sea, as claimed by two Greek historians: Herodotus, who described them as a group of immigrants from Lydia in Anatolia, and Hellanicus of Lesbos who claimed that the Tyrrhenians were the Pelasgians originally from Thessaly, Greece, who entered Italy at the head of the Adriatic sea in Northern Italy. The third hypothesis was reported by Livy and Pliny the Elder, and puts the Etruscans in the context of the Rhaetian people to the north and other populations living in the Alps.
Gaius is a Latin praenomen, or personal name, and was one of the most common names throughout Roman history. The feminine form is Gaia. The praenomen was used by both patrician and plebeian families, and gave rise to the patronymic gens Gavia. The name was regularly abbreviated C., based on the original spelling, Caius, which dates from the period before the letters "C" and "G" were differentiated. Inverted, Ɔ. stood for the feminine, Gaia.
Lucius is a Latin praenomen, or personal name, which was one of the most common names throughout Roman history. The feminine form is Lucia. The praenomen was used by both patrician and plebeian families, and gave rise to the patronymic gentes Lucia and Lucilia. It was regularly abbreviated L.
Octavius is a Latin praenomen, or personal name. It was never particularly common at Rome, but may have been used more frequently in the countryside. The feminine form is Octavia. The name gave rise to the patronymic gens Octavia, and perhaps also to gens Otacilia, also written Octacilia. A late inscription gives the abbreviation Oct.
The Tomb of the Bulls is an Etruscan tomb in the Necropolis of Monterozzi near Tarquinia, Lazio, Italy. It was discovered in 1892 and has been dated back to either 540–530 BC or 530–520 BC. According to an inscription Arath Spuriana apparently commissioned the construction of the tomb. It is named after the two bulls which appear on one of its frescoes. It is the earliest example of a tomb with complex frescoes in the necropolis, and the stylistic elements are derived from Ionian Greek culture. Along with the frescoes of the Tomb of the Whipping these paintings are relatively rare examples of explicit sexual scenes in Etruscan art, which were far more common in Ancient Greek art.
The Monterozzi necropolis is an Etruscan necropolis on a hill east of Tarquinia in Lazio, Italy. The necropolis has about 6,000 graves, the oldest of which dates to the 7th century BC. About 200 of the tomb chambers are decorated with frescos.
Jacques Heurgon was a French university, normalian, Etruscan scholar and Latinist, professor of Latin language and literature at the Sorbonne. Married to Anne Heurgon-Desjardins, founder in 1952, of the Centre culturel international de Cerisy-la-Salle, he was the father of Marc Heurgon, politician and historian, Catherine Peyrou and Edith Heurgon who continued the "Colloques of Cerisy".
Dominique Briquel is a French scholar, a specialist of archaeology and etruscology. Briquel studied at the École Normale Supérieure from 1964 to 1969 and was a member of the École française de Rome from 1971 to 1974. Since 1974 he taught Latin at the École Normale Supérieure. From 1984 to 1996 he was a professor of Latin at the University of Burgundy in Dijon. Since 1992, he has been Director of studies at the École pratique des hautes études, in the department of historical and philological sciences and since 1996, professor of Latin at the Université de Paris-Sorbonne.
Judith Swaddling is a British classical archaeologist and the Senior Curator of Etruscan and pre-Roman Italy in the Department of Greece and Rome at the British Museum. She is particularly known for her work on the Etruscans, and the ancient Olympic Games.
Lucumo, in Etruscan lauchme or lauchume, was a title of Etruscan rulers, equivalent to the Latin rex, or "king". In Roman sources, it is frequently mistaken for a personal name, particularly in the case of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth King of Rome, a native of Etruria who is said to have adopted a Roman name in place of his original name, Lucumo. Heurgon compares this to the Etruscan use of the Roman magister, "magistrate", as a personal name in the case of Servius Tullius, the sixth Roman king, known in Etruscan as the hero "Macstarna".
Aulus Vibenna was an Etruscan nobleman from Vulci of the 6th century BC and the brother of Caelius Vibenna.
Women were respected in Etruscan society compared to their ancient Greek and Roman counterparts. Today only the status of aristocratic women is known because no documentation survives about women in other social classes.
