INTRODUCTION

TIME TO GIVE THE ETRUSCANS

THEIR DUE

Jean MacIntosh Turfa

T

he world of the Etruscans has expanded greatly in recent years: in depth, due to
new scientifi c areas of research such as archaeological biochemistry, DNA analysis,
and materials science that can tell us more than we could fathom about the physical
composition of their goods and their very bodies (on the DNA issue, see Chapters 3 and
4). We have also seen expanded the scope of Etruscan interaction in the Mediterranean
and beyond, a fi eld signifi cantly broadened by analysis of archaeological fi nds of imports,
exports, and details of interaction (travel, diplomacy, marriage, colonization) found in
settlements, tombs, and underwater shipwrecks of the Mediterranean, North Africa, and
Europe. Fresh scholarship enabled by the publication of corpora of Etruscan art (the
CSE, CVA, LIMC, ThesCRA,^1 and catalogues of exhibitions, museums, and collections) is
enhancing our perspective on works in many media; access to the panorama of Etruscan
inscriptions and documents^2 is supporting new research into the personalities, lives, and
society of the Etruscan-speakers of the fi rst millennium bc (of all walks of life: see, for
instance, Chapter 21).
Still there are historians, Classicists and art historians who have yet to enter the world
of the Etruscans: it has not always been as accessible as it is today, in the wake of a
number of general books in various languages, including several for Anglophone readers.^3
Many scholars in tangential fi elds have not felt comfortable with Etruscan culture or their
ignorance thereof, and such feelings can often lead to denial – and to seeing the Etruscans
merely as poor imitators of Greece or thoughtless enemies of Rome.
Why the shocking ignorance? We cannot expect others to read the Etruscan language

• and we lack the Etruscan literature to compare to the works of Greek and Latin
  authors – but many scholars may feel unsteady in reading Italian publications, and all
  too many scholars may have been infl uenced by the Victorian schoolboy phenomenon:
  trained in the Classical heritage, perhaps even in Latin and Greek, they know, from
  the Classical historians like Herodotus and Livy, that Etruscans were the Others, the
  enemies, the implacable foes and despots like the Tarquins (whose heritage, we know,
  was after all, half Greek). In short, many thoughtful scholars have absorbed the Greek
  and Roman biases against an opponent who is now poorly known.