- chapter 23: Numbers and reckoning –
Figure 23.1 Dice from Vulci: the Etruscan names of the fi rst six numbers are incised on each face.
Paris, Bibliothéque Nationale. (Photo © Bibliothéque Nationale de France; drawing from M. Cristofani,
Introduzione allo studio dell’etrusco, Florence, Olschki, 1991).written the following pairs: θu~huθ; zal~maχ; ci~śa. Some generations of scholars have
battled over the correct attribution of values to these names of numbers, either respecting
or disregarding the “rule of seven.”^8
A further key to the problem is provided by the major gold tablet of Pyrgi, whose
Punic translation provides the number ślś, “three,” in place of Etruscan ci, so giving one
secure starting point to the series of the dice.^9
Furthermore, the occurrence of the numbers zal and ci within epitaphs and inscriptions,
recording the number of children a mother had had or how many times somebody had
held an offi ce or magistracy in his life, confi rm they were among the lowest numbers:
probably “two” and “three.” And another argument for this identifi cation comes from
the subtractive system for numbers preceding tens (see below), which also provides the
meaning “one” for number θu.
According to the “rule of seven” the meaning of śa should be “four,” but another piece
of evidence seems to point in a different direction. Scholars have long noticed that some
non-Indoeuropean words of Greek language, coming from a substrate, share form and
meaning with Etruscan words (for example, Gr. ὀπυίω, “to marry,” vs. Etr. puia, “wife”);
so, the observation that, according to the late grammarian Herodian, the previous name
of the town Tetrapolis in Attica (literally the “city of four”) was Hyttenía, seemed to
provide a translation for the Etruscan number huθ.
More recently, perceptive studies by Adriana Emiliozzi and Luciano Agostiniani of
some funerary inscriptions from Tuscania and Musarna have argued that the verbal forms
zelarvenas and śarvenas, containing respectively the roots of the numbers zal and śa, should
be interpreted as “having duplicated” and “having quadruplicated” the space of the tomb
(tamera), as analysis of the funerary chambers shows that that was what had happened.^10
Furthermore, lately a complete research on type and features of dice in Etruria from the
eighth to the third century bce shows that the “rule of seven” was regularly respected
from the fi fth century bce onwards.^11
So, against the evidence of the comparison with the pre-Greek name of the town, we
are forced to agree with the former interpretation of the number śa meaning “four” and
huθ meaning “six,” leaving as a consequence the value “fi ve” for maχ.^12
To reconstruct the sequence of the numbers from “seven” upwards, we have further
evidence in the indication of the age of the deceased in funerary inscriptions, whenever