- chapter 47: Health and medicine in Etruria –
2010). Vitruvius (De architectura 1.4.9) might have been speaking of Iron Age Etruria
when he described such divination:
For the ancestors, having sacrifi ced sheep which were grazing in those places where
towns or permanent camps were being established, used to examine the livers, and
if they were pale and infected the fi rst time, they would sacrifi ce another group,
wondering whether they were injured because of disease or because of spoiled fodder.
When they had tested many animals and demonstrated the whole and solid nature
of the livers [that resulted from good] water and fodder, there they established their
fortifi cations; if however they found [the livers] tainted they thus confi rmed the
judgment that a future pestilence would grow in the bodies of humans in these places
even though there was ample food and water, and so they would move elsewhere and
change area, seeking good health in all particulars.Congenital conditionsThe social customs of early Etruria, such as the intermarriage of the ruling families of
major cities (Tarquinia, Caere, Orvieto, Vulci etc.) well documented in epitaphs, might
have led to genetically related problems. In the Bronze Age village of Nola-Croce del
Papa, destroyed by a Vesuvian eruption circa 1780 bc, footprints of livestock show toe-like
hooves on some cattle, a trait of inbreeding (Mastrolorenzo et al. 2006; Albore Livadie
2002). Huts preserved by ash show that pregnant goats and other livestock were kept in
close proximity to human homes, under conditions conducive to the spread of zoonoses
(Turfa 2012: 156–158, 197–198).
Some congenital conditions are potentially markers of lineage and are thus of interest to
those who follow the pseudo-controversy of Etruscan origins. One such condition is bifurcate
tooth roots, a harmless situation that merits further study: it has been found in modern
Italians, and in Etruscan and Italic skeletons, but also appears in European populations. A
number of women buried in the eighth-century bc colony of Pithekoussai had front teeth
with bifurcate roots, which might identify them as Etruscan and Italic natives who had
married Greek or Levantine colonists (Becker 1995; Becker and Donadio 1992).
A more curious possible situation is thus far only known from artistic representations:
the condition of a didelphic or bicorporate, bicornate uterus, as depicted in highly stylized
form in terracotta anatomical votive models found in large numbers in many Etruscan and
Italic deposits (Turfa 1994: 227, Fig. 20.2, E-H). Anomalies of the reproductive organs
are often passed on to descendents, and this might be a marker of ancestry, although
there is no way of determining its incidence in the Etruscan population. (See below on
anatomical models, and also Chapter 59).
HIGH INFANT-MORTALITY?The past published record of Etruscan burials may have been inadvertently skewed by
the fact that some communities buried under-age children apart from their elders; past
excavations may also have neglected the rather ephemeral evidence of small depositions
(Becker 2012). Careful analyses now show predictable infant/childhood mortality rates
for Etruria. Of 168 skeletons of the seventh century bc studied at Adriatic Etruscan
Verucchio, 40 were of children up to seven years old, and another eight were between