NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 15them (including English) are
derived from Indo-European
tongues that arrived in Eu-
rope thousands of years ago.
Etruscan, however, is an out-
lier: a rare case of a language
that predated and survived
the Indo-European influx.
Early Roman history is
intertwined with that of
Etruscans, who served as
the city’s earliest kings.
Etruscan words found their
way into Latin—phersu, the
Etruscan word for “mask,” is
the root word for “persona”
and “person.” The growth
of republican Rome’s pow-
er, however, would consume
Etruscan society, leaving just
its artifacts, vivid tomb art,
and inscriptions that fewer
and fewer people could read.
First-century Roman em-
peror Claudius was a stu-
dent of Etruscan, and one of
the last people in classical
antiquity able to speak and
read it. Claudius even wrote a
20-volume history of the
Etruscans, a work that has not
survived to the modern age.THE LINEN BOOK OF ZAGREB was wrapped around
the body of a woman who was between 30 and
40 years of age when she died. In addition to the
Etruscan text and the Egyptian Book of the Dead,
her mummy was laid to rest with a necklace of
colored beads, a flower headdress, and a mum-
mified cat’s skull.GRAVE GOODS
EGYPTIAN WOMAN, FOURTH TO FIRST
CENTURIES B.C. ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM
OF ZAGREB
ALAMY/ACI