Hittite Etruscans
Etruscans, are members of the ancient people of Etruria, Italy, between the Tiber and Arno rivers west and south of the Apennines, whose urban civilization reached its height in the 6th century BC. Many features of Etruscan culture were adopted by the Romans, their successors to power in the peninsula.
The Etruscans formed the most powerful nation in pre-Roman Italy. They called themselves 'Rasenna', which was shortened to 'Rasna or Ra?na' (Neo-Etruscan), with both etymologies unknown. The ancient Romans referred to the Etruscans as the 'Tuscī or Etruscī' (singular: Tuscus). Thus the Roman origin of the term "Toscana".
The coastal areas of Southern Italy because of the fertility of the land and geographical position was ideal for trade, being a meeting point of the Greek with the Etruscan, and Hittite-Phoenician civilizations.
The Etruscans are often regarded as one of the most mysterious nations of the Iron Age Mediterranean. One reason that they are so mysterious is that their language has not yet been deciphered, and could not read their inscriptions.
Their DNA was a mixture of two-thirds Copper Age ancestry (EEF + WHG; Etruscans ~66–72%, Latins ~62–75%) and one-third Steppe-related ancestry (Etruscans ~27–33%, Latins ~24–37%) (with the EEF component mainly deriving from Neolithic-era migrants to Europe from Anatolia.
In ancient Greece, it was commonly believed that the Etruscans originated from north-western Asia Minor. Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC) wrote (1.94) that emigrants from Lydia had founded the later Etruscan settlements in central Italy. The Greek writer considered the “father of history”, was convinced that the Etruscans were actually Greeks who had migrated to Italy from western Anatolia.
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The Etruscan civilization flourished in what is today Tuscany and its neighboring central Italian regions from around 900 BC.
The work of Dr. Isaac Taylor, called "Etruscan Researches" was the foundation of a true knowledge that the Etruscans were akin to the Pelasgi, the Lydians, Lycians and Carians, and the syllabaries of Lycia and Caria are closely related to the Cypriote, which preserves for us the sounds of the Hittite language.
Vicenza, Italy, Aug. 22. -- Cav. Tapparelli, who has charge of the excavations in the old Etruscan cemetery here, has made a remarkable discovery, which not only shows that Etruria was first settled from Asia Minor as far back as the fifteenth or fourteenth century BC, but also reveals the Hittite origin of the early Etruscans themselves, whose already discovered remains have not dated further back than 1000 BC.
Yet the Etruscans, whose descendants today live in central Italy, have long been among the great enigmas of antiquity. Their language, which has never properly been deciphered, was unlike any other in classical Italy, as their origins have been hotly debated by scholars for centuries…
Food for thought!
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