The Etruscans are a now extinct and long ignored Iron Age culture which flourished in northwestern Italy from about the 8th. century BC to the 3rd century BC. They were Italy’s first great civilization. The Etruscans were sophisticated, literate, wealthy, and militarily powerful, miners, metallurgists. seafarers and traders. Earliest evidences of Etruscans in Italy occur around 900BC and continue to about 27BC when the last communities were absorbed by Rome. The Etruscan’s early and advanced culture was systematically “cleansed” out of existence by their neigbors to the south—the Latins. Little was known about Etruscans until archaeological excavations revealed their tombs, artifacts, sculpture, alphabet and writings in relatively modern times.
Long before the Romans, this Iron Age (1200BC to 550BC) culture achieved excellence in copper mining, and smelting and bronze metal work. Their skill with bronze (an alloy of copper and tin or arsenic) is legendary. See: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/etruscan-bronze-statue.html?sortBy=relevant
They built magnificent tombs for their afterlife, often filled with objects of great beauty and value.
https://www.romecabs.com/blog/docs/10-amazing-etruscan-tombs-banditaccia-necropolis-in-cerveteri/
Much of their statuary, and artwork was rendered in terracotta of which they were also masters. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/249091
They were the first to produce vases and jugs of ceramics which were made to resemble other more valuable material substances…most famously their pottery, known as:“ Bucchero ware” which was produced to closely resemble bronze metal. http://www-01.glendale.edu/ceramics/buccheropitcher.html. They were also master jewelry makers, specializing in gold granulation and applied filigree https://blog.dma.org/2012/02/14/how-its-made-etruscan-jewelry/amp/
Roman religion, Roman architecture ( the barrel arch and vault), engineering, road building, and even the the traditional dress :the Roman toga, were all taken by the Romans from Etruscans. The Romans studiously ignored the origins of these many contributions and even developed myths to supersede and hide the source as from the talented Etruscans. See https://www.thecollector.com/etruscan-influence-rome/
They were hydrologic engineers too, designing and supervising the building the famous Cloaca Maxima-the world’s first sewer system, which first drained the marshes between the Seven Hills, and served to carry Rome’s human wastes into the Tiber River. https://www.thecollector.com/who-were-the-etruscans/
Most archaeologists support the idea that Etruscans were a native Italian culture, most likely arising from a earlier or proto-Villanovan Bronze Age (@3000 BC-1200BC) culture which is known to have occupied parts of Etruria, cremated their dead and buried their ashes in cone shaped urns of impasto pottery (terracotta)-uniquely topped with another cone. The combination is claimed to have simulated the circular thatch roofed houses constructed by this culture. The burial cones were often decorated with geometric designs. Elite burials often containing bronze weapons or bronze horse-harness fittings, bronze fibulae (large “saftey pins” used to close the toga), candelabra, and jewelry. The offerings suggest a high level of technical advancement. The urns with offerings were separated from other burials with no grave offerings. These assumed “elite” burials are often assumed to indicated that the culture had a hierarchy of elites.
One objection to this idea of origin from local cultures is that the Etruscan homes were not circular, post raised, homes with conical thatch roofs, but rectangular structures with terracotta roofs. See “tombs” above.
For many historians the sophistication of the Etruscans, their unique non-Indo-European language, all suggested that they were “transplants” from foreign lands. The Greek historian Herodotus ( 484BC -425BC) a contemporary of Etruscan society, writes that the Etruscans were immigrants from “Lydia”, a Greek outpost on the western coast of modern-day Turkey (Anatolia) . Herodotus was born in Anatolia, lived in Athens and Italy, and he or his informants were likely to have had intimate knowledge of living Etruscans. In support of Herodotus, modern linguists support the idea that the Etruscan spoke a language very different from all those in Italy and on the basis of linguistics it is likely that they were immigrats from afar. Etruscan has no relationship to other Indo-European languages of Italy. But they were most likely not from Lydia as Herodotus claimed. Etruscan customs are very different form that of the Lydians and Lydians spoke an Indo-European language unrelated to that of the Etruscans.
However the Etruscan language does appear to be related to a language known as Rhaetian which was spoken in the Eastern Alps in pre-Roman times.
Several recent DNA studies from Etruscan burials have concluded that the Etruscans were simply talented “locals”. But some have questioned these evidences on the basis of the fact that genetic data from long buried human bones are subject to multiple sources of contamination. Furthermore DNA results are necessarily based on scanty data sources, uncertain provenance, origin and date of the genetic materials. To avoid such problems some genetic investigations have based their investigations on small isolated Tuscan communities which are assumed to have changed little over the millennia (i.e. Murlo in Tuscany, Italy). The Murlo study suggests that the isolated community in Tuscany has unusual and distinctive genetic ties to the Near East. Another source of genetic evidence comes from investigations of cattle breeds in Tuscany. There are four very ancient cattle breeds found in Tuscany. Mitochondrial DNA studies of these ancient breeds, also indicate connections to breeds in the Near East while all other Italian breeds are from northern Europe.
Could the Etruscans have been a mountain folk a Rhaetian speaking culture from the Eastern Alps or central Europe who at some time prior to @ 900 BC migrated to northern Italy? The Italian Alps especially in its eastern districts are renowned as a region where copper metal was widely exploited since prehistory. Widespread and abundant occurrence of copper smelting sites and slag heaps are found in the Alps and are dated to the tail end of the Bronze Age. (See Artioli G, et al; “Eneolithic copper smelting slags in the eastern Alps”, Jour Arch Sci vol 63/ Nov2015, pp 78-83).
Perhaps Rhaetian speakers from the late Bronze Age, carrying with them the tools, traditions, knowledge and skills of Alpine copper mining, smelting and metallurgy migrated, not from distant Lydia, but from the near-by eastern Alps into the Apennines. The distance from copper mining regions in the eastern Alps and the early Etruscan site of Populonia in western Etruria is only some 330 miles ( 528 km ), one in which a band of a pedestrians could complete in a fortnight (14 days (@ 24miles per day).
These Rhaetian speaking, copper miners may have emigrated from the Alps and entered into the Po valley, seeking mineral resources, woodlands (for essential smelting fuel) and conditions similar to their homeland. Crossing the Po Valley they could have proceeded into familiar mountainous territory as they entered northwestern Italy. There in the area that would become Etruria, they came upon a “ promised land” with rich sources of various mineral ores, especially among the Colline Metallifere of Tuscany where rich deposits of copper, iron, lead and silver ores were widespread. There too, were rich soils gentle slopes, with abundant water, and excellent prospects for profitable agriculture. Furthermore, this region had extensive forests, necessary for smelting ores that were mined there. It must have been clear to these immigrants that mining and smelting metals could be profitably pursued in this region.
Furthermore, bordering the mountains on the west, the Alpine immigrants came to the Tyrrhenian Sea, where an extensive and accessible shoreline gave access to the wider Mediterranean. This opened the prospects of foreign trade and interaction with other cultures. And with trade would come the more intimate exposure and stimulation of new ideas and technology arising from contact with peoples from foreign shores.
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Based on what we know of the early Etruscans we can assume that by the 8th C BC they were already highly accomplished masters of bronze metallurgy. That seems likely for a group of people who may have had long experience as miners and metallurgists. In Etruria there were excellent areas to work their trading, mining and smelting crafts in copper and bronze metallurgy and later in iron mining, smelting and trading.
The Etruscan hilltop site at Populonia on the southern coast of Etruria was one of the most important iron metalworking sites in the Mediterranean, due to the near-by rich iron ore deposits on Elba Island. In a 2005 study, archeologists investigated deposits of smelter slag on the beach near Populonia, in southern Tuscany which revealed a sequence of stratified slag wastes. At the base of the sequence, only copper smelting slag occurs. This copper slag is overlain by iron smelting slag higher up in the layered deposits. Radiocarbon dating of carbon fragments in these deposits indicate that the shift from copper to iron smelting took place between the 8th and early 6th century BC.
Other studies have demonstrated that before iron, copper was smelted at this site, between the 9th and 8th century BC. (See: “Copper Metallurgy in Ancient Etruria at Bronze AgeTransition etc., by Chirarantini, L. et al. Journ Arch Sci Rpts vol.19, 6/2018, pg 11-23). (This tends to support the idea of immigrant Rheatian speaking copper miners from easter Alps) . The authors demonstrate, by use of lead isotope analysis that there is no evidence that early Etruscans used local (Elban or Tuscan) copper ores, since the copper slags from smelting operations at Populonia display a “foreign Pb (lead) signature” apparently the ancient Etruscans in Populonia were at first involved initially in metal trading for copper with other regions. This study suggests that only later did they begin mining copper (and other metals) on Elba and elsewhere.
It is well established that by the 6th century BC Etruscans were actively trading “bloomery” iron and iron bars originating on Elba Island, to regions all over the Mediterranean as well as in central and northern Europe.
This Greek “diaspora” and colonization began in the early Iron Age and intensified in the 8th C BC. It led to establishment of Greek colonies along the shores of much of the Black Sea, and many colonies in the Mediterranean basin. Greek colonization of many areas of the Mediterranean around 900-700 BC, was probably due to the limited areas for agriculture in the Greek homeland. Overcrowding, scarce food, limited land and easy acess to marine transport encouraged colonization of other lands. But as producers of ceramics, bronze as well as artisans and traders the Greeks were in constant need for timber (for fuel) and metal resources.
In the 8th C BC Greek settlers from the island of Euboea (off the eastern coast of mainland Greece) established the colony of Cumae in Italy, on the Tyrrhenian west coast, near modern day Naples in Campania. In @ 600 BC Greeks from Phocaea, an Ionian Island, off the coast of modern day Turkey (Anatolia), founded Massalia (Marseilles, in France), and also founded Emporion (575BC) just north of modern-day Barcelona in Spain.
Thus from at least @700 BC the Etruscans were trading with and interacting with Greeks, who they came in contact with all through their many Mediterranean colonies as well as Greek-established smaller “emporia” or trade markets founded in the Tyrrhenian Sea, on Corsica and Sardinia, on Ischia and most importantly with the colony of Cumae on the Italian mainland.
The cultural impact of this trade and interaction with Greek traders had great influences on the Etruscans. One example of this was the adaptation of the Euboean Greek alphabet by the Etruscans to write their language. The earliest known example of this is a wax tablet found in Tuscany (Grosseto). The tablet had an Euboean-Greek, 26 letter alphabet (no omega), inscribed around the ivory frame. The tablet was dated to 700BC. So assuming this was a student’s tablet—we can assume that by 700 BC Etruscans must have been literate enough and wealthy enough to have their young students engaged in writing and practicing writing skills with a wax tablet.
Etruria was rich in iron ore. During the Iron Age, mining of iron ores and smelting operations on the island of Elba were legendary. The Greeks famously used the sobriquet “smokey island” ( αιφαλια) for Elba due to the many smelting sites on the island. Mining shafts were very common, and are even today visible. The many smelting sites left vast piles of slag as waste, which are still identifiable today. The other impact was on the island’s forests. The smelting process required a great deal of wood to make charcoal for the smelting furnaces. Elba was eventually practically denuded of forest cover as a result.
Smelting was energy intensive. In the smelting operation local Elba iron ore was crushed to a powder and cleaned of coarse silicate rock. The crushed ore was placed on top of a charge of charcoal in a small barrel size brick “smelter”. Early smelters were low cylinders constructed of heat tolerant stone or brick with openings at the base for entry of air. In most smelters air was forced into the base by hand operated bellows to raise the temperature of the charcoal fire and generate CO2 carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide CO gas. It was the latter gas, CO, which “reduced” the iron oxides to impure frothy iron metal called a “bloom” . When the fuel was burned off and cooled down, the smelter was emptied and the frothy iron was removed.
Bloom iron was impure. It had to be “wrought” or worked to make a usable iron. Bloom iron came from the smelter mixed with non ferrous brittle slag that had be removed by crushing with heavy iron mallets. Crushing helped separate the brittle slag from the malleable iron bloom. When this was accomplished the bloom iron was removed to a forge where it was again heated in a charcoal fire to a high temperature. When red hot and soft, it was folded and hammered together again. This heating and folding over and over again (some claim 15 times) was repeated to create a low carbon iron rod called “wrought iron”.
Such a wrought iron rod could be further heated and hammered or “wrought” into a tool, or weapon, cooking pot or other artifact. Bloomeries such as described above could produce 3-5 kilograms (6 to 10 pounds ) of wrought iron at a time. The wrought iron process of heating and hammering reduced the carbon content of the iron. To make tools or weapons, early metal smiths learned that they could heat the iron in a charcoal fire and then quench it in oil or water. This process added carbon ( @0.002-2%) to the wrought iron and created an outer rind of steel, an alloy of iron and carbon that is harder and stronger than iron. It should be noted that iron smelting required huge amounts of wood and charcoal.
To produce charcoal ancient colliers would enter a forest glade, cut the forest and saw the wood into suitable pieces. The cut wood had to be dried and then stacked. To make charcoal the stacked wood, often assuming the size of a small house, had to be burned with restricted air or “smolder”. To accomplish this, the wood pile had to be carefully sealed and covered with sod or soil to limit air flow. Small air openings were arranged along the base of the pile to control air flow. Finally, the pile was fired. During firing the charcoal pile had to be constantly monitored—perhaps for days— so it would only smolder and not flare up into a conflagration—which would convert the valuable charcoal to useless white ash powder .
Deveareaux, Brett 2020, (“Collections on Wood” https://acoup.blog/2020/09/25/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-ii-trees-for-blooms) estimates that a Roman legion (5,000 men) in the Late Republic might have carried with them as weapons and tools of @ 50 tons of iron. To make that amount of iron would have required mining about 600 tons of ore, smelted with @ 710 tons of charcoal, made from @ 5,000 tons of wood. Or simply to make one ton of iron —you would need 12 tons of ore, 14 tons of charcoal produced from 1000 tons of wood cut from (based on an average NA forest which generates @ 16 cords/or 40 tons of wood) about 25 acres of healthy forest.
Thus it is clear that the Etruscans must have quickly burned up the forests on Elba and then transferred their smelting operations to the mainland.
The Etruscans were especially noted for their production and export of iron, as wrought iron bars, and as manufactured products.. We know that in exchange for the iron (based on objects found in Etruscan tombs) they they imported ivory from Egypt, amber from the Baltic states, and red and black figure Greek vases and pottery. And with this wide trade came powerful cultural influences which added to the sophistication of the Etruscan culture.
In the 5th Century BC Etruscan towns began minting their own gold coins in response to the needs of a nation that required the services of others which whom they were not in a trade relationship…such as other artisans, and various services, as well as payment for soldiers.
So let us give the ancient and talented Etruscans—from wherever they came—the credit for having the ability, the skills, and the energy to develop the first sophisticated and advanced culture in Italy, which set the stage for the emergence of Rome— the cradle of our western civilization …And one wonders…did they “invent” pasta too?
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