Etruscans: Brilliant Ancient Civilization, Mysterious to Scientists

Thanks to archeology experts have painted a brilliant portrait of Etruscan civilization.

For several centuries, from the Iron Age to the Roman conquest, the Etruscans dominated parts of present-day Italy. It was in Veii, one of their most powerful cities, that the legendary terracotta Apollo was built by its inhabitants around the 6th century BC.

 The Etruscans were one of the most successful populations in the ancient Mediterranean.

The Etruscans were a major civilization of the pre-Roman Mediterranean. Appeared in the Iron Age, in the 9th - 8th centuries BC. This culture was famous from time immemorial for its rich mineral resources and was a major trading power of the Mediterranean.

Much of its culture and even its history was either wiped out or assimilated into the culture by Rome when it conquered the countries.

However, the surviving Etruscan tombs, the content of the murals, and the Roman use of certain Etruscan costumes, religious practices, and architecture are convincing evidence of prosperity. enormous and contributed significantly to the Mediterranean culture achieved by the first great Etruscan civilization of Italy.

However, this ancient historical civilization was forgotten. The origin of Etruscan culture is a subject of endless debate. Since Antiquity, some have suggested that this people originated outside the peninsula.

Accordingly, the Greek historian Hellanicos of Lesbos, in the 5th century BC, reported seeing Etruscans in the East. While, Herodotus - the "father of history" - at the same time estimates that it may have been Lydian settlers from southwest of present-day Turkey.

Only Dionysius of Halicarnassus of Greece, in the 1st century BC, considered the Etruscans as a locally evolved population. This hypothesis seems to have been confirmed by the most recent genetic analyses.

In 2021, a genomic analysis covering 2000 years of Italy's history involving Tuscany, Basilicata and Lazio was performed on 82 individuals collected from 12 archaeological sites.

 Terracotta sarcophagus "Etruscan husband and wife Sarcophagus" late 6th century BC

It has been established that during the Iron Age (from 900 BC), the Etruscan populations of Central Italy were self-originating and formed a homogeneous genetic group.

These results suggest that the Etruscans did indeed carry a common genetic profile with other neighboring contemporary populations such as the Latinos of Rome.

Director of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Jena, Germany - Johannes Krause concluded about the origin of the study: "Contrary to some theories, the Etruscan gene pool does not appear to have originated with the movement of humans. populations originating from the Near East".

This means that the genetic heritage of the Etruscans remained stable for at least 800 years, from the Iron Age to the Roman Republic. Thus, the Etruscans were a population that simply evolved in situ, descended from the Villanovians, a people of the Bronze Age that preceded them. To date, there is still no definitive study of the origin of the Etruscan civilization.