Expertlatin
- Has any native Etruscan literature survived?
- Can we read Etruscan writing?
- Why can't we translate Etruscan?
- Has Etruscan been deciphered?
Has any native Etruscan literature survived?
We have no surviving histories or literature in Etruscan, and the only extant writing that can be considered a text, as opposed to an inscription, was painted in ink on linen, preserved through the fortuitous reuse of the linen as wrappings for an Egyptian mummy now in Zagreb.
Can we read Etruscan writing?
Yet contrary to popular belief, we can—and do—read and understand Etruscan. Our knowledge is constrained only by the limited nature of the surviving inscriptions: we have tomb markers and votive dedications, cryptic calendars and incantations, but no diaries or literature.
Why can't we translate Etruscan?
The problem is that that very few Etruscan texts survived the Roman conquest and we don't have a “Rosetta stone” that can help us translate them, Posth notes. What we do know is that the Etruscans used an alphabet that derived from the Greek one, but spoke a language that was most likely not Indo-European.
Has Etruscan been deciphered?
Despite many attempts at decipherment and some claims of success, the Etruscan records still defy translation.
