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Section IV.

 

Professor Calori.

 

In order to interview the Etruscan, a visit should be paid to the learned anatomist and naturalist Professor Commendatore Luigi Calori, whose published works require no quotation, whilst his kind and genial reception encourages even the profane ‑‑ in the Latin and Italian sense of the word. His study, behind the theatre where he lectures, contains 19 old Etruscan skulls, and he will at once point out their resemblance with the massive and grandiose Roman CALVARIA. The chief points of similarity are the semicircular lines of the temples; the harmony of the zygomatic arches, and the pronounced angular sinus between the nose and the frontal bone; the great development of the superciliary arches; the square, horizontal orbits; the posterior position of the auditory MEATVS; the greater biparietal diameter; the heavy mandible; and, finally, the strong attachments of the muscles. Most of these

 

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crania are dolichocephalic; one is decidedly brachycephalic as a German. The bones vary from the very massive to the remarkably thin, and the first points which struck me were the shortness of the lower bitemporal diameter, the long square face, and the flatness or compression of the parietes, which every traveller remarks in the Bedawin, the flower of the Semitic race. Compared with the valuable series of Umbrians in the Museum of Natural History, and with another assortment not yet prepared for exhibition, the Etruscans assert themselves as the RERVM DOMINI, [Jeff Hill's footnote: the Lords of events] and they give to the VIVIDVS VMBER [Jeff Hill's footnote: full of life Umbrian] the mild aspect of a vassal wanting animal force, the prime requirement of an imperial race.

 

Professor Calori has given a detailed account of 28 skulls in his folio of 169 pages. It is abundantly illustrated by 17 tables, with the skulls reduced throughout the atlas to half lengths and quarter sizes. The lithographs, by C. Bettini, are sightly and artistic. The volume is entitled Della Stirpe che ha popolato l' antica Necropoli alla Certosa di Bologna e delle genti affini: Discorso Storico‑Antropologico: Bologna, tipi Gamberini e Parmeggiani, 1873. Of this magnificent work,

 

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remarkable for its material execution, only 62 copies were printed, at the expense of the City of Bologna; and Doctor Barnard Davis, who was, like myself, fortunate enough to receive a copy, inserted a short notice of it in ANTHROPOLOGIA (number 1, pages 104‑105). Needless to say this édition de luxe should be followed by a popular one.

 

Thirty five pages (pages 28‑62, chapter IV) are allotted to the questions, Chi fossero gli Etruschi, donde, quando e come venissero in Italia? and the answers are peculiarly unsatisfactory. The learned anthropologist examines and rejects the Lydian or Maeonian legend related to Herodotus [Jeff Hill's footnote: related to Herodotus PRO related by Herodotus], concerning the Tyrrheni taking ship at Smyrna. This theory has lately been revived by travels in Lycia, Phrygia, and other parts of Asia Minor; but it relies mainly upon superficial resemblances of dress and ornaments, of games and other customs, and of architecture, and ancient monuments, as the Sardis Mound, the tomb of Porsenna (Chiusi), and the Cucumella of Vulci. Glancing at the Pelasgic origin assigned by Hellanicus Lesbius, he notices at some length the terriginous theory of Dionysios Halicarnassus, the profoundest writer on Italic subjects. The latter, in contradiction to the general consensus of

 

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antiquity, twenty two classical authorities, denies the Lydian legend, because Xanthus, a Greek of Sardis and nearly contemporary with Herodotus, was silent upon the subject; and because the RASENNA [footnote 1: RASNE and RESNE have been found on Etruscan urns (Dennis, I, XXXII). The late Doctor Hincks identified in the Perugian inscription TESNE RASNE with Etruscan land; CEI with and, and TESNTEIS with inhabitants. As yet no Graecoetruscan bilingual inscription has been discovered] of his day do not use the same language as the Lydians, nor do they worship the same Gods, nor resemble them in their manners and customs. But these are negative proofs. Strabo, the contemporary of the Halicarnassian, assures us that the Lydian tongue had died out of Lydia; and we may reasonably conclude that, after distant wanderings, and the Italianisation of a thousand years, the Etruscans might greatly modify, in fact almost change, their faith and their social habits. Nor must we forget that the Etruscans declared consanguinity with Sardis on the ground of an early colonisation of Etruria by the Lydians (Tacitus, ANN., IV, 55). I see, therefore, no reason why we should reject the Lydian origin, or even the derivation of Tyrrhene from Tyrrha, the Lydian Torrha (Müller, Etrusk., Einl., II, 1).

 

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The Professor finds analogies with Egypt, as we might expect from the records of the Tursha invader. The three Etrurian Federations of Twelve Cities suggest that of Lower Egypt, which had Memphis for capital; but this is also found in the Twelve of the Achaean League. He then examines the religion, apparently a pantheistic and polytheistic naturalism, composed of three orders of Gods, one of immortals and the rest mortal. The first were the DII SVPERIORES ET INVOLVTI, the PENE NIHIL of St. Augustine, the primitive Matter (Hebrew, Bohu; Egyptian, Hut), which, uniting with generative force (Ba'al, Amon, or Kem), the NISVS FORMATIVVS, became NATVRA NATVRANS, whence NATVRA NATVRATA. These mysterious deities begat the CONSENTES or COMPLICES ‑‑ so called because they are born and die together ‑‑ the CONCILIARII AC PRINCIPES SUMMI IOVIS. This working committee of Twelve, like the Triad of the Brahmans and the Greeks, and the Duad of the Persians, contained six males and six females, the Saktis symbolising, in the faith of India, Active Energy. Lastly, from these twelve emanate the GENII, whom the Professor compares with the Vishwadevas of the Hindús, and whose action is good (PENATES and LARES), bad (LARVAE), and indifferent (LEMVRES,

 

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LASAE, and MANES or ghosts): they may be reduced to the dualistic form of beneficent and malevolent GENII, superintended by Jove and Vejovis, Hormuzd and Ahriman. Thus he deduces an Egyptophoenician or simply a Phoenician system; and, quoting Seneca, TVSCOS ASIA SIBI VINDICAT, he opines the RASENNA to be Aryans who had adopted a Semitic creed.

 

I would here remark that while the cosmogony of the Etruscans is Asiatic, the vast scheme of their religion, numbering upwards of 200 Gods and supernaturals, connects them with Persia, with India, and even with Greece. Moreover, they appear not to ignore the creative Deity, the Demiurgos of the cosmic system of Genesis. Their AESAR, translated by all classical authorities DEVS, would be the finial of the temple of faith, but the monotheistic element is, as usual in polytheisms, kept out of sight. Speak not of God to the mob, said the Pythagorean; whereas Moses took the Deity out of the hands of the priests, and made the idea the property of the world. I have elsewhere noticed how a notion of unity underlies the idolatry of polytheistic peoples in Asia, and even in savage Africa; and, judging by the analogy of the former

 

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with the civilisation of Egypt and Assyria, Greece and Rome, I have little doubt that it was universal. Here, therefore, despite the professional flavour of the passage, I will not join issue with him who says: We may take comfort in the thought that the Heavenly Father, whom they (the Turanians) ignorantly reverenced, did not leave them without some faint witness of Himself, but dimly guided them to a glimmering knowledge of the Eternal Goodness, and gave them also, in their darkness, the solace of that blessed hope of immortality which is the stay and refuge of the Christian life.'

 

The language is then touched upon, with results as meagre. Our author notices the several theories: the Semitic (Hebrew and Chaldee) of Janelli, Tarquini, and Stickel; the Iberian, or Basque; the Keltiberian; the Keltic (ETRVRIA CELTICA of Sir W. Betham); the Teutonogothic (Bardetti, Durandi, Bruce Whyte, and Doctor Donaldson, in his VARRONIANVS), [footnote 1: he judges it, however, Pelasgian corrupted by Umbrian, and mixed with the oldest Low German (Scandinavian)] and the high German or Gothic of Lord Crawford and Balcarres. The last mentioned author (Etruscan Inscriptions Analysed, Translated, And Commented Upon: Murray, 1873), makes the

 

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sequence Japhetan, Aryan, and Teutonic, and identifies the Tyrrhenoi, not with High Dutch, but with the Tervingi or Visigoths, the Thuringi of central Germany, and the Tyrki of Scandinavia. Furthermore, we have the Slav (Volensky); the Armenian (Robert Ellis, B.D., PERVVIA SCYTHICA, Trübner, 1875); the Sanskrit (Bertani); the Graecoumbrian (Lepsius); the Rhaetoromansch [footnote 1: in the cognate Euganean tongue, whose alphabet is considered the oldest of the three Etrurias by Professor Corssen, and most like the Carthaginian, Count Giovanni of Schio points out the thoroughly Aryan words MI (I), EKA or EKKA (HIC), SUThI (SVM), and CERUS MANUS = CREATOR BONVS, the former from the root Kar, doing or making, the latter recognised as the opposite of the Latin IMMANIS] (Steub, 1843); the Indoeuropean (Prichard); the Archaic Greek (Lori and Lanzi); and, finally, the Aryoitalic (Mommsen, Conestabile, Fabretti, and Corssen, Über die sprache der Etrusker, 2 volumes, Leipzig, 1874), like the Oscan, Umbrian, Euganean, and other rude dialects of the ancient peninsula ‑‑ this theory supports the Italic origin of Dionysios Halicarnassus (Micali). After many modest professions of incompetence, our Professor ends (page 56) with opining that i Fenici were the ancestry of the Etruscans, and he complicates the question by considerations of descent from Ham and Shem, which

 

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are somewhat old fashioned in these days. He also finds the Phoenicians in Sardinia and Sicily, perhaps in Corsica and Illyria; he traces them to western Italy, as at Punicum, in the territory of Agylla, [footnote 1: Mommsen makes Agylla Punic and Semitic. Mr. Isaac Taylor (page 347) wonderfully derives it from Osmanli awlu, a court, and eyl (or il), a country, as in Rum‑Elia, the land of the Rumi] as the Phoenicians called CAERE; in RVSELLAE, from Rosh‑El, head (= land) of God, and in Telamon (Tell‑Amún), the Hill of Ammon. This is far from convincing. Niebuhr says: People feel an extraordinary curiosity to discover the Etruscan language, and adds that he would give a considerable part of his worldly means as a prize if it were discovered; for an entirely new light would then be spread over the ethnography of ancient Italy. The want, I fear, is far from being satisfied.

 

But we may attribute some importance to the general aspect of Etruscan civilisation, its immense superiority to that of the peninsula generally, and its difference, not only in degree, but in kind, from the social condition of the old Italic races. Their cosmogony is evidently Genesitic; while their zodiac and their astronomy, which could fix the tropical year at 365 days 5 hours 40 minutes, and their architecture,

 

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especially the Doric, which we know to be Egyptian; the winged Goddess; the modified sphinx, the eagle banner, and a host of other NILOTICA, must have come, not from Italy, then barbarous, but from civilized Mizraim or Chaldaea.

 

For the date of the Etruscan emigration we have the suggestion, that it might have begun about the seventeenth century BC, when Semiramis, the Imperatrice di molte favelle, had overrun the so called Holy Land, Egypt, and Ethiopia (BC 1975). The incursions of Joshua, son of Nun, into Canaan (BC 1451) may also, as legend informs us, have tended to scatter other Tyrian and Sidonian colonies over the western world.

 

Professor Calori declares (page 64) that the anthropologist must not found his theories upon legend and language; he studies the crania and the skeletons of extinct races, and thus he raises his own edifice with a secondary regard for history and linguistic deductions. Our anthropologist supports, on the whole, Professor Nicolucci's Phoenician type of Etruscan craniology, for which that distinguished student supplies some points of resemblance. Yet he hesitates to pronounce an opinion, remembering that the race was probably anything

 

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but pure at the time when it left its Asiatic home; in fact, he does not, after the fashion of certain other writers, offer himself as Oedipus to the Etruscan sphinx.

 

We now come to the most valuable part of the volume (pages 65 to 161), the technical description and comparison of the skulls, Umbrian, [footnote 1: Doctor Paul Broca prefers les Ombres (Umbrians) for the ancient, opposed to les Ombriens, the modern races, of Umbria] Etruscan, and Felsinean (from the Certosa), which are compared with those of many other races, Phoenician, Jewish, Keltic, and modern ‑‑ unhappily the Boii or Lingones are absent. The dichotomic classification of Retzius is adopted. Crania with a cephalic index of 80 and more are brachycephalic, below 80 they are dolichocephalic; [footnote 2: Doctor J. Barnard Davis (THESAVRVS, XV) says: Where the breadth is to the length in proportion of 0∙80 or more to 1∙00, the skull is placed in the brachycephalic category; where it is below that proportion, or less than 0∙80 to 1∙00, in the dolichocephalic. I have retained the learned author's three terms ‑‑ CRANIVM, for the whole skull and face; CALVARIVM, wanting the lower jaw; and CALVARIA, where only the vault of the skull, the cap or calotte, is in question; but I hesitate to adopt the letters, for example, A (internal capacity), B (circumference), C (frontooccipital arch), and the great many others] and the various subdivisions, as orthocephalic or transitional, mesati or mesocephalic, sub dolichocephalic, and sub brachycephalic are ignored, except in the concluding remarks

 

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(number 5). The cranial capacity is measured as usual by sand, when the CRANIVM permits; in other cases the Professor uses the rule of Broca and Beltrami: Multiply the three axial diameters of the ellipsoid, and divide by 19/45. The relations of preauricular to postauricular are obtained in two ways: 1st, divide the horizontal circumference by the biauricular arch; 2nd, divide by the same arch the frontooccipital curve, and measure the proportions in front and behind it; or, better still, the whole vertical circumference, dividing it by the chord which is the base of that arch ‑‑ in other words, by the transversal biauricular diameter.

 

I. Professor Calori begins with the Umbrians, of whom he had collated 15 pure specimens in the Anthropological Museum from the Contado di Camerino, where the Etruscans are supposed not to have penetrated; and where the Romans did not rule till the decadence of Etruria: he compares them with a much larger number, the modern descendants of Umbria and the Marches, not including Ancona which is Greek. The proportions of the long are 8 to 7 short heads or 53 percent: this figure is notably different from the actual inhabitants, who show 29‑30 : 100. He describes and figures five

 

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skulls (numbers 1‑5, plates I‑III), one CRANIVM and four CALVARIA, almost all deficient in some part.

 

(a) The old dolichocephalic Umbrian has a mean cephalic index of 75∙07, which in the Roman becomes 77∙70. The average cranial capacity is 1,375 cubic centimetre (= 83∙914 cubic inches), which attains 1,558 cubic centimetres (= 95∙082 cubic inches) in the Roman, and 1,506 cubic centimetres (= 91∙908 cubic inches) in the Kelt. The latter shows a marked difference from the former; he is not only more dolichocephalic, but also, like the Keltiberian, he is parietooccipital, instead of being parietofrontal. Amongst the 19 Umbrians the postauricular form prevails over the preauricular, and the preauricular is more highly developed horizontally than vertically. (Numbers 1‑2, Tables I‑II). The sutures are pervious: the NORMA VERTICALIS is either oval or elliptic. The NORMA LATERALIS or profile (mean facial ankle 79°) shows a straight and moderate forehead with the TVBERA FRONTALIA [footnote 1: in many west African skulls, especially at Dahome, I remarked the absence of the TVBERA FRONTALIA, or rather their conversion into a TVBER FRONTALE, a central boss, whose sides sloped regularly away in all directions. This form is most common in women, and it gives the face a peculiarly naive and childish expression, the reverse of intellectual] and the nasal sinus tolerably well marked; the arch is regular, the occiput prominent, and one (number 3)

 

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has a large fontanelle; the zygomatic arches are of middling strength and curve, the anterior nasal spine is well developed, and there is a slight alveolar prognathism. The NORMA FACIALIS (front view) shows a fine broad brow, a large GLABELLA, quadrangular orbits, horizontal or oblique, and the general squareness of the old Italic skulls, especially inherited by that QVID NOVVM the improved Roman. We see this in the statues of the Emperors, and we can hardly wonder at it when we remember the origin of the LVCERES (Tuscoumbri). The NORMA BASILARIS (or OCCIPITALIS) gives a well developed occipital crest and semicircular lines, whilst the FORAMEN is central.

 

(b) The brachycephalic Umbrian skull (plate III) is described as esquisitamente bello: cephalic index 81∙79, thus not very short; average cranial capacity only 1,409 cubic centimetres (= 85∙987 cubic inches); postauricular equally developed horizontally and vertically, whilst the preauricular preponderates in the former direction ‑‑ hence the brachycephalic is less preauricular than the dolichocephalic. The sutures are mostly open and the vertex is oval; the profile (facial angle 80°) is elegant, and in one most elegant; the forehead is straight, with strongly marked sinuses, and

 

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is rather high than otherwise. The ZYGOMATA are moderate: orbits horizontal, squarer and somewhat smaller than in the dolichocephalic; nose not prominent, occipital tubercle hardly marked, and FORAMEN posterior; there is a slight alveolar prognathism, with perpendicular teeth. Finally, the Professor notes the essential differences between the brachycephalic Umbrian and the Ligurian (plate CIII).

 

II. Of the central Etruscan skulls (9), five are described and figured (numbers 6‑11, plates IV‑VII). In these dolichocephalism is more common than amongst the Umbrians; Nicolucci gives 37 : 100; Zanetti 23 : 100; and Calori somewhat reduces the latter figure.

 

(a) Of the three dolichocephalic, the average cephalic index is 75∙63, which Nicolucci marks 76∙08. It is thus a medium between the Umbrians (75∙07), and the Romans (77∙70). The cranial capacity is (mean) 1,1375 cubic centimetres; in three specimens (numbers 6,7 and 8) it rises to 1,629 cubic centimetres (= 99∙415 cubic inches), the Umbrian being 1,375 and the Roman 1,558; the maximum is large and almost equal to the Keltic. The postauricular constantly prevails. Sutures all pervious and wanting Wormian bones. Vertex ovoid, and in one there is a slight CARENA bisecting the brow. The

 

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profile has a facial angle averaging 75∙50º. Forehead almost straight or slightly oblique, generally somewhat depressed and compressed; temples flat, and lower part of brow narrow; orbits now square, then circular, here horizontal, there oblique; face longer than in the Umbrians and notably broader in correspondence with the ZYGOMATA; nasal bones suggesting aquilinity, and chin various.

 

This type is pronounced to be different from all the Italic crania, Ligurians, Pelasgians, Oscans, Umbrians, and Romans. It cannot be compared with the old Egyptians (17 specimens), with the Helvetians, or with the modern Italian Jews (6 specimens). The latter are much more dolichocephalic; they are larger, and the face is long, whilst that of the Etruscan is broad. There are certain points of resemblance with the modern Sards (22 specimens), supposed to be Phoenicians, such as the proportions of the preauriculars to the postauriculars, the cranial arch, and the frontal height. This latter approaches the Egyptians and Phoenicians, but it is very different from the Jews. The Phoenician analogies, whom the Professor will call Hamitosemites, are given with considerable detail (pages 111‑121). He cannot say that the dolichocephalic Etruscan is either a

 

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Semite or a Phoenician, but the NESCIO QVID of the expert suggests Egyptophoenician. In conversation, Professor Calori also compared them with the Carthaginianised Sards, especially the modern skulls dating from the last three centuries.

 

(b) Of the brachycephalic central Etruscan only two skulls are given (numbers 10 and 11; plates VII, VIII). They appear larger than those of the ancient Umbrians, and best agree with the old Ligurians -- cephalic index 80∙67, and cranial capacity 1,479 cubic centimetres (= 90∙026 cubic inches); in the Umbrians 1,409, and in the Ligurians 1,461. The vertex is ovoid, but, like the dolichocephalics, it is anteriorly narrower than in the Ligurian. The profile (facial angle 75∙50°) gives well expressed circular lines of temple, deep fosses, and strong zygomatic arches with the ZYGOMATA turned outwards. The forehead is straight, rather low, broad above and narrow below, like II (a); it has a sign of the longitudinal CARENA, and the sinuses are better marked than the TVBERA FRONTALIA; the orbits are small, horizontal, and deep, rather square than round. The peculiarity of one mandible (number 11*, plate VIII) is the wearing down of the teeth, which has been noticed in several others: the corona is not shortened, as amongst the Guanches of Tenerife, by eating

 

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parched grain; it is reduced to two large cutting cuspides, in saddleback form. [Footnote 1: Doctor Paul Broca gives the indicial differences of the nine Etruscans Proper as ‑‑ The maximum, 81∙01 : 100; the minimum, 70∙41; and a mean difference of 10∙60.]

 

III. The Certosa find, where, out of 365 FVNERALIA, 250 affected inhumation, appears more important than it proved to be. The damp, the superincumbent weight of earth, and the long inhumation of 20 centuries had rendered all the Felsinean crania useless except 16 (a total of 40), and of this poor number only one was perfect. The Necropolis, however, served to establish the average stature of the race; the men measured 1∙75 metre (= 5 feet 8∙90 inches) and the women 1∙58 metre (= 5 feet 2∙20 inches). Certain analogies with the negro and the prehistoric man were shown by the latter; as the proportional length of the forearm to the whole arm, and the thigh to the leg, together with a higher degree of prognathism. The elliptical perforation of the supratrochlear fosses, which appeared to be congenital, and not the effect of MARASMVS SENILIS, also suggested Africa, whilst the acinaciform (en lame de sabre) TIBIAE, laterally compressed and acute at the edges, are familiar in the prehistoric [footnote 2: Doctor Paul Broca, reviewing Calori and Conestabile (Ethogénie Italienne: Les Ombres et les Etrusques, pages 289‑297, volume III, Revue d' Anthropologie), separates Prehistoric (unknown) from Protohistoric (legendary) and from Historic (written): the latter in its positive form began with BC 500 in Greece, with BC 300 in southern and central Italy ‑‑ famed for protohistory ‑‑ and with AD 300 in northern Europe] skeletons of

 

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the oldest types. Only two of the 250 showed the frontal sutures so common in the Umbrian and the Marzabotto skulls: in modern crania they average 7‑10 percent. Of the 16 a proportion of 45 : 100 were brachycephalic ‑‑ Nicolucci at Marzabotto proposes the figures 46∙65 : 100.

 

(a) The eight dolichocephalic Felsineans (numbers 14‑21, plates X‑XIV) unite the characteristics of the Umbrians, Etruscans, and Romans. In the six males the cephalic index averages 77∙33, in the five females 77∙28, giving an average for both sexes of 77∙30½; thus they are less in length than the Umbrians and Etruscans, much less than the Kelts, and corresponding with the Romans (77∙70). The average cranial capacity of both sexes is 1,344 cubic centimetres (= 82∙022 cubic inches), of the men 1,560 (= 95∙204 cubic inches), a figure superior to the dolichocephalic Etruscans and Kelts, and equal to the Romans. The postauricular predominates in 84 percent. In two specimens the bones are so thick as to suggest hyperostosis. The ovoid skulls appear anteriorly narrow on account of the

 

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great posterior breadth, yet they are wider than the Umbrians, Etruscans, and Kelts, and correspond with the Romans; the bimastoid diameter dives greater breadth than the Umbrians, and excels the Etruscans and Romans. The profile (facial angle 76∙25°) shows an arch more or less pronounced; some are flat, [footnote 1: the traveller, however innocent of craniology, cannot fail to remark that races in the lower, if not the lowest, stages of society ‑‑ for instance, the so called Red Man of North America ‑‑ have the upper part of the skull most level; it is also a marked feature in the pure negro of central intertropical Africa. The CACVMEN at the apex of the CRANIVM is highly developed in the Bedawin, a race of no education but of much culture] and one has the CACVMEN rising to the phrenologist's region of firmness, often noticed in Piedmontese skulls. Forehead not high; occiput projecting, and tubercle well developed; GLABELLA larger than in Etruscan; temporal FOSSAE rather deep, and ZYGOMATA turned out; auditory MEATVS central; orbits straight, round, or oval, and nose Etruscan. The teeth are fine, somewhat large, and all more or less worn. The occipital FORAMEN is central or posterior. Thus the Felsinean dolichocephalics of the Certosa show a considerable Italic and Etruscan innervation.

 

(b) The six brachycephalic Felsineans (numbers 22‑28, plates XV‑XVII) are mostly of fine proportions. The

 

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average cephalic index is 83∙21; the mean cranial capacity 1,487 cubic centimetres (= 90∙749 cubic inches). The postauricular prevails as 84∙70 percent, the occiput showing a pronounced tubercle. The ovoid is more or less short and broad, in one case almost an ellipsis. The forehead (facial angle 75∙50°), straight or oblique, is modcrately high; the MEATVS AVDITORIVS is central; the orbits are rather horizontal and circular; the nose is gently curved, and the mandible is robust, with fine large and vertical teeth. The facial region is elongated. The occipital FORAMEN is less central than in the dolichocephalics.

 

Thus the Felsineans are the least dolichocephalic of the three races, the cephalic index averaging 79∙35; the Umbrians 78∙21, and the Etruscans 76∙22: whilst the maximum is 86∙36, and the minimum is 75∙00 ‑‑ an extreme difference of only 11∙36. In cranial capacity, 1,464 cubic centimetres (89∙345 cubic inches) they stand between the Umbrians (1,356 cubic centimetres = 84∙385 cubic inches) and the Etruscans (1,481 cubic centimetres = 90∙383 cubic inches). Assuming 100 as the postauricular unity in both directions, the relative preauricular proportions are expressed by the following numbers:

 

Horizontal.

Felsinean Skulls.

Etruscan Skulls.

Umbrian Skulls.

90∙68

95∙17

90∙71

Vertical.

84∙89

89∙26

85∙18

 

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Thus the postauricular, which invariably preponderates, is less in the Etruscans, whilst the Felsineans and Umbrians, although the circumference differs in both, show nearly equal proportions. The Felsineans, compared with a hundred modern Bolognese skulls, are in some points remarkably similar; the difference of the cranial capacity (Felsinean 1,464, and Bolognese 1,475) is only 11 cubic centimetres. The Bolognese is shorter and broader, his postauricular being 264 to 262 millimetres 10∙3937 to 10∙3149 inches) of preauricular, figures which in the Felsineans are 279 and 253 (= 10∙9842 to 9∙9606). The general conclusions which Professor Calori draws from his minute craniological observations, of which this is the merest sketch, are the following: ‑‑

 

1. The old necropolis alla Certosa is that of the Lucumonian City ‑‑ Etruscan FELSINA. It probably continued to be the Felsineoetruscan cemetery after the Boian invasion, and, as the uncial AS seems to prove, it served till the end of the sixth century of Rome. There is no proof of any Boian element having entered it.

 

2. FELSINA was first an Umbrian and afterwards an Etruscan city; its population was composed of Umbrians, or rather Italic peoples, of Etruscans, and of other races in minor proportions.

 

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3. The Italic tree, of whom the Umbrians were an important offshoot, is a branch of the Italogrecian stem ‑‑ in one word, Aryan.

 

4. On the other hand, we cannot with equal certainty define, either by history, by monumental remains, or by anthropological science, the origin of the Etruscans, or determine whether they were Aryans or Semites, or a mixture of both, or Aryans and Hamites, or Hamiticosemites. Fourteen centuries before our era we find them, leagued with the Lycians and other Mediterraneans, battling with the Pharaoh on the left bank of the Nile; and we see them in remote ages the most civilised and powerful of the Etruscan peoples. Beyond that, our view is limited by the glooms of the past.

 

5. The Umbrian and Etruscan skulls show an intermediate or transitional rather than a pure dolichocephalism, and the long is more common than the short head; whilst brachycephalism is more frequent amongst the Umbrians than amongst the Etruscans.

 

6. In the Umbrian and the Etruscan dolichocephalic skulls the latter are distinguished by a superior cranial capacity, by a somewhat longer form, by less disproportion between the preauricular

 

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and the postauricular halves, by increased length of face, by more frequent prognathism, and, finally, by greater disproportion between the transverse diameter of the lower frontal and the interzygomatic lines ‑‑ peculiarities which make the true Etruscan skull a well marked type.

 

7. In the Umbrian and Etruscan brachycephalic skulls there are also distinctions: the former especially cannot be confounded with the Ligurian; they appear to belong to another root (stirpe); perhaps to the Illyrian, the Albanese, or the Epiroticopelasgian.

 

8. In the Certosa skulls we also find more frequent brachycephalism, nearly in the same ratio observed amongst the Umbrians, and an intermediate dolichocephalism neither decidedly Umbrian nor decidedly Etruscan, but, as in the case of mixed races generally, sharing the peculiarities of both peoples.

 

9. The brachycephalic Felsineans may have been mixed with the Ligurians, but the proportions in that case were small; the greater number points, like the Umbrians, to another root, or, perhaps, to several different roots.

 

10. We have no data to determine whether the

 

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Boians, Lingonians, and Keltic Gauls were dolichocephalic or brachycephalic; and, supposing that they modified the Felsineans, we can hardly conjecture what that modification may have been.

 

11. Finally, the modern Bolognese skulls are more frequently brachycephalic, and show a much greater preauricular development than the old Felsineans.



Etruscan Bologna, A Study

Contents

    Introduction
    Preface
Part I. The Works Of Man.
  1. New Bologna
  2. Old Bologna
  3. Public Collections Of Etruscan Antiquities At Bologna
  4. Private Collections, Especially The Villanova
Part II. The Abodes Of Man.
  1. Various Finds
  2. Further Afield, The Certosa And Casalecchi
  3. To Marzabotto, Misanello, And Misano
  4. Conclusions
Part III. The Etruscan Man.
  1. The Etruscan Man
  2. The Etruscan Man (Continued)
  3. Craniology
  4. Professor Calori
  5. The Etruscan Language
  6. Inscriptions
  7. Modern Bolognese Tongue

    Appendix
    Index