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{187} 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 {188} 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, {189} 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 {190} 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). {191} 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, {192} 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 {193} 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 {194} 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 {195} 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, {196} 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 {197} 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 {198} (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 {199} 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) {200} 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 {201} 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 {202} 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 {203} 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 {204} 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 {205} 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 {206} 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 {207} 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:
{208} 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. {209} 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 {210} 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 {211} 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. |
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Etruscan Bologna, A Study Part I. The Works Of Man.
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