Third Millennium

The purpose of the Magliano disc can scarcely be determined any better than for the Phaistos disc, but specialists think that they recognise the names of some Etruscan gods within the spiral inscription. [3] This has prompted suggestions that both artefacts might have had a religious motive, perhaps a prayer. But look at the practical calendar on your own wall and you will see days and months named for ancient Roman and Germanic gods (i.e.: Monday = ‘moon day’, Friday = ‘Freya day’, etc). Other calendrical interpretations would compare Etruscan divination to their astrological beliefs and those of the Minoans. [4]

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The belief that the Etruscans originally came from Anatolia is as old as the Romans and many more recent specialists have also proposed connections with Asia Minor, especially with the Lydians and their neighbours, the Lycians. In the 1950s Michael Ventris (who deciphered the Cretan Linear B script) made a case that Linear B was Etruscan, before it became clear that it was an archaic form of Greek. More convincing is the relationship between the Etruscan and Greek alphabets; specialists can read how the words were pronounced by analogy with Greek, but their meaning cannot be understood save for a few proper names and numbers.

Links between the Etruscans and the islands off the Aegean coast of Anatolia were first suggested in a legend recorded by Herodotus  who was a native of Halicarnassus on the coast of Asia Minor: the region of Lydia. [5] The story recalls Tyrrhenus the son of King Atys of Lydia. In the reign of Atys there occurred a prolonged famine; and so, after eighteen years of starvation the king decreed that half the population must emigrate in search of better prospects. This reference to a precise eighteen-years is a typical example of a ‘mythological fossil’ that betrays a real event; a fictional storyteller has no need to state a precise period. It is the present author’s method to seek-out these ‘fossils’ together with coincidences between unrelated historical and mythological sources.

Herodotus says that the Lydians drew lots to decide who should remain and who should emigrate along with Tyrrhenus; ships were built, and the colonists set sail. After passing many other countries, they eventually settled in the region of Umbria, in central Italy, where they changed their name to Tyrrhenians after their eponymous leader. We cannot know precisely when these supposed events occurred, but a loose date in the late second millennium BC is generally assumed.

This story raises the possibility that other wandering Bronze Age colonists may have settled elsewhere in the Mediterranean and beyond. Perhaps other sea-faring Greek and Aegean nations embarked on similar migrations in their desperation, just as we see economic migrants in modern times. We may note other timeless famine stories such as the Biblical Joseph and the Egyptian Ipuwer Papyrus (first intermediate period c.2100 BC) as examples of ancient famine catastrophes; with other possible climatic fluctuations at the second and third intermediate periods; and even as far back as the mid-Neolithic. There may have been numerous ancient famines, triggering migrations, which the repetition of similar-sounding elements has merged into a single narrative; such is the nature of oral myths and legends.

Herodotus did not assert that all the Etruscans of his own era were descended from the colony of Tyrrhenus, merely that their heirs still lived there. Recent DNA studies would suggest that only some isolated communities in modern Umbria could claim descent from the Etruscans. Specialists would prefer that the migration, if true, occurred during the Neolithic around 5,000 years ago, or earlier, when other migrations from Anatolia to the west occurred. [6] Could Herodotus be recalling a legend quite as old as that? If so, then it overlaps the period of High Minoan maritime culture that dominated the Aegean islands and coasts, before it was devastated by the Thera eruption around 1645 BC. Perhaps the wandering Tyrrhenians took the idea of the spiral disc with them to their new homeland?

We must also rely upon Herodotus with regard to other timeless migration legends; he tells us of a colony of Cretans at Miletus on the Anatolian coast that dates from the era when King Minos expelled his brother Sarpedon from Crete (a legend of uncertain date but loosely sometime in the late third Millennium BC). Again, this would suggest a close relationship between the Lydians and the Minoans. The language of their Anatolian neighbours the Lycians is also believed to have belonged to the Luwian Group and only distantly related to Hittite. Herodotus also confirms that the Minoans were not Greeks:

"The Lycians came originally from Crete, which in ancient times was occupied entirely by non-Greek peoples."    [7]

We are also told that the Lycians took their mother’s name and operated an apparently matrilinear, or even matriarchal system of inheritance. Herodotus says that in some customs they resembled the Cretans, but in other ways they were more like the Carians. Of other west-Anatolian nations, the Carians and the Caunians, Herodotus cites their own beliefs that they too came from Crete.  The language of the Carians was also related to the extinct Luwian group. Therefore, any of these lost Anatolian languages might be the non-Greek script that is represented as a unique ‘printed font’ on the indecipherable Phaistos disc. The linguistic evidence remains inadequate so we still cannot rule-out a native non-Indo-European origin for the Cretans.

The customs of the Lydians, as Herodotus describes them, do indeed stand comparison with those of the Etruscans, most notably the free social conduct of the women. Herodotus describes the liberty enjoyed by Lydian women, who were free to associate and choose their husbands. Etruscan women retained a similar independence, in contrast to later Roman marriage customs. Unlike Roman women they could attend public functions as the equals of their husbands; they could own property and were educated. This equality of status between the sexes seems to have been a characteristic of many indigenous Mediterranean cultures, including the Minoans. Indeed, we may note a parity of roles, even outright matriarchy, among descriptions of ancient Libyan and Egyptian women; and of course, on the island of Malta. This contrasts with the warlike male-dominated cultures of the Latins, Greeks, Celts and other nations further north, whom we may consider as Indo-European intruders from the Steppes.

In 2007 two DNA studies revealed that some people living in the Umbrian region of Italy do indeed show evidence of an Aegean origin: specifically, from the island of Lemnos. The correspondence was most prominent in the mitochondrial DNA of the female line. [8] [9] If this may be considered as evidence in support of the migration of Tyrrhenus then we should have to view the ancient kingdom of Atys and his ‘Lydians’ (or ‘Meiones’ as they were formerly called) as extending further north along the coast of Anatolia - perhaps even as far as the traditional site of Troy at the entrance to the Dardanelles. During the Hittite era the kingdom was known as Arzawa and may have held political authority over nearby islands such as Lemnos.

The influence of later Greek and Carthaginian colonies in the south of Italy is well known from the historical settlements that began in the Etruscan era and survived until the Roman expansion. It may be that this has disguised earlier immigration by closely related Aegean peoples. The DNA relationship would suggest a link with the older inhabitants of Greece and the Aegean: the Minoans, Trojans, Pelasgians and the Anatolian groups, rather than the Indo-European Dorians and Achaeans who arrived later to the mainland. The Etruscans and the Minoans even look remarkably alike in their facial features and hairstyle, as we may see in their colourful painted frescos.

The Etruscan myths of origin remain obscure because their scripts cannot be deciphered – but those of their Roman neighbours are well known. A new theory gaining acceptance is that the Latins were related to the Trojans. [10] The Latin tribes seem to have been already established in Italy contemporary with the Etruscans and this is certainly what the familiar traditions suggest. In brief, these relate that Aeneas the Trojan fled to Italy after the Trojan War where he married the daughter of the local king Latinus. How many Trojans accompanied Aeneas is unclear; his son Ascanius went on to establish the city of Alba Longa where, several generations later were born Romulus and Remus: the legendary founders of Rome. The traditional date for the foundation of Rome is placed at 753 BC – and almost immediately they found themselves at war with the Etruscan cities. For a long period up to 510 BC Rome was ruled by Etruscan kings.

We may consider the migration of the Tyrrhenian colony to Umbria as an example of an invasion, since they established a flourishing kingdom of city-states in central Italy, retaining their culture and displacing or absorbing the local inhabitants.  Although archaeologists might prefer that the Etruscans were a native non-Indo-European nation, the legend implies a substantial immigrant population influx added to the mix.

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By contrast, the legends of Roman origin are best viewed as an immigration by a small Trojan elite who merged with the Latins, influencing their culture and language but leaving little trace in the DNA. At this distance in time, it is difficult to distinguish what was native Latin and what might have been Trojan. The later fusion with the Etruscans has blurred this relationship still further and we cannot now be sure how much of Roman culture and religion was borrowed from the Etruscans; certainly, they influenced the alphabet and numerals that we use today. Ultimately, both cultures are Aegean in inspiration, from their art through to their mythology.

Little is known about the workings of the Etruscan calendar save for its use in divination, but we do know that it influenced the development of the Roman calendar. It was an Etruscan king of Rome: Tarquinius Priscus who established the so-called ‘Republican Calendar’; another Etruscan king had wanted to move the start of the year to midwinter but after he was overthrown the idea was forgotten – until Caesar’s reform. The first Roman calendar supposedly introduced by Romulus himself had consisted of 10 months plus a vague midwinter hiatus; the two winter months being later additions. There were six months of 30 days plus four of 31 days (sometimes referred-to as the ‘pre-Julian’ calendar) making a total of 304 days, plus the winter gap. The individual days were not named, save for the markers (kalends, ides and nones). These too were Etruscan (‘ides’ meaning a division); originally they marked the lunar phases, but the calendar had ceased to be strictly lunar by some point in the fifth century BC.

We see here the accumulation of too-many coincidences. In addition to the similarities of art and social customs, we find the comparable spiral artefacts and possibly the precocious development of a solar calendar with 30- and 31-day months at both ends of a migration legend. Could it be that the origins of the Roman and Gregorian calendar that we still use today go all the way back to Minoan civilisation or to one of their Aegean neighbours in ancient Anatolia?

A further development within recent decades has offered some clues about the Minoan calendar of the Bronze Age. In 2011, Henrikkson and Blomberg showed evidence of an alignment to the autumn equinox at the palace of Knossos. They propose that in addition to a lunar calendar, the Minoans understood the solar year with twelve solar months and a leap-year. [11] They would also suggest a knowledge of the stars adequate for navigation. Another theory is that the Minoan ‘double-axe’ symbol, found at various sites on the island, represented the constellation of Orion and its annual rising.

A related theory by Greek author and researcher Alexios Pliakos is that the small stone trays known as kernoi that are found at many Minoan sites (167 at latest count) were also based on a ritual divination calendar. [12] Archaeologists had considered the kernos to be a form of libation table with holes or cups to hold offerings or incense. The discs show much variation in the arrangement of the holes, which Pliakos suggests would remind the holder of the proper usage for a particular feast-day. Some kernoi have only 10 holes and a circular layout, while others have a quite different layout. The hypothesis of Pliakos is that the solar year was divided into 10 months plus a period of 5 days for festivals. He would suggest that each ‘Minoan solar month’ was therefore 36 days long, a figure arrived-at simply by dividing 360 by 10; however, this number has no astronomical significance. It may be that a lunar cycle was retained for religious observances (as with Easter in the Gregorian calendar) used alongside a solar calendar for more practical day-to-day matters. [13]