Etruscans
Now
Funerary and Ritual studies
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Jean MacIntosh Turfa - Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania
The Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar and Modern Archaeological Discoveries
The brontoscopic calendar of Nigidius Figulus, derived from the etrusca disciplina, but preserved only in a Greek translation by John the Lydian, represents, at two removes, the longest coherent Etruscan document known, albeit no longer in its original language. Its predictions cover not only weather, wildlife, crops, famine and disease, but social and political life, referring to servile revolts, urban classes, kings, women, and "a band of noble youth". On superficial reading, one might doubt its authenticity - slave revolts, for instance, appear in fourth-century and later history. Yet recent discoveries are restoring to the 8th-7th centuries, the period when the libri augurales were recorded, all the dramatic trappings of the calendar's regal, pastoral and cosmic imagery. This includes intense contact with foreigners, the economic importance of slaves and freedpersons, powerful rulers and cities in full operation by the beginning of the 7th century, as at Tarquinia, P ian di Cività. The calendar as a serendipitous document offers a window into all aspects of archaic Etruscan life.