ABSTRACT

Yet there is no branch of Etruscan antiquities more genuinely native – none more valuable to the inquirer, for the information it yields as to the mysterious language and creed of that ancient race; for the inscriptions being always in the native character, and designatory of the individual gods or heroes represented, these mirrors become a sure index to the Etruscan creed – “a gurative dictionary,” as Bunsen1 terms it, of Etruscan mythology; while at the same time they afford us the chief source and one of the most solid bases of our acquaintance with the native language.