Urbs Aedificator

The enigma of Italy's ancient Etruscans is finally unraveled

DNA tests on their Italian descendants show the 'tuscii' came from Turkey

We have DNA evidence that the Etruscans originally came from very close to Izmir Turkey, which is the location of the ancient Smyrna. Note the distance between ancient Troy and Smynra, about 120 miles. The map imaged on the right shows the extent of the Hittite Empire (2,000 - 700 BCE) and the second of their great periods [the] Great Hittite Kingdom or "Imperial Hittites" (1480 to 1190 BCE) which corresponds with the fall of Troy and the mythical flight of Aeneas.
. . . . . . . Lydian Period ( 900 - 547 BCE.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hittite Period ( 2,000 - 700 BCE.)
. . .
Note that the map above, the Lydian Kingdom map shows both Troy and Smyrna or modern Izmir. But Troy
was destroyed about the same time as the immigration to Italy from the area near Smyrna in ancient Anatolia took place.


The enigma of Italy's ancient Etruscans is finally unravelled | World news | The Guardian
“DNA tests on their Italian descendants show the 'tuscii' came from Turkey

Genetic research made public at the weekend appears to put the matter beyond doubt, however. It shows the Etruscans came from the area which is now Turkey - and that the nearest genetic relatives of many of today's Tuscans and Umbrians are to be found, not in Italy, but around Izmir. [Turkey]…

The latest findings confirm what was said about the matter almost 2,500 years ago, by the Greek historian Herodotus. The first traces of Etruscan civilisation in Italy date from about 1200 BC. …

But the latest conclusions may add weight to a rival, apparently more fanciful, theory that links their name to Troy, the "city of towers" and a part of the Lydian empire. The most likely date for the fall of Troy, as described by Homer, is between 1250 and 1200 BC. …”

Timeline
circa 1230 - 1200BC Destruction of Troy
circa 1200BC First traces of Etruscan civilization in Italy

700BC Etruscans borrow alphabetic writing from Greeks, and become first people in Italy to write

616-579BC Rome ruled by its first, legendary Etruscan king, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus

550BC Etruscan power at zenith. Three confederations hold Po valley and coast south of Rome, heartland of southern Tuscany, and western Umbria. Allied with Carthaginians, Etruscans trade across the Mediterranean

sylla1

Here is an extract from the abstract of:
A. Piazza, N. Cerutti et al : Origin of the Etruscans: novel clues from the Y chromosome lineages.

Quote:

...Here we show the genetic relationships of modern Etrurians, who mostly settled in Tuscany, with other Italian, Near Eastern and Aegean peoples by comparing the Y-chromosome DNA variation in 1,264 unrelated healthy males from: Tuscany-Italy (n=263), North Italy (n=306), South Balkans (n=359), Lemnos island (n=60), Sicily and Sardinia (n=276). The Tuscany samples were collected in Volterra (n=116), Murlo (n=86) and Casentino Valley (n=61). We found traces of recent Near Eastern gene flow still present in Tuscany, especially in the archaeologically important village of Murlo. The samples from Tuscany show eastern haplogroups E3b1-M78, G2*- P15, J2a1b*-M67 and K2-M70 with frequencies very similar to those observed in Turkey and surrounding areas, but significantly different from those of neighbouring Italian regions. The microsatellite haplotypes associated to these haplogroups allow inference of ancestor lineages for Etruria and Near East whose time to the most recent common ancestors is relatively recent (about 3,500 years BP) and supports a possible non autochthonous post-Neolithic signal associated with the Etruscans.

European Journal of Human Genetics, vol. 15 supp. 1 June 2007, session C.17, pg. 19.

Efendi

<<<<== From Izmir (Symera).

Urbs Aedificator

Connected with the theory about the origins of the Etruscans, and being interested I was reading recently from Gerhard Herm’s Phoenicians – The purple empire of the ancient world (1975)

In it he lays out some interesting supporting evidence for a Trojan-Etruscan therefore Roman-Trojan connection, but also one of Etruscans-Romans-Carthaginians, but as allies. In it he mentions the Bulgarian Indo-Germanic scholar V.I. Georgiev’s publishing an article tracing a close relationship between the Etruscans and the Hittites. The evidence also suggests (if not proves) that the flight of Aeneas after the fall of Troy was not just an invention of Vergil and Livy.

His theory is: the Etruscans are Trojans; the Trojans Hittites

It goes something like this: About 1150(?) BC the Sea Peoples (the Mycenaean’s) overran the territory and ports of the peoples surrounding the Dardanelles, causing its inhabitants to flee to the western leg of Italy and Northern Africa. Near Veii, a city built by the Etruscans, excavators have found figurines portraying the flight of Aeneas, figurines much too old to have been influenced by Roman ideas.

(Furthermore,Herm says) “In North Africa, the French scholar Jacques Heurgon found 5-boundary stones with inscriptions reading “Heed the Dardanian (referring to people of the Dardanelles), brought safely from afar.” inscribed in, he says, “their language”. Heurgon was a Latin and Etruscan scholar, so it could be the language he referenced was the Etruscan language.”

All this happened before the founding of Carthage, but North Africa was territory dominated by the Phoenician region of trading influence, and the Carthaginians developed out of Phoenician civilization. At a later point in time the Etruscans joined up with the Carthaginians in an alliance of trade. The Carthaginians allotted specific zones to their allies and kept others, especially the sea routes, for themselves. The Etruscans were farmers and cattle-breeders rather than merchants or ship owners. They preserved a symbiotic relationship with the Phoenicians/Carthaginians. The Carthaginians, likewise needed them, since they were a people without a “hinterland;” they operated their trading empire out of “sea cities” or seacoast fortresses accessible from the sea, but braced against landward approaches.

(Herm says) “It is sad that there was no poet who recreated poetically the alliance between the Etruscans and the Carthaginians. We would then perhaps know a little more about it. But we do know that the descendants in Italy of the people from Asia Minor who were driven out of their homeland joined up with the Phoenician Carthaginians – two [peoples,] thus, whose history was decisively influenced by the invasion of the Sea Peoples – and there was an excellent relationship, [a bond] between them. Archeologists have also re-confirmed this.”

The relationship between Carthage and Rome was between Carthage and the Etruscan (Roman) nobles, and perhaps that alliance would’ve played a role in the hostility in Roman Carthaginian relationship to come later.


But back to the Etruscans: Herm supports the connection between the Trojans and the Etruscans with the similarity between their two names, as described by Georgiev:

The Greek name for the Trojans, (Georgiev says) “was Troes, which goes back to an earlier Troses, just as Troy was derived from Trosia. A place of the same name is frequently mentioned in Hittite and Egyptian documents of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as Turush and Trusya. If, (Georgiev continues) one takes the essential components of all these names, one is left with the syllable Tros or Trus. And this is also the main part of E-trus.-ci or E-trus-ia. Therefore: when Homer said Troes, he was calling the Trojans by their correct name, because they themselves probably said Tros (or Trus), and only added the preceding E later in Italy” [from the Latin preposition “e” (as in e pluribus unum) meaning “from” or “out from”]

corrocamino

What the Guardian article ignores is that the Lydian and Hittite languages were Indo-European, whereas the Etruscan language was not. This fact does not rule out Anatolian origins for the Etruscans, but would either place their emigration before the advent of IE languages in Anatolia, or at least identify their Anatolian culture as non-Lydian and non-Hittite.

sylla1

That's an excellent linguistic point; IMHO the genetic evidence is not so definitive as suggested by The Guardian's article either, because it is based on modern populations, not paleopathological material; both Italy and especially Anatolia have suffered considerable human migration all along the centuries.

corrocamino

Since the Greeks (presumably including Eastern Greeks) interacted with the Etruscans for a very long time in pre-Roman times, it would not be surprising to see some genetic link, surviving down to the present. But, in any case, the similarity between the Etruscan language and that of Lemnos (an island off northwestern Anatolia) supports a possible Anatolian origin for the Etruscans. Too bad we don't know more about pre-IE Europe!

Historyhound

Excellent observation, however it does seem possible that the Anatolian Etruscans rejected the Indo-European culture and therefore didn't get along with the Hittites which would explain their ejection from Anatolia.

Also in countering the Gerhard Herm theory posted by Urbs Aedificator, I find it hard to accept a theory that the Mycenaeans overran established people in Anatolia. They had more of the characteristic of refugees from the Hittites as I know of them.

Efendi

For todays Anatolia it seem very difficult to make test and comparision. Considering emperial past of the country. Anatolia absorbed many migrations especially from Balkans and Caucassia. During the time of Ottoman there were migrations of Polish, Hungarians. also slavery mostly caucassian people and some Slavs from north.

Urbs Aedificator

" Within a few years—or decades, at the most—some of these nations collapsed completely, with the large and powerful Hittite state in central Anatolia disappearing most suddenly of all.

From Troy in the northwest, to Ugarit on the coast of Syria, and southwest to the Nile Delta, unidentified attackers razed and burned international trade centers and port cities. After the assaults, most of the shattered cities were either abandoned or rebuilt only on an insignificant scale.


All across the eastern Mediterranean, civilizations that had been shaped by aristocrats became societies of herdsmen and shepherds. When the fighting was over, entire languages and scripts had vanished. …

[W]e still do not know exactly who the Sea People were, where they came from, why they attacked, and, finally, where they disappeared after their raids.


Scholars are even uncertain whether the Sea People's existence was a cause or an effect of the political collapses. Were the Sea People conquerors, pirates, deserters, or refugees?"

Read more HERE