BEFORE THE ROMANS

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 83, 9 April 1934, Page 4

BEFORE THE ROMANS

HI.PPLE OF ITALY

KEY TO ANCIENT WRITING

An event that is exciting tlio wonder of all tlio savants of Rome is announced. Professor Pironti, a teacher of languages, after devoting years of his leisure to the study of tlw.it ancient mystery, tlio Etruscan'", tongue, claims to have'found the key to it, writes Beatrice Baskervillo in the "Daily Telegraph.'' The problem has builleii learned men of all nations for centuries. Professor Pironti has published a book explaining his methods. Side by side- with the texts of many inscriptions, hitherto undecipherable, ho gives his own translations.

Ruins of Etruscan cities are scattered all over the Italian peninsula. The people who built and lived in them have loft tombs, statues, and othor antiquitios which today crowd the Italian museums. But who were they? None can tell.

Tlio discovery gives hope of solving at least a mystery of nearly 3000' years' standing, that is, the origin of the Etruscans. Though this people once dominated Rome herself; though they taught the Romans engineering, architocturc, domestic comforts, dross, sports, athletics, dancing, dining, and statecraft, nobody knows'whence they came. Their family customs ; wore neither Latin nor Indo-European.

Were they from Lydia, Chaklca, Egypt, Groceo, Phoenicia?—or even from Ireland, as some pretend?

Professor Pironti's method was this. Using his profound knowledge of old Italian dialects, he compared them with archaic (3 rock. Woi'dby word lie examined Etruscan inscriptions in which savants before him had identified certain family names and numerals.

With- infinite patiexieQ ho deciphered hitherto unreadable words; theu whole sentences. At last ho has built up his own dictionary of the Etruscan tongue." MESSAGE OF THE ORATOR. Out of thousands of Etruscan inscriptions that navo come down to us, a few examples may bo cited here. Tourists know tho ancient b'rorizs statue of an orator in the' Etruscan Museum at Florence. Found in Tuscany in 1566 A.D., it has puzzled-philologists ever

since, because of tho mysterious Etrusc;m inscription' ihat has"be'cu set' 6lit' ou the border of the toga, a garment the Romans adopted from these people.

Profossor Pironti deciphers is as: "Tho devoted respect of all the citizens dedicates this statue to Aulesi Metelis, son of Velio and Vesia.'' He gives other translations of texts on objects now in tho Vatican Museum. One is upon a vase, and tho text snys that it was made to be placed in tlio tomb of Ilamlisia, "priest of the foreigners,"

The Stone of Perugia, in the museum of that city, has the longest Etruscan inscription extant. Experts have been guessing at its contents for centuries. One declared it to be an Irish warning to sailors voyaging from the Bay of Biscay to Came, Ireland. • ■ ;

Professor Pironti's rending shows (hat it was a combined boundary stone and title deed of lands which a, certain Aulo Vethina, of Perugia, sold to Larthal, son ot Afuua, in the fourth1 century B.C. 110 has only two words left to identify: "napcr" and "sran," both, ho says, obviously land 'measures.

So clearly aro localities indicated that the stono could be put back where it stood as a. landmark -000 yoars ago. Professor Pironti continues his labours.

Then thero are the famous linen wrappings round an Egyptian mummy in the Zagreb Museum, which bear mysterious writing. All that has been found out so far is that the wrappings are part of an Etruscan book, written in the fourth century 8.C., and have nothing to do with the mummy.■'. Archaeologists and philologists have managed to pick out or the text forty words," which also aro to be found in tlio 20Q. words of a continuous toxt on a terracotta, slab from Capua, now in a Berlin museum. Hopes are revived that the hidden secret in thesemummy wrappings is about to be disclosed.