The Etruscans were a race of northern Italians eventually integrated into Rome. Many of the deities listed below were eventually part of the Roman pantheon.
- Caveat: Since no written Etruscan literary texts have survived, two short incomplete texts, and only a modest number of inscriptions, the Etruscan language itself is not yet very well understood. The works of earlier Latin writers on Etruscan religious survivals would have filled the gap, if any of them had survived. Undaunted, modern Europeans looking for alternative cultural roots, embrace the dimly-perceived Etruscans, as everything that the Romans were not: not warlike, not patriarchal, not authoritarian. Consequently any list of Etruscan deities, with pronouncements concerning their character, must be taken in a spirit of caution.
- Any modern discussion of Etruscan mythology will have to be based on the publication of the Praenestine cistae: some two dozen fascicles of the Corpus Speculorum Etruscorum have now appeared. Specifically Etruscan mythological and cult figures appear in the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Etruscan inscriptions have recently been given a more authoritative presentation by Helmut Rix, Etruskische Texte.
The primary trinity included Tinia, Uni and Menrva.
Etruscan mythological figures
Last updated: 10-13-2005 14:26:45
