Etruria between the Iron Age and Orientalizing Period and the Adoption of Alphabetic Writing

This chapter combines a cultural approach (Naso) with a philological (Benelli) one to examine the emergence of Etruscan alphabetic writing in the eighth century BC. Naso outlines changes in settlement patterns and major social transformations in Etruria in this period, largely to be connected with maritime trade and openness to the broader Mediterranean world. Benelli focuses on the mechanism through which the new idea was taken up. He notes that epigraphy is by no means a necessary and immediate consequence of the adoption of writing skills. The oldest Etruscan inscriptions provide evidence of a system of gift exchange amongst the newly forming aristocracy which was strongly tied up with ritualized friendship between kinship groups and peer groups. It is within this milieu that alphabetic writing was articulated and disseminated. All forms of Etruscan letters can be traced back to Euboean prototypes, with the possible exception of the so-called san.