Etruscan Inscriptions Analysed. By Alex. Earl of Crawford and Balcarres.
(Murray.)—" My object," says the author in his preface, "was not, properly speaking, to give an accurate interpretation of the Etruscan inscriptions, but to show that the language employed in these inscriptions was an ancient form of German, in corroboration of an argument derived from independent sources, to prove that the Etruscans
were a branch of the Teutonic race." Taking the Tyrrheni and the Rhiuti (or Rasena) as constituting together the stock called Etruscan, he finds in these "the representative; specially in the South, of the Tervingi and the Grutungi, better known latterly as Visi-Goths and Ostro-Goths, in the North and West of Europe." Though the meaning of the Etruscan inscriptions has been always looked upon as a hopeless secret, unless the lucky discovery of some bilingual inscription should reveal it, yet scholars have commonly agreed in thinking that the language belonged to the Indo-European language. Lord Crawford's attempt is, therefore, at least an effort in the right direction ; he supports it with arguments which have, anyhow, an appearance of strength, but which we do not profess ourselves able to appreciate, and we are at least disposed to believe in his success. We do not know whether the specimen we are about to give is a favourable one of Lord Crawford's style of argument, but it has the merit of brevity. On the great bronze candelabrum of Cortona, one of the principal remnants of Etruscan art, are found the words, " TUAPNA : LUS'NIT I INS'K.VIL : Aranm I SALTILN." . . . . LUBNI our interpreter takes to be the dative form of Lusna, an Etruscan title of Diana, connected with Lucina. THAPNA he takes to represent 'Divans,' the early form of Diana. Trxsxvin is a formation from denken, to think, and skuld, debt, and is equivalent to "In memoriam." Armax is a compound of ath ' and ' lik,' and identical with the old Teutonic licht-fasz, '1UCOTTIR.' SALTHN is taken to be a compound of SAL, domum,' and THE, representing can-en, 'to covenant.' And so the whole comes out as, "To Diana Lucius," in "debt of gratitude," this candelabrum " is a "covenanted offering."
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