The Etruscan Liber Linteus

"It is one of the most important documents for the length of the text as well as for the number of words contained therein. It is a manuscript, found in Egypt on the bands of a mummy, and presently conserved in the National Museum of Zagreb (Croatia). It is also the only example of a book written on linen cloth (hence the Latin name Liber Linteus). Moreover, it is the only Etruscan book handed down to posterity. Originally it was a scroll which was brought to Egypt for unknown reasons. It was later cut into strips used to bandage the mummy

of a woman, probably during the 1st century of our era. Putting the stripes the one near the other it was possible to reconstruct a part of the original manuscript, consisting of 230 lines of text and 1200 words that can be read more or less clearly, and 100 more words that can be reconstructed from the context with a high degree of certainty. The manuscript is a kind of religious calendar containing the indication of where and when the ceremonies had to take place, the concerned gods, the offerings to be made, etc." (Quoted from Bibl.3.)

Structure of the Book

Etruscan sculpture of a linen book
(burial urn, Berlin Museum)
(©Bibl.2)

$View of the Pages IX-X of Liber Linteus$
View of the Pages IX-X of Liber Linteus
(©Bibl.2)

Despite the fact that this is the only surviving linen book, we have good ideas of how it may have looked like. Originally it was written on a linen canvas 340 cm x 35 cm and folded into twelve pages. The linen was, according to existing Etruscan sculptures, folded into the form of a "codex", that means in the shape of an accordion. When the book lost its significance, still in ancient times, it was exported to Egypt and cut into at least 11 bands (in total length of 13.57 m), and used to bandage a mummy of a woman. The table below shows professor Krall's classification of the bands.

**The Bands of the Mummy**
Band 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11	Length cm 324 271 156 118 109 104 78 68 67 34 28	Height cm 6.5-7 over 6 5-6 over 6 6-6.5 5-6 6-7 6.5 5-6 5 5

In year 1911 another fragment was found (the so called "new" or Herbig fragment) bundled up together with the blank bandages. The bandages can be organized (

diagram) into six stripes (the fifth one is clearly missing), and their traditional order is 4, 2, 1, 5 and 3, which has been adopted after the longest piece of bandage in a stripe according to Krall's classification. They make twelve columns (pages) of a book. Columns I and II are badly damaged (being possibly the top pages of the book), but the rest is 60%-80% complete. After column XII there is a blank space on the bandages so we know this is the end of the book. The photos of the bandages reproduced here were made in 1892 by the best photographer at the time, when Krall first investigated them (Bibl.1).

Text of the Book

The canvas is showing very dense and regular woven texture, which is certainly very suitable for writing. The fact, that the applied ink was not absorbed by the fabric, indicates, that it was previously prepared for this purpose. The texture of the canvas served as a guide for the letters' size, hence the inscription is very regular. On places, where the canvas was distorted by being wrapped around the mummy, the letters follow the same distortion.

Two kind of inks have been used for writing of the linen book. The letters were written by a kind of black ink, prepared from charred bones, perhaps ivory ('ivory black'), according to the tradition of the time. The border, also some lines and diacritical signs, today bearly visible, were made by red ink, prepared from mercuric-sulphide ('cinnabar-red' HgS).

By normal light the contrast of the letters is low, but the infrared light photography reveals much of the details. Many attempts were made to improve the visibility of the letters. Details of the texture on some infrared photos are given on the left (top: Plotnikov 1932, bottom: Lukan 1967 [©Bibl.2]). In the Table below, there is a list of high resolution pictures of the restored pages after infrared photography. The Etruscan text is given here in Roman transcription (note that the writing is given from left to right and not right to left as in the original). Due to the lack of special Etruscan characters the letter q is spelt 0, c is X, f is PH and s' is SH.

The translation of the Etruscan text, not being in my possession, is not given here.

Table: List of the Graphics and Text Files
Pages (capacity kB)	*	**	***
P I	I-III.jpg (88)	I.gif (4)	I.html (4)
P II		II.gif (14)	II.html (5)
P III		III.gif (17)	III.html (5)
P IV	IV.jpg (70)	IV.gif (20)	IV.html (5)
P V	V.jpg (68)	V.gif (23)	V.html (5)
P VI	VI.jpg (95)	VI.gif (17)	VI.html (5)
P VII	VII.jpg (81)	VII.gif (23)	VII.html (4)
P VIII	VIII.jpg (101)	VIII.gif (22)	VIII.html (5)
P IX	IX.jpg (104)	IX.gif (24)	IX.html (6)
P X	X.jpg (89)	X.gif (26)	X.html (5)
P XI	XI.jpg (89)	XI.gif (23)	XI.html (5)
P XII	XII.jpg (122)	XII.gif (17)	XII.html (3)

(Note: Capacity of the files is given to estimate the down-load time.)

* View of the Bands (Krall, 1892) /75dpi ©Bibl.1

*** Reading (in Etruscan)

FONT !

You can

download all twelve pages of the Book in zipped doc format (only 26kB!), with embedded Etruscan font (for Microsoft Word 97). Please note, that here I did not distinguish the sure reading from uncertain or reconstructed passages, and that some words can be doubtful, and changed in the future! Please use the original gif images from the above table as a reference! For any other use of the Etruscan script, you will need to install the

Etruscan Font (15kB)! Instructions are included in the Readme.txt.


Contents of the Linen Book
Etruscan dice	It seems contradictory, that we do not understand the Etruscan language, nevertheless we do have some ideas, what the contents of the Etruscan text could be. There are three clues, on what our knowledge is based on. First clue: numbers. In Columns VIII, IX and XI there are numbers hu0is' za0rumis', ciem cealxus, eslem cealxus and 0unem (cealxus). How do we know they are numbers? Well, by lucky circumstances, there has been preserved an unique pair of ivory dices (today held in Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris), which have on their 6 sides, instead of carved dots, carved names of numerals. They are: 0u=one, zal (esal-)=two, ci=three, ša=four, mach=five and huth=six. This was the first stepping-stone in finding out the rest of the Etruscan numbers (See: Numerals). Second clue: names of months. In Column VI and VIII the numbers occur together with names of months: eslem za0rumis' acale and celi hu0is' za0rumis', where acale and celi mean July and September. How do we know that? Well, in ancient writings there have been preserved some references to those two Etruscan words (for example in Liber Glossarum dated from the 8-th Century). We must rely on authority of those, who wrote those references. Third clue: names of Gods. Throughout of the Etruscan book, there are names of Etruscan Gods: ne0uns=Neptune, veive=Veiove, ca0-, ca0a=Cath etc... That they are names of Gods, we know from other Etruscan inscriptions, inscribed statues, mirrors, wall paintings etc. From the above clues, the only conclusion we can draw is: we must deal with a kind of Etruscan religious Calendar. But the content of Calendar still defies closer understanding. The first part of the Book, as we have seen, analysing the Text by method of auto-correlation, is repetitive, as a kind of poetry. Perhaps religious poetry. In that case, we must deal with a Book of Etruscan Prayers. But we are not sure at this moment. For more information, check the English translations of the "Catalogue: Writing in Etruscan" by group of authors, published by the National Museum in Zagreb (Bibl. [2]), parts of thereof given below, and the Lecture of Professor Gerhard Meiser on University of Katowice (full content below): Rozprawy - Gerhard Meiser's lecture (in Polish) (web link www.us.edu.pl/~sjikp/html/ps-html/ps_21_07.html obsolete!) Dissertation (the English transcript of Meiser's lecture). Download ZIP!
Etruscan Book of the Dead?
Egyptian Book of the Dead Judgement in front of Horus	I was amazed, to find out from the web-pages' statistics, that many visitors found this document by searching the Key-Word "Etruscan Book of the Dead". This expression was introduced and was very popular at the turn of the last Century, by superficial comparison with the "Egyptian Book of the Dead". Both inscriptions were found in relationship with mummies, the Egyptian one, written on the inside surface of a sarcophagus, containing religious formulas, intended to help the deceased to find a way to eternal peace. It appeared as a logical conclusion, that the Etruscan inscription had the same function. But this conclusion can be wrong. There is not a shred of evidence, that the Etruscan linen bandages have any relationship with the female mummy, they used to wrap. On the contrary. Today we know, that at the turn of the Era (when the Linen Book was apparently torn into pieces), in Egypt was in rage to mummify the deceased. The habit took such proportions, that it caused an acute shortage of linen materials in the country. They started to use any secondary linen clothes, like used canvases, boat-sails, clothing items etc, and the trade of used linen-sheets was flourishing. On this way, from the preserved linen bandages we could today reconstruct, not only how the Egyptian sails and dresses looked like, but by a lucky circumstance, even the form of the only Etruscan book, known to exist today. It is most likely, that the connection between the mummy and its linen-wrappings is quite accidental, and the conclusion, that it was an "Etruscan Book of the Dead", is a mistake. However, it is not far from truth, that it might handle a religious subject.
Addendum to the Subject
	Art of Haruspicy which is Etruscan Discipline by Joannis Opsopaus (web link) An interesting translation from Latin original. Here you can find: Some attested Etruscan phrases The extract of the above document new! Ancient Accounts of Origins of Etruscans (web link) It's back!The Languages of the Iron Age Italy (web link) An excellent Etruscan web-site! Here you can find: Etruscan Glossary Etruscan Onomastics Etruscan Epigraphy Stele of Lemnos (And many-many more!) The Archaeologic and Historic Background of the Etruscan Culture
Bibliography
Full text in German only! Download ZIP (1.1MB!)	[1] Prof. J. Krall: Die etruskischen Mumienbinden des Agramer National-Museums (mit 10 Lichtdrucktafeln und 1 Abbildung im Texte). Denkschriften der kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Classe, 41 Band III, Wien, 1892. [2] ©A. Soric, A.Rendic-Miocevic et al: Katalog Pisati etruscanski, Muzej MTM Zagreb, 1986. [3] www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/4423/mummy.html (moved!) [4] www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/4423/glossary.html (moved!) [3] & [4] now included into this site, by the approval of the author! [5] http://www.wfu.edu/~cyclone/tifinag2.htm (paragr. 15) [6] Larissa Bonfante: Reading the Past: Etruscan, Trustees of the British Museum Published by the British Museum Publications Ltd, 46 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1B 3QQ ©1990 (ISBN 0-7141-8071-8). [7] By the Editors of Time-Life Books: Lost Civilizations, Etruscans: Italy's Lovers of Life, Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia, ©1995 (ISBN 0-8094-9045-5). [8] ©Encyclopaedia Britannica, Standard Edition, 1999.
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GZB	Copyright note: some pictures and texts in this document marked as © are made available here by the kind permission of the Publisher (Bibl.2) for which I express many thanks. This document may be freely linked to, but the contents may not be reproduced, multiplied or sold in any form. All rights for change without notice reserved. The data in this document will be updated as soon as they become available. The following people contributed in different ways to the realization of this document: Tom Theos (supplying and setting up the hardware and software), Krystyna Nazar-Bator and Riszard Bator (great part of the translation job), Father Karl Handler and Karmen Tes (supplying the bibliography), to whom I express my sincere gratitude. Special thanks to computer wizard, Nick Haász for his Reverse macro! Page optimized for 800x600, and last updated: 1st May 2003. Compatible with browsers Netscape4, InternetExplorer4, Opera5 or better. Is your browser handling the data in this document? Are there any omissions? Is there any part of the Etruscan text which you can understand? For your comments, questions or ideas, Guestbook was created in May 2001 for your convenience (please only messages related to Etruscan writing, language or culture!): [Sign Guestbook] - [Read Guestbook] [Guestbook by TheGuestBook.com]