Divining the Etruscan World: The Brontoscopic Calendar and Religious PracticeThe Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar is a rare document of omens foretold by thunder. It long lay hidden, embedded in a Greek translation within a Byzantine treatise from the age of Justinian. The first complete English translation of the Brontoscopic Calendar, this book provides an understanding of Etruscan Iron Age society as revealed through the ancient text, especially the Etruscans' concerns regarding the environment, food, health, and disease. Jean MacIntosh Turfa also analyzes the ancient Near Eastern sources of the Calendar and the subjects of its predictions, thereby creating a picture of the complexity of Etruscan society reaching back the before the advent of writing and the recording of the calendar. |
Contents
ITS TRANSMISSION | 3 |
ETRUSCAN RELIGION IN THE CLASSICAL WORLD | 19 |
AN OMINOUS TIME THUNDER LIGHTNING | 37 |
DIARIUM TONITRUALE | 73 |
TRANSLATION OF THE ETRUSCAN | 86 |
ANALYSIS OF THE BRONTOSCOPIC CALENDAR | 105 |
PLAGUE BUT | 164 |
THE WOMEN AND THE SLAVES WILL CARRY | 204 |
C OTHER BRONTOSCOPIA IN THE CLASSICAL TRADITION | 278 |
ASSESSING THE ETRUSCAN BRONTOSCOPIC | 304 |
Appendix A Texts Relating to the Study ofEtruscan Religion | 315 |
Appendix B Sample Mesopotamian Documents and Additional Data | 326 |
Sample | 339 |
Timeline ofPersonages Cultural Phases and Historical Periods | 351 |
Bibliography | 359 |
| 399 | |
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Common terms and phrases
3povTfion abundance Adad Akkadian ancient animals apodoses Archaic Ashurbanipal Assyrian attested Babylonian barley Bonfante Bronze Age burials Byzantine Cicero cited Codex crops cults culture death disease early earthquake Eastern eighth century Enuma Anu Enlil éoTou éow Etruria etrusca disciplina Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar Etruscan cities Etruscan document Etruscan religion evidence famine fields fig Figulus finds fire first century BC fish flocks flood funerary gods grain Greek haruspex haruspices Hellenistic humans identified influence Iqqur ipus Iron Age Italy king Koch-Westenholz KOtl land Late Republican Latin Levantine Liber linteus lightning bolt linked literature Livy lunar Lydus Mesopotamian Mesopotamian divination Mesopotamian texts month MUL.APIN necropolis omens ostentis period Phoenician Pingree plague Pliny predictions references reflect religious rituals Roman Rome rulers sacrifice scholars Sestieri seventh century signifies slaves social specific Summa izbu tablet Tages Tarquinia Tfi Tfic threatens thunders tion Toiq tombs translation Turfa uév Veii Vetulonia Volsinii Vulci weather women zodiac