Were The Italians From Turkey?

[Beorn]

http://articles.latimes.com/images/logo-lat-main.gif?1222368597 (http://www.latimes.com/)

Archive for Monday, June 18, 2007 (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jun/18/)


Genetic tests: Italians were from Turkey

By Thomas H. Maugh II (http://articles.latimes.com/writers/thomas-h-maugh-ii)
June 18, 2007 (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jun/18/science) in print edition A-6
Genetic studies of Italians in Tuscany show that their forefathers, the ancient Etruscans, moved to Italy from what is now Turkey – an origin that many archeologists have dismissed as unlikely.
The Etruscans, who emerged about 1200 BC, reached their zenith in the 6th century BC, dominating Italy and the Mediterranean area until being assimilated into the Roman Republic about 200 BC. They provided many of the cultural underpinnings of Roman society. They were skilled metallurgists and masterful seafarers, but their origin has been a source of dispute for at least 2,500 years.

The ancient Greek historian Herodotus asserted that they came from Turkey, then called Lydia, but subsequent historians and modern archeologists have dismissed his claim.
A new study by geneticist Alberto Piazza of the University of Turin presented Sunday at the European Society of Human Genetics in Nice, France, however, is the third this year, and the strongest to date, linking the Etruscans to Turkey.
“We think that our research provides convincing proof that Herodotus was right,” Piazza said.

Others are not so sure.

“I guess I would have to say that I am unconvinced at this stage,” said archeologist Anthony Tuck of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who is excavating an Etruscan site in Italy. “It is premature to declare the issue resolved on our current understanding of this genetic evidence.”
Archeologist Jean Macintosh Turfa of the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archeology and Anthropology was more dismissive. “There is really no sound archeological evidence that shows the influx of a big migration, or any kind of influx, from Asia Minor,” she said. “There is never a sharp break in cultures, no destroyed villages, etcetera.”
Turfa and Tuck hold to the view that the Etruscans evolved from the Villanovan culture, which emerged in central Italy. But the genetic findings will force a harder look at the evidence about their origins.

Tracing roots

Piazza and his colleagues studied the Y chromosome from males who had been living in selected areas of Tuscany between the Arno and Tiber rivers, notably Murlo, Volterra and Casentino, where the Etruscans were known to have concentrated. The men’s families had been living in the region for at least three generations and their surnames were Etruscan in origin.
The team compared the men’s DNA sequences with those from men in modern Turkey, northern Italy, the Greek island of Lemnos, the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia and the southern Balkans.
They found that the genetic sequences of the Tuscan men varied significantly from those of men in surrounding regions in Italy, and were most closely related to those of men from Turkey. “In Murlo particularly, one genetic variant is shared only by people from Turkey,” Piazza said.
Conventional genetic analysis indicated that the most recent common ancestors for the Turkish and Tuscan men lived about 3,500 years ago, Piazza said. That, in turn, would suggest that the Lydians were the forefathers of the Villanovan culture, so-named because the first remains of the early Iron Age culture were found at Villanova near Bologna.
Piazza said the team would now expand the analysis to include other men from Tuscany, and would also look at DNA from excavated Etruscan burials.
Geneticist Guido Barbujani of the University of Ferrara in northern Italy conducted an analysis of burials, and in a report in 2004 concluded that the Etruscans had, indeed, come from Turkey. That study, however, has been criticized by other experts, who say the minute amounts of DNA Barbujani obtained from Etruscan burials had been overwhelmed by modern-day DNA contamination – a problem not unusual in such analyses.

And the women too

Earlier this year, geneticist Antonio Torroni of the University of Pavia – who also participated in Piazza’s study – and his colleagues reported on a study of mitochondrial DNA, which is passed through female lineages. They found that mitochondrial DNA from women in Tuscany was also most closely related to that from women in Turkey.

About the same time, geneticists Marco Pellecchia and Paolo Ajmone-Marsan of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Piacenza reported on an analysis of mitochondrial DNA from the four ancient and unusual breeds of Tuscan cattle.
They concluded that the cattle were most closely related to cattle from the Near East, whereas other Italian breeds were more closely related to cattle from northern Europe, suggesting that the Etruscans brought them from Turkey.
All three studies seem to support the history written by Herodotus. He wrote that Lydia, on the southern coast of Turkey, suffered from a long-running famine. After 18 years, the Lydian king divided the population by lot and sent half under the leadership of his son Tyrrhenus to look for a better life.

The Tyrrhenians sailed from Smyrna, now Izmir, and eventually landed at Umbria, where they established a prosperous and rather liberated society, Herodotus wrote in the 5th century BC.
But historians, beginning in the 1st century BC with the Greek Dionysius of Halicarnassus, have doubted Herodotus, based at least in part on the mythological elements of his stories.
Linguist Rex Wallace of the University of Massachusetts also points out that the Etruscan language is definitely not of Indo-European origin, unlike Lydian.
“Recently published DNA studies tell us nothing about the origins and diffusion of the Etruscan language,” he said. Source (http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jun/18/science/sci-etruscans18)

[Æmeric]

Italians were from Turkey.


Genetic studies of Italians in Tuscany show that their forefathers, the ancient Etruscans, moved to Italy from what is now TurkeyFrom what is now Turkey. The headline gives the impression that the people of Italy are part Turkish.

[Loki]

The Etruscans weren't the only people to settle what is now Italy -- they were just an advanced and well-known tribe.

[The Lawspeaker]

Italians were from Turkey.

From what is now Turkey. The headline gives the impression that the people of Italy are part Turkish.
They were no Turks in those days what is now Turkey. This article is a desperate attempt at political correctness. It takes some minor knowledge of history to laugh at this article.

It is possible that they came from what is now Turkey- but they sure as hell aren't related to the Turks.

[Æmeric]

The people now know as Turks are a mixture of many different ethnicities. Greeks, Armenians, Slavic Muslims, Albanians.... who adopted the Turkish language & the Islamic faith. And there is some Turkic. What is now Turkey was part of the Greek cultural sphere before 1000 A.D.

[Rhobot]

The fact is that people in some parts of Tuscany share common ancestry with people in modern-day Turkey, because Tuscany was colonized by an Anatolian people who became known as Etruscans. This happened 3000 years ago, thousands of years before anyone in either region called themselves "Italians" or "Turks."*
At the time, Italy and Anatolia were home to a number of different ethnic groups speaking different languages. Anatolia seems to have been particularly linguistically diverse, with multiple branches of Indo-European existing along Hurro-Urartian languages and perhaps others including ancestral Etruscan. Presumably languages ancestral to Latin were spoken in Italy at that time, but the Turkish language is a very recent introduction to Anatolia (11th century AD).

*The sense of nationhood that Turks have goes back to the Ottoman Empire (founded 600 years ago) and Ataturk's revolution (1920s). Italy was only unified in the 1860s, and Italians from different regions barely consider themselves to be the same ethnic group.

[Bloodeagle]

Piazza and his colleagues studied the Y chromosome from males who had been living in selected areas of Tuscany between the Arno and Tiber rivers, notably Murlo, Volterra and Casentino, where the Etruscans were known to have concentrated.

Does anyone know which genetic loci were compared in this study?
I googled the subject but ended up with this;Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys Tender Turkey Tuscany in a Savory Sauce:D

p.s. I associate turks with the Huns.

[Rhobot]

Does anyone know which genetic loci were compared in this study?
I googled the subject but ended up with this;Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys Tender Turkey Tuscany in a Savory Sauce:D

p.s. I associate turks with the Huns.

The Huns do seem to have spoken a Turkic language.
They seem to have been more Mongolid than modern-day Anatolian Turks (more like Kazakhs or Kyrgyz). The Huns were probably more similar to the "original" Turks in Central Asia than to modern residents of Turkey.

[Mesrine]

The Etruscans themselves were a minoritarian ruling class, and it it has been proven that their lineages went extinct, because no genetic continuity has been found with modern Tuscans.

So no, Italians aren't from Anatolia.

[Nationalitist]

The people now know as Turks are a mixture of many different ethnicities. Greeks, Armenians, Slavic Muslims, Albanians.... who adopted the Turkish language & the Islamic faith. And there is some Turkic. What is now Turkey was part of the Greek cultural sphere before 1000 A.D.

You should simply write Slavs. They kidnapped many people of different Slavic nationalities and turned them into janissaries. "Slavic Muslims" gives impression that we're only talking about Bosniaks.

[ikki]

You should simply write Slavs. They kidnapped many people of different Slavic nationalities and turned them into janissaries. "Slavic Muslims" gives impression that we're only talking about Bosniaks.

I do wonder if the hungarians or maronites were exempt.
Kinda doubt it...

[Rudy]

The Romans claimed to be descendants of Greeks. Modern Italians show at least 5 different Y haplotypes typically. The Turks are even more mixed than the Italians.

The Jews may have descended from Hittites (Turkey) with their hooked noses. It is really not an Arab appearance.

[Æmeric]

You should simply write Slavs. They kidnapped many people of different Slavic nationalities and turned them into janissaries. "Slavic Muslims" gives impression that we're only talking about Bosniaks.

Many Bosniaks did migrate to what is now Turkey in the early 20th century when the Ottoman Empire was disintegrating. But there were plenty of Slavic slaves added to the genepool over the centuries.

[ikki]

The Romans claimed to be descendants of Greeks. Modern Italians show at least 5 different Y haplotypes typically. The Turks are even more mixed than the Italians.

The Jews may have descended from Hittites (Turkey) with their hooked noses. It is really not an Arab appearance.

http://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel ;)

[Hweinlant]

The Huns do seem to have spoken a Turkic language.


So the Turkish nationalists think. There is little if any proof for that. Huns, when finally landing into Europa, were 3 way confederation of Hunnic-speakers, Goths(Germanic) and Alans (Iranic). Hunnic possibly was Turkic, or not. It could have been Ugric just aswell.



They seem to have been more Mongolid than modern-day Anatolian Turks (more like Kazakhs or Kyrgyz). The Huns were probably more similar to the "original" Turks in Central Asia than to modern residents of Turkey.

Origin of Huns likely is in the confederate of Xiongnu. Xiongnu was confederate of many tribes, with different racial origins. Chinese chronicles describe Yenisei Kyrgyz-tribe as "yellow haired" and blue eyed. Yenisei-river flows from Mongolia to arctic sea. Another tribe part of Xiongnu were late Pazyryks from Mongolia. Blonde Pazyryk chieftain was digged from Mongolian permafrost just few years ago:
http://i29.tinypic.com/24mg9bo.jpg

Some (perhaps even leading) tribes of Xiongnu confederation were fully Mongoloid, others Europoid, some even Nordic.

[Rhobot]

The Etruscans themselves were a minoritarian ruling class, and it it has been proven that their lineages went extinct, because no genetic continuity has been found with modern Tuscans.

So no, Italians aren't from Anatolia.

I think you are thinking of the Guimaraes study (1), which seems to have used the same dataset as the earlier work of Vernesi et al. (2).
Different studies give different results; an earlier study (published 2007) using blood samples from modern natives of Tuscany, showed elevated frequencies of Near Eastern mtDNA haplogroups, rare elsewhere in Europe, in Murlo, a town in the Colline Metallifere of Tuscany (3).
However, given that the Etruscans were a ruling elite, I think we can safely say that, however proud they are of their alleged Etruscan ancestry, modern Tuscans are primarily descended from populations other than the Etruscans, whether or not a few Etruscan lineages survived (which is what is being debated).
So no, I wouldn't rule out some Etruscan lineages surviving, but it's not proven either. I don't think any of the studies so far settles the question of whether or not a few Etruscan lineages survived, unless they can clearly exclude damaged or contaminated ancient/medieval DNA or give a clear indication of sample sizes and provenances.

(1) Mol Biol Evol. 2009 Sep;26(9):2157-66.
(2) Am J Hum Genet. 2004 April; 74(4): 694–704.
(3) Am J Hum Genet. 2007 Apr;80(4):759-68.

[Bari]

Even if its true, the Etruscans didnt share anything in common with the turks of today. Italians are meditterranean southern european people and not kurdish or something like that the least.

Theres definately an agenda behind theese speculations. Same as the constant propaganda that we all descend from africa.,

[Atlas]

Northern Italians are not different from south germans, or frenchmen.

[Rhobot]

So the Turkish nationalists think. There is little if any proof for that. Huns, when finally landing into Europa, were 3 way confederation of Hunnic-speakers, Goths(Germanic) and Alans (Iranic). Hunnic possibly was Turkic, or not. It could have been Ugric just aswell.


Origin of Huns likely is in the confederate of Xiongnu. Xiongnu was confederate of many tribes, with different racial origins. Chinese chronicles describe Yenisei Kyrgyz-tribe as "yellow haired" and blue eyed. Yenisei-river flows from Mongolia to arctic sea. Another tribe part of Xiongnu were late Pazyryks from Mongolia. Blonde Pazyryk chieftain was digged from Mongolian permafrost just few years ago:
http://i29.tinypic.com/24mg9bo.jpg

Some (perhaps even leading) tribes of Xiongnu confederation were fully Mongoloid, others Europoid, some even Nordic.

You are correct that Central Asia and western Siberia had far more Caucasoid people at that time (Bronze/Iron Age). When DNA studies were performed on ancient remains from the region, West Eurasian mtDNA and yDNA haplogroups were found, and SNP genotyping identified pigment-related loci that suggested many had fair hair and eyes.
Dienekes on prehistoric Siberians' phenotypes and haplogroups (http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2009/05/more-on-prehistoric-south-siberians.html)
Dienekes on prehistoric Siberians' pigmentation (http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2009/05/light-pigmented-caucasoids-from.html)

Some people think the Xiongnu confederation included Yeniseian (Ket)-speakers as well. This is a language family that is probably related to the Na-Dene languages of North America, so this subset of the confederation at least was probably Mongoloid.

[Mesrine]

I think you are thinking of the Guimaraes study (1), which seems to have used the same dataset as the earlier work of Vernesi et al. (2).
Different studies give different results; an earlier study (published 2007) using blood samples from modern natives of Tuscany, showed elevated frequencies of Near Eastern mtDNA haplogroups, rare elsewhere in Europe, in Murlo, a town in the Colline Metallifere of Tuscany (3).

Murlo is not representative for modern Tuscany, that's why it was chosen after a careful selection for this study. They wanted to prove genetic links with Anatolia.



Northern Italians are not different from south germans, or frenchmen.

Yes, but Tuscans aren't Northern Italians.

EDIT: It's not that simple. Northern Italians totally differ from Southern Germans, and only Northwestern Italians are really akin to Southeastern Frenchmen. Southwestern France is another thing.

[Rhobot]

Murlo is not representative for modern Tuscany, that's why it was chosen after a careful selection for this study. They wanted to prove genetic links with Anatolia.
.

Exactly. Murlo is fairly isolated, remote from any major city of medieval or modern times, has significant Etruscan archaeological remains and thus is the kind of place where you would expect to find any surviving signal of Etruscan ancestry.
You are unlikely to find any evidence of Etruscan ancestry in northern Tuscany (north of the Arno), which was never part of Etruria, or in big cities which attracted many migrants over time (e.g. Florence, Pisa, Siena), where the genetic signal of a relatively small group would be diluted beyond recognition.

[Artur]

Piazza and his colleagues studied the Y chromosome from males who had been living in selected areas of Tuscany between the Arno and Tiber rivers, notably Murlo, Volterra and Casentino, where the Etruscans were known to have concentrated. The men’s families had been living in the region for at least three generations and their surnames were Etruscan in origin.
The team compared the men’s DNA sequences with those from men in modern Turkey, northern Italy, the Greek island of Lemnos, the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia and the southern Balkans.
They found that the genetic sequences of the Tuscan men varied significantly from those of men in surrounding regions in Italy, and were most closely related to those of men from Turkey. “In Murlo particularly, one genetic variant is shared only by people from Turkey,” Piazza said.

Am I the only one interpretating that the article says MODERN turks and, at least, some MODERN tuscans are related? I suppose they can't compare modern tuscans DNAs with ancient turks.


And the women too

Earlier this year, geneticist Antonio Torroni of the University of Pavia – who also participated in Piazza’s study – and his colleagues reported on a study of mitochondrial DNA, which is passed through female lineages. They found that mitochondrial DNA from women in Tuscany was also most closely related to that from women in Turkey.

If this isn't a pseudo-scientific study, it proves genetical relation between modern tuscans and modern turks to be closer than with other italians.

That's surprising to me, I always thought that turks were a bit darker than people from Florence, for example.
:confused:

[San Galgano]

Am I the only one interpretating that the article says MODERN turks and, at least, some MODERN tuscans are related? I suppose they can't compare modern tuscans DNAs with ancient turks.



If this isn't a pseudo-scientific study, it proves genetical relation between modern tuscans and modern turks to be closer than with other italians.

That's surprising to me, I always thought that turks were a bit darker than people from Florence, for example.
:confused:


1)This is a pseudo scientific study indeed.
The only people tested are of little towns which have been living there for almost 5 generations(to make sure their ancestors come from those towns)and any people outside those towns have been tested.
The few samples from Tuscany clustered with some in western anatolians where greeks lived until 1920 more or less.
Who says those samples in Turkye weren't turkized greeks,or italics moved to Anatolie back in time anyway?
At the end turks arrived from central Asia in the 1000 b.C and they have nothing to do with ancient etruscans after centuries of mixing with anatolian greeks,slavs and other kidnapped europeans.
2)Turks are a lot darker than people from Florence and whole Tuscany.
Test was only made over samples of an isolated town in a well isolated place in Tuscany.
Now you have the pasiegos in Cantabria,but i wouldn't barely think that all cantabrians are like berbers wouldn't i?
3)
New tests shown that modern day Tuscans have nothing to do with etruscans.
"Ancient Etruscans are unlikely the ancestors of modern Tuscans, study finds"
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2006/may17/mountain-051706.html
"Tuscans 'not descended from Etruscans'"
http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/tuscany/tuscans-not-descended-etruscans

[Birka]

Northern Italians are not different from south germans, or frenchmen.


I have an Italian friend from the northern areas, he is white as can be, he cannot tan at all, blue eyes, very tall and has very dark brown hair.

[Cato]

There were Hittites in Turkey before there were any Greeks roaming about (and well before any Turks were there).

[Foxy]

Ehmm... all the old tribes living in Italy were indo-europeans and caucasians. To arrive to Italy from Caucaso (posited homeland) there are only two ways: from Turkey across the Mediterraneum or through continental Europe, across modern Germany.
So it is possible that some tribes arrived here through Turkey and others through Germany. But you don't have to mistake old areas with modern States. At the times, Turkeys didn't exist yet. :D
After all all the Europeans are from Caucaso.

[The Ripper]

Ehmm... all the old tribes living in Italy were indo-europeans and caucasians. To arrive to Italy from Caucaso (posited homeland) there are only two ways: from Turkey across the Mediterraneum or through continental Europe, across modern Germany.
So it is possible that some tribes arrived here through Turkey and others through Germany. But you don't have to mistake old areas with modern States. At the times, Turkeys didn't exist yet. :D
After all all the Europeans are from Caucaso.

How can the Etruscans be IE when they don't speak an IE language?

[Foxy]

How can the Etruscans be IE when they don't speak an IE language?

And to which stock did their language belong? Anyway Etruscans have been genetically delated from Italy... sadly, becouse they were a great people.

[Osweo]

And to which stock did their language belong?
THere is a hypothetical macro-family called 'Indo-Tyrrhenian', connecting PIE and Etruscan (and Lemnian etc.). To my eyes, it seems reasonable, as Etruscan does look like a kind of sister or cousin to IE, in many features of its vocab, grammar, and even mythology. I see it as descended from the sorts of languages that were spoken just a bit to the southeast of PIE's ancestors.

Anyway Etruscans have been genetically delated from Italy... sadly, becouse they were a great people.
They're still there in blood, I bet. But there might not have been very many of them anyway, just a ruling class over native Italics, perhaps. And I wouldn't expect too much divergence in genetics from Greeks, Italics and Palaeobalkan stocks anyway.

[Foxy]

THere is a hypothetical macro-family called 'Indo-Tyrrhenian', connecting PIE and Etruscan (and Lemnian etc.). To my eyes, it seems reasonable, as Etruscan does look like a kind of sister or cousin to IE, in many features of its vocab, grammar, and even mythology. I see it as descended from the sorts of languages that were spoken just a bit to the southeast of PIE's ancestors.

They're still there in blood, I bet. But there might not have been very many of them anyway, just a ruling class over native Italics, perhaps. And I wouldn't expect too much divergence in genetics from Greeks, Italics and Palaeobalkan stocks anyway.

I have read a research which says that modern Tuscans have nothing in their dna of old Etruscans :( I can't find that post now.
What is PIE?

[Cato]

I have read a research which says that modern Tuscans have nothing in their dna of old Etruscans :( I can't find that post now.
What is PIE?

ProtoIndoEuropean.

PIE.

[Osweo]

I have read a research which says that modern Tuscans have nothing in their dna of old Etruscans :( I can't find that post now.
Heh, I could read twenty studies and still refuse to believe that nothing survives of the ancient Raseni. It just flies in the face of common sense - it's impossible that an entire people would leave no trace!

What is PIE?
Sorry, Proto-Indo-European. You probably just call it 'Indo-European' which isn't quite technically correct, but everyone does it for economy's sake. :p

[Ibericus]

Am I the only one interpretating that the article says MODERN turks and, at least, some MODERN tuscans are related? I suppose they can't compare modern tuscans DNAs with ancient turks.



If this isn't a pseudo-scientific study, it proves genetical relation between modern tuscans and modern turks to be closer than with other italians.

That's surprising to me, I always thought that turks were a bit darker than people from Florence, for example.
:confused:

This is not true . See this recent study, compare the Tuscans and the Turks:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/carousel/nature09103-f3.2.jpg


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ish7688voT0/TA_tjcMrcnI/AAAAAAAACb0/iMP8YJM3D8E/s1600/pca.jpg

[San Galgano]

This is not true . See this recent study, compare the Tuscans and the Turks:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/carousel/nature09103-f3.2.jpg


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Ish7688voT0/TA_tjcMrcnI/AAAAAAAACb0/iMP8YJM3D8E/s1600/pca.jpg


thanks a lot Iberia!
I never find this maps in the net when i search for them.

[Tyrrhenoi]

Where do all other the Italic tribes come from? :confused: They have IE language okay... but what does it mean?

[Osweo]

Where do all other the Italic tribes come from? :confused: They have IE language okay... but what does it mean?
Nothing and everything. :p

No European tribe comes from only one ancient tribe and that from an earlier one, back to the beginning of humanity. All have several ancestral groups, fusing in various ways. You shouldn't think of a 'family tree', as in reality, some 'branches' of other trees will have joined with branches of another, branches split into two, but fuse together later on.... it's complicated.

And so, IE languages must have entered Italy once upon a time, brought by probably several tribes, from several directions, and at several times. Other languages were there before, now forgotten. But perhaps they at least influenced the later languages in subtle things like accent or stock phrases.

[MagnaLaurentia]

The family of Julius Caesar, gens Julia / Julian family (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(gens)), claimed descent from Ascanius (is the son of Aeneas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneas)) also called Iulus Ilus (means : made in Ilium). Ilium is the ancient name of Troy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy).

[Tyrrhenoi]

The family of Julius Caesar, gens Julia / Julian family (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_(gens)), claimed descent from Ascanius (the son of Aeneas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneas)) also called Iulus Ilus (means : made in Ilium). Ilium is the ancient name of Troy.

Troy was situated in what is now Turkey isn't it?

[Osweo]

Virgil composed the Aeneid to give the early Roman Emperors a prestigious mythological pedigree. Rome had been for a long time the sort of 'little brother' to the sophisticated Greeks, and so a Greek epic was taken as the material for this propaganda.

Everyone knew that the Romans were not Greeks - and therefore it would have been too absurd to claim that Julius Caesar descended from Menelaus or Agamemnon, and therefore the more obscure Trojans themselves were taken as the 'ancestors'.

Modern archaeology has determined, with the help of palaeographical investigation of Hittite sources (unknown of course to ancient Greeks and Romans alike) that Ilium was at the relevant time, a more or less Greek city itself. The texts refer to Kings with names like Alaksandu and Tawagawala (Alexandros and Etewokleweios, better known in its classical form Eteocles).
See;
http://www.livius.org/to-ts/troy/troy_VI-VII.html

The tale of Aeneas should not be used as history, though a few echoes may be found there.

[MagnaLaurentia]

Troy was situated in what is now Turkey isn't it?

Çanakkale (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=%C3%87anakkale&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=%C3%87anakkale+Province,+Turkey&ei=i4xUTPT5JIH-8Aa_0Y2nBA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ8gEwAA) but I think that archaeologists have never find the same city than Homer described.

[MagnaLaurentia]

Virgil composed the Aeneid to give the early Roman Emperors a prestigious mythological pedigree. Rome had been for a long time the sort of 'little brother' to the sophisticated Greeks, and so a Greek epic was taken as the material for this propaganda.

Everyone knew that the Romans were not Greeks - and therefore it would have been too absurd to claim that Julius Caesar descended from Menelaus or Agamemnon, and therefore the more obscure Trojans themselves were taken as the 'ancestors'.

Modern archaeology has determined, with the help of palaeographical investigation of Hittite sources (unknown of course to ancient Greeks and Romans alike) that Ilium was at the relevant time, a more or less Greek city itself. The texts refer to Kings with names like Alaksandu and Tawagawala (Alexandros and Etewokleweios, better known in its classical form Eteocles).
See;
http://www.livius.org/to-ts/troy/troy_VI-VII.html

The tale of Aeneas should not be used as history, though a few echoes may be found there.

I agree it's probably a tale... it's still exciting! :P

[Svipdag]

The Æneid is an entirely different breed of cats from the Greek epics. It is the product of a single skilled author rather than cobbled together from the verses of several Greek poets who contributed bits and pieces from which the Iliad and the Odyssey were gradually concocted over the course of perhaps centuries of recitation.

For, note that the Æneid is a literary work, written and intended to be read rather than memorised and intended to be recited or chanted to the accompaniment of suitable chords upon the kithara. It is a far better written, or composed, and much more sophisticated piece of work than its Greek predecessors.

It shows far better development of emotionally more mature characters than, e.g. the Iliad. Æneas is a real person, showing real depth as compared to the wooden 2-dimensional Odysseus or, worse, the childish and brutal Hector and Achilles. In other words, the Æneid is far better fiction than the Iliad or the Odyssey. As history, all 3 of them are worthless.

The merchant-turned-archæologist, Heinrich Schliemann, treating the Greek epics as history, found SOMETHING at Hissarlik in Turkey and claimed that it was the Troy of the Trojan War. The site has yielded a lot of rich and beautiful Mycænian artifacts, but no secure evidence that it was, indeed, Ilion or Troy.

As history, the Æneid should probably be treated like "Gone with the Wind" as a history of the Civil War.

[San Galgano]

1)I would like to add something to clarify this thread. As we all know turks arrived Anatolia almost 1500 years later the departure of etruscans for Italy so we can see how genetists lack totally a historical culture.
2)Talking with a friend of mine who is a researcher at the univeristy of Pisa, i've been told that this study is the most biased and false study ever made. Not only he told me that genetists would make everything to get a prize to have been the first to give an answer to the old mistery of etruscans, but in this specific study they answered what people and newspapers want to hear since time; That is, Etruscans were from near east.
Not only then these genetists only sampled western anatolians, excluding greeks, cypriots and many other balkan people as well as central Europeans, but the specific haplogroup they focused about is present in almost all Europe. They didn't care if the rest were completely different haplogroups and the one they wanted to find was very little shared between people from Murlo and western Turks.For them the important was to point at a specific haplogroup which is not present only in western turks though.
A biased study then.

[The Lawspeaker]

Which shouldn't even be called a study to begin with but pro-multiculti, political propaganda.

[Foxy]

1)I would like to add something to clarify this thread. As we all know turks arrived Anatolia almost 1500 years later the departure of etruscans for Italy so we can see how genetists lack totally a historical culture.
2)Talking with a friend of mine who is a researcher at the univeristy of Pisa, i've been told that this study is the most biased and false study ever made. Not only he told me that genetists would make everything to get a prize to have been the first to give an answer to the old mistery of etruscans, but in this specific study they answered what people and newspapers want to hear since time; That is, Etruscans were from near east.
Not only then these genetists only sampled western anatolians, excluding greeks, cypriots and many other balkan people as well as central Europeans, but the specific haplogroup they focused about is present in almost all Europe. They didn't care if the rest were completely different haplogroups and the one they wanted to find was very little shared between people from Murlo and western Turks.For them the important was to point at a specific haplogroup which is not present only in western turks though.
A biased study then.

I think that all the studies about haplogroups are made by propaganda. In daily life who cares of haplogroups?

[Cato]

Genetic tests: Italians were from Turkey.

But then it explains that the "Etruscans" came from modern-day Turkey. The Etruscans are hardly the forefathers the Italians.

[San Galgano]

Genetic tests: Italians were from Turkey.

But then it explains that the "Etruscans" came from modern-day Turkey. The Etruscans are hardly the forefathers the Italians.


What genetists don't want to understand either is that etruscans didn't settle in an empty Italy. They found villanovians who were already there and melted with them.
Etruscans were an elite, and any historical account says that a large mass of migrants arrived in Italy as we know about greeks in South Italy.

Anyway i'm still convinced that Etruscans were proto-indoeuropeans who had probably shared knowledge with greek colonies and adopted some of their culture.

[San Galgano]

I think that all the studies about haplogroups are made by propaganda. In daily life who cares of haplogroups?

Especially haplogroups who can be found in almost all Europe.
A guy with lot of knowledge over dna-forum wrote that the specific haplogroup they claim typical of turks clustered with some welsh too.
I think genetic is in the hands of buffoons today.

[Cato]

What about groups like the Old Latins?

[Cato]

What I can mention from my memory of Virgil's tale of the Aeneas:

1) The Etruscans were already present in Italy before Aeneas and his followers arrived from the Troad.

2) The Etrsucans were distinct from the Old Latins and other tribes.

3) There were also other Trojan survivors living in Italy (and Greeks, as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diomedes#Life_in_Italy).

[San Galgano]

What about groups like the Old Latins?

Latins were indoeuropeans, as well as every tribe surrounding them.
The substratum of the etruscans were all those people indeed. Umbrians, Latins, old villanovians and so on.

Etruscans arose before them, but anyway even if they had an eastern mediterranean culture they could be from the isles off Turkye who were inhabited by ancient greeks and retained a most ancient language.
At the end the etruscan alphabet was the modified greek one.

[Cato]

Oh, and Janus too! Janus supposedly had a fortress/palace, centuries before Romulus and Remus, on the hill that later bore his name: Janiculum.

http://www.novareinna.com/festive/janus.html

The origins of this God vary somewhat, dependent upon the source. One legend states that Janus was a mortal who came from Thessaly and was welcomed into Latium by Camese.

[Cato]

The attempts to paint an eastern origin for the Italians is based on fragmentary items of history and myth. It's widely known that Anatolia during the timeframe of the Trojan War was governed by the Hittites, themselves an amalgamation of Indo-European and pre-Indo-European (the Nesite people), and that the emperor of the Hittites seems to have been the tributary overlord of the cities of western Anatolia (like Troy/Wilusa). Diplomatic correspondence between Hittite kings and kings of Ahhiyawa (Mycenaean-era Greeks(?), who, legend says, were ruled by the Atreid kings), has been found, as have interesting-sounding names like Akagamunas (Agamemnon?) in the Hittite sources. So, there's some truth to the legendary of populations moving about in the ancient Mediterranean, especially in the age of the so-called Sea Peoples (who overthrew the Hittite Empire, weakened post-Ramses Egypt, and so on).

[San Galgano]

Oh, and Janus too! Janus supposedly had a fortress/palace, centuries before Romulus and Remus, on the hill that later bore his name: Janiculum.

http://www.novareinna.com/festive/janus.html

The origins of this God vary somewhat, dependent upon the source. One legend states that Janus was a mortal who came from Thessaly and was welcomed into Latium by Camese.


Great shoot.
The name Janus derives from the indoeuropean root "ei" amplified in "y-aa-" meaning "crossing" that through the form "yaa-tu" produced the irish "ath"--"ford".


Janus was a very old god worshipped in Italy then.

[San Galgano]

What I can mention from my memory of Virgil's tale of the Aeneas:

1) The Etruscans were already present in Italy before Aeneas and his followers arrived from the Troad.

2) The Etrsucans were distinct from the Old Latins and other tribes.

3) There were also other Trojan survivors living in Italy (and Greeks, as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diomedes#Life_in_Italy).


I think Virgil was a bit biased. He had to build a believable history about the foundation of Rome and then he choose what could fit better the purpose.
He couldn't state romans were descendants of greeks because of the wars between Rome and greek colonies, so he chose Trojans.

In the second part of the poem he wrote about a war between a part of etruscans, trojans and some ligurs against the Rutulians of Latium and some of their etruscan allies. Now Rutulians(in ancient italic it means the reds and blondes) were not latins, but similar to etruscans and this would explain the similar word "Tursnus"(the antagonist of Aenea) with the etruscan word Turrenos. Rutilians are considered ancient ligurs today, so we go back again to my thought that etruscans were ancient italic tribes.

[Cato]

Great shoot.
The name Janus derives from the indoeuropean root "ei" amplified in "y-aa-" meaning "crossing" that through the form "yaa-tu" produced the irish "ath"--"ford".


Janus was a very old god worshipped in Italy then.

Do you think that Janus was a human ruler who became worshipped as a deity after his death? This was the universal standard in antiquity (to worship monarchs as deities/avatars of deities, in life or in death), so I've always wondered if Janus actually did live (as I wonder the same about Hercules, who was regarded as a real person by the Stoics, Epictetus at least, with the twist that he was called the "son of Jove" by virtue of his deeds that were beneficial to mankind- why should the Jews alone produce heroes who are/were called Son of God?!).

[Cato]

I think Virgil was a bit biased. He had to build a believable history about the foundation of Rome and then he choose what could fit better the purpose.
He couldn't state romans were descendants of greeks because of the wars between Rome and greek colonies, so he chose Trojans.

In the second part of the poem he wrote about a war between a part of etruscans, trojans and some ligurs against the Rutulians of Latium and some of their etruscan allies. Now Rutulians(in ancient italic it means the reds and blondes) were not latins, but similar to etruscans and this would explain the similar word "Tursnus"(the antagonist of Aenea) with the etruscan word Turrenos. Rutilians are considered ancient ligurs today, so we go back again to my thought that etruscans were ancient italic tribes.

Do these Rutulians have anything to do with, say, the Rutilius family? The great-uncle of Caesar was a P. Rutilius Rufus, ally of Marius and a former consul who was banished, I believe, during Sulla's dictatorship.

You might see my line of thinking, the lines of the various peoples in pre-historic Italy eventually merged with the rise of Rome, and the various tribal identities became subsumed into Roma Mater (thus bring with them their various tribal origin stories, further complicating sketchy history).

I've got Livy's history of Roma Mater (she is our mother [we westerners], so I regard her, even if I am an Anglecynn) stashed someplace, been a while since I read it, but it only really begins with the birth of Romulus and Remus. Virgil's poem fills in many blanks, but one has to wonder how much of what he writes derives from native Italian lore and what derives from Greek story-telling.

[Curtis24]

This is the problem with genetic studies - because genetic ancestral techniques are still ambiguous, genetic studies have become highly politicized in some instances.

[Cato]

This is the problem with genetic studies - because genetic ancestral techniques are still ambiguous, genetic studies have become highly politicized in some instances.

Which is why I find the lore of the oldsters in the family to be far more valuable that some kind of cotton swab DNA test. If an oldster says we're English-descended, thus we are.

[San Galgano]

Do you think that Janus was a human ruler who became worshipped as a deity after his death? This was the universal standard in antiquity (to worship monarchs as deities/avatars of deities, in life or in death), so I've always wondered if Janus actually did live (as I wonder the same about Hercules, who was regarded as a real person by the Stoics, Epictetus at least, with the twist that he was called the "son of Jove" by virtue of his deeds that were beneficial to mankind- why should the Jews alone produce heroes who are/were called Son of God?!).


Yes, and great comment:lightbul:. I think that Janus was a very ancient king or a leading figure at the time of the first pre-roman tribes in Latium. His worship is very old and the cult was tied to the natural times of harvest and sowing.
Varro called him the creator(probably this man unified some tribes over the Janiculoum's hill-hence the creator-)
Marcus Rufus wrote about Janus: "he's the one who form and rules everything,etc,etc".
Then you are probably right. Janus as well as Hercules was a leading and charismatic figure who became a deity.

[Cato]

Yes, and great comment:lightbul:. I think that Janus was a very ancient king or a leading figure at the time of the first pre-roman tribes in Latium. His worship is very old and the cult was tied to the natural times of harvest and sowing.
Varro called him the creator(probably this man unified some tribes over the Janiculoum's hill-hence the creator-)
Marcus Rufus wrote about Janus: "he's the one who form and rules everything,etc,etc".
Then you are probably right. Janus as well as Hercules was a leading and charismatic figure who became a deity.

Now days, the term "son of God" has distinctly Christian connotations, but this was not the case in ancient times, where it was commonplace to revere monarchs as living deities or as possessing a special relationship with a deity. King David is called "a king after God's own heart" and, although the Hebrews were far more iconoclastic than other peoples of the time, they as well saw their monarchs, the good ones at least, as being more in touch with the other world than the common folk.

In the case of other peoples, the trend is to both deify a particular ruler (or hero or wiseman) and, if this individual is important enough, to conflate this august person with a kingly deity- hence Aeneas, according to Livy, becomes Jupiter (or Jupiter Indiges), Romulus becomes Quirinus, and so forth. In the case of Christianity, it becomes obvious- Jesus becomes conflated with the Almighty himself (even though no such precedence exists within the annals of the older Hebrew religion).

In the case of Janus, I'd surmise that he was a prehistoric ruler in the site that later became Rome. Human habitation at Rome predates the arrival of the Indoeuropeans by many centuries, and then you also have to take into account the Indoeuropeans themselves: Italics, coming down from the Alps, and the Greeks coming over from the Adriatic. If Janus lived, and the mythological lore presents him as a lawgiver and ruler, he must've come from an already-established location, Thessaly for example as he's presented as coming from, into Old Latium- perhaps as an exile or a colonist.

[San Galgano]

Do these Rutulians have anything to do with, say, the Rutilius family? The great-uncle of Caesar was a P. Rutilius Rufus, ally of Marius and a former consul who was banished, I believe, during Sulla's dictatorship.
That's probably right. The gens Rutilia was an ancient roman family and probably tied to the Rutulians.


You might see my line of thinking, the lines of the various peoples in pre-historic Italy eventually merged with the rise of Rome, and the various tribal identities became subsumed into Roma Mater (thus bring with them their various tribal origin stories, further complicating sketchy history).

Another great shot mate. As you can see, with your great line of thinking you perfectly understood the genesis of roman mithology and in the same time you debunked biased and inaccurate genetists claiming improbable middle eastern origin of the various pre-roman tribes and their cults.


I've got Livy's history of Roma Mater (she is our mother [we westerners], so I regard her, even if I am an Anglecynn) stashed someplace, been a while since I read it, but it only really begins with the birth of Romulus and Remus. Virgil's poem fills in many blanks, but one has to wonder how much of what he writes derives from native Italian lore and what derives from Greek story-telling.

Right. Virgil in a way or another had to support the wish of many emperors to be seen as similar to ancient greeks' leading figures as possible, or at least similar in the way greeks conceived a great man. This way his poem sound a bit biased to me.
I think the best source for us to understand the genesis of Rome and its people lays in the ancient Gods as Janus.

[Cato]

Roman history has always been one of my interests, something which is distinctly different from Greek history even though many people tend to think that Roman civilization owes itself to Etruscans and Greeks.

To Romans were doers, not thinkers like the Greeks, so they were more practically capable of ruling over a fast empire than a people like the Greeks were. As to the religious and mythological aspect, early Roman, or pre-Roman, religion seems drab to some- yet I find the numina to be a far more enticing conception of the divine than that held by the Greeks and their man-like deities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numen

[San Galgano]

Roman history has always been one of my interests, something which is distinctly different from Greek history even though many people tend to think that Roman civilization owes itself to Etruscans and Greeks.

To Romans were doers, not thinkers like the Greeks, so they were more practically capable of ruling over a fast empire than a people like the Greeks were. As to the religious and mythological aspect, early Roman, or pre-Roman, religion seems drab to some- yet I find the numina to be a far more enticing conception of the divine than that held by the Greeks and their man-like deities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numen

Pallamedes i'm going to rise my arms up!:thumb001:
Your knowledge of Rome and my poor english, who doesn't allow me to write as i'd like, determined your victory.:thumbs up

[Cato]

Io triumphe! I dedicate my victory to the Almighty, be he called Jove or God.

http://rpodle6.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/roman-triumph.jpg

[San Galgano]

Io triumphe! I dedicate my victory to the Almighty, be he called Jove or God.

http://rpodle6.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/roman-triumph.jpg

DURA LEX SED LEX, my emperor!:bowlol:

[Cato]

DURA LEX SED LEX, my emperor!:bowlol:

But it's Anglosaxon common law, not Roman law. :p

[San Galgano]

But it's Anglosaxon common law, not Roman law. :p

You mean it was introduced in the Anglosaxon common law?

[Cato]

You mean it was introduced in the Anglosaxon common law?

No, the law of my kingdom is the common law, not the jus gentium. :D

[San Galgano]

No, the law of my kingdom is the common law, not the jus gentium. :D

ahah
Sorry mate i believed you were saying that"Dura Lex Sed Lex" was introduced first in the common law.
:thumb001:

[Cato]

To my knowledge, the influence of Roman law in old England was minimal outside of the churches, thus the various kings formulated their own law codes based on the traditions and customs of the Anglosaxon tribes and, later, on the law codes of earlier kings.

[San Galgano]

To my knowledge, the influence of Roman law in old England was minimal outside of the churches, thus the various kings formulated their own law codes based on the traditions and customs of the Anglosaxon tribes and, later, on the law codes of earlier kings.

Probably roman influence vanished after their ruling because of a clannish attitude in Old England. The social order was too fragmentary as opposed to France and many other countries ruled by Rome to make an example.
France was ruled almost entirely by Franks suddenly after Rome. Franks were already present in the roman territory and interact with them then they shared a lot of roman social order and laws too.

[Osweo]

It is potentially a great folly to euhemerise the gods. Writers have tried to do so in every age, and we late-comers can now read their 2000 year old musings and mistake them for ancient 'fact'. It has already been pointed out how Janus's very name is indicative of his role/purpose/nature. Such characters do not come from the mortal world. Greek and later Roman attempts to make them fit a historical mortal mould creak terribly, and were probably the result of a slight inferiority complex against the long records of the Egyptians and other Near Easterners. See Herodotus for descriptions of this attitude 'from the horse's mouth'.

[San Galgano]

It was not more like an attempt of the subsequent times and Christianity the claim of the god=man and then through the acceptance of atonement, the man becomes a God again?
I probably wouldn't believe writers after the advent of Christianity, cause the matter was to justify an invented God-and then the immortal world-becoming a man to carry on his shoulder the pains of human beings with no human glory if not for a supreme ambition of a celestial order.




Herodotus was opposed by Athen's sophists cause he didn't respect rules in his historical accounts and the purpose of history as Magister Vitae.
The finality of Herodotus was at first to follow this line but in reality he only approached (not systematically) truths and fables.
In his researchs and analysis of Nomoi(and then even Egypt) he basically betrayed the Greek nomos which were considered the only source of truths.
Herodotus in this case became an half truth himself.
Let's not forgive that Sophism gave birth to Socrates(even if he left disappointed later)Aristippus and so on, then we have had great purists few inclined to follow foreign religions and who could counter balance Herodotus and his universal religion and (let me pass this words) stolen myths.

[Foxy]

I dare to answer as I have studied Latin and old Greek languages, cultures and literatures for 5 years at the classical lyceum of my city (it is similar to the English grammar school I think).
I have noticed some wrong points but I don't critizice you, as also many Italians ignore very important facts.


What I can mention from my memory of Virgil's tale of the Aeneas:

1) The Etruscans were already present in Italy before Aeneas and his followers arrived from the Troad.

2) The Etrsucans were distinct from the Old Latins and other tribes.

3) There were also other Trojan survivors living in Italy (and Greeks, as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diomedes#Life_in_Italy).

The "Aeneid" was written by Virgiulius, who dedicated it to Caesar Augustus Ottavianus, Julius Caesar's nephew. Augustus planned to led the neo-empire to a period of order and of high civility, becouse his oncle had created a lot of caos at Rome (the passage from the republic to the empire, the civil war...). Augustus thought that the Greek culture, which purposed armony and order, should become the official culture of Rome. Virgiulius INVENTED that the Julia House (the family of Caesar) descended from Venus, who had a son with a Trojan. His descendent was Aenea, a Trojan who was led to the Italic Coast by gods to create an empire based on pietas and armony.
Surely nobody can believe this story, nor we can take it as an historical proof that Romans descended from Troja (a Greek polis built in modern Turkey by Greek people).
What we can say, instead, is that Romans were fascinated by Greek culture and from Augustus they adopted it as official culture, hellenizing every aspect of the Roman culture. That's why today modern people often think that the two cultures were basically the same one.


Roman history has always been one of my interests, something which is distinctly different from Greek history even though many people tend to think that Roman civilization owes itself to Etruscans and Greeks.

To Romans were doers, not thinkers like the Greeks, so they were more practically capable of ruling over a fast empire than a people like the Greeks were. As to the religious and mythological aspect, early Roman, or pre-Roman, religion seems drab to some- yet I find the numina to be a far more enticing conception of the divine than that held by the Greeks and their man-like deities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numen

...continuing from above...

Indeed Romans were doers, but they understood that to mantain an empire the upper class has to be cultivated and not ignorant soldiers. They started to educate the upper class children/members by Greek books and philosophy. Romans had an own philosophy, called "stoicism", which is from the Greek philosophy of the Stoà. Stoicism was the official Roman upper class culture.
In religious field, Romans opted for the syncretism: in other words every religion was legal in Rome, as every Celtic, Greek, Germanic god/goddess was translated into a Roman divinity. Ares, the Greek god of War, was assimilated to Mars, the Latin god of War. Aphrodite with Venus, Zeus with Juppiter, ecc. ecc.
The Egyptian Iside was often assimilated with Venus, but in some periods her cult became popular at Rome too. The Persian god "Mitra" had also great succes in the eastern territories.
By syncretism, Romans were able to make every conquered people assimilated into the Roman culture, without deleting their culture and avoiding rebellions. The only thing important from Romans was that people had to be loyal to the emperor, whatever was thir religion or ethniticy.

[Cato]

My intimacy with Stoicism is such that I consider myself to be one, and a member of the great cosmopolis of God.

[MinervaItalica]

The question is nonsense and stupid and about Etruscans coming from Anatolia is only a theory among others (i also think is not even supported anymore). Even if they came from Anatolia they wouldn't have anything to do with present day Turks.

It's more likely that they were an Italic tribe influenced by Greece and Anatolia customs/traditions in addition to their own culture.

PS: Sorry for bumping this old thread.

[wvwvw]

The question is nonsense and stupid and about Etruscans coming from Anatolia is only a theory among others (i also think is not even supported anymore). Even if they came from Anatolia they wouldn't have anything to do with present day Turks.

It's more likely that they were an Italic tribe influenced by Greece and Anatolia customs/traditions in addition to their own culture.

PS: Sorry for bumping this old thread.

Etruria was inhabited by a number of unrelated tribes. They were not a single people. The Romans NEVER used the term Etruscans to refer to those tribes collectively.

The Tuscans were native Italians, the Tyrsenoi came from Lydia and the Pelasgians (who lived above the Tyrsenoi) came from Greece.

There was no Turkey back then nor did the Semitoarmenoid mongols- modern Turks had arrived yet from middle east.

[MinervaItalica]

Not surprised that Bosniensis with his pseudo history thumbed me down. :laugh:

[Bosniensis]

The question is nonsense and stupid and about Etruscans coming from Anatolia is only a theory among others (i also think is not even supported anymore). Even if they came from Anatolia they wouldn't have anything to do with present day Turks.

It's more likely that they were an Italic tribe influenced by Greece and Anatolia customs/traditions in addition to their own culture.

PS: Sorry for bumping this old thread.

We don't have to think, we just have to visit the Library of Constantinople.

What a terrible truths are to be found there.

You can call me a liar, but you can't say that 10 Caesars, 20 Roman historians were liars as well.

Also, you as "Italian" probably know who is Cadmus, people of Phoenecia and Anatolia alas the entire Myth about Europa
revolve around those 3.

Your nation is a nation of Franks and Lombards, I can give you 1000 profs not 1 but 1000.

[wvwvw]

Also, you as "Italian" probably know who is Cadmus, people of Phoenecia and Anatolia alas the entire Myth about Europa
revolve around those 3.

Cadmus ancestors came from Argos and Phoenicia at the time was populated by the Myceanean Phillistines/Pelasgians. Phoenicia was founded by Cadmus brother Phoenix who had nothing to do with Canaites or Syrians. Europa was a Greek Princess a descendant of Io.

[MinervaItalica]

The Tuscans were native Italians, the Tyrsenoi came from Lydia and the Pelasgians (who lived above the Tyrsenoi) came from Greece.

Uncertain, probably a legend...

[Bosniensis]

Uncertain, probably a legend...

I know I have encountered you people multiple times.

Everything what Roman scholars have written is a lie, and everything what modern historians have wrote is true.

Unfortunately for you Library of Constantinople has been salvaged partially and there are written Roman scriptures from 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th century and you can't
do anything against them. You can only look at them and despair.

[Bosniensis]

Italian language is ENOUGH to anyone who understands how languages work to see that it's closer to French than Latin and Greek. Even Serbian language is closer to Latin than Italian,
Italian Grammar is a complete opposite of Latin and has absolutely no connections to it except loanwords.

[MinervaItalica]

Italian language is ENOUGH to anyone who understands how languages work to see that it's closer to French than Latin and Greek. Even Serbian language is closer to Latin than Italian,
Italian Grammar is a complete opposite of Latin and has absolutely no connections to it except loanwords.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

[Iloko]

Looks like on old study. I bet there are some newer material available online to read. :)

[Bosniensis]

Opinion from the Roman Capital in 968 A.D.

Let's see what Romans thought of Italians:

http://i.imgur.com/VdYmEnt.png

[Selurong]

The study lends some credence to Virgil's ancient legend that Rome was founded by refugees from the destruction of Troy (And Troy was in Turkey).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_of_Rome#Aeneas

[MinervaItalica]

Looks like on old study. I bet there are some newer material available online to read. :)

Yes, i bumped an old thread with an old study.

Yes there are. Here some updates:

"Traditionally the Etruscans were said to have migrated to Italy from Anatolia, but modern archaeological and genetic research suggests descent from the indigenous Villanovan culture of Italy.[75][76][77]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italians#Pre-Roman

"The latest mitochondrial DNA study (2013) shows that Etruscans apparently closely resemble a Neolithic population from Central Europe and other Tuscan populations, and are ancestral to the modern inhabitants of Casentino and Volterra. The study also excluded recent Anatolian connections.[23]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_civilization#Genetic_research


The study lends some credence to Virgil's ancient legend that Rome was founded by refugees from the destruction of Troy (And Troy was in Turkey).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_of_Rome#Aeneas

Just another legend. The founders of Rome (who started as a small settlement like many great cities of history) were the Latins, an Indo-European Italic tribe. Obviously, the Romans were admirers of Greek mythology and so they linked their city origins to Greek culture. On the other side Ancient Greeks wanted to state that Rome was nothing more than a continuation of their former glory in order to justify Roman rule in Greece.

Rome has much more connections/origins to Etruscan traditions than Greek ones.