Researchers have discovered ancient text that could reveal a bit more about the religion of the ancient Etruscans. The new findings could be huge when it comes to better understanding the worship of a particular god or goddess at the time.
Most ancient artifacts come from Etruscan graves and funeral objects. While this tells researchers a lot about how Etruscans handled death, it doesn't tell scientists how Etruscans lived on a day-to-day basis. That's why this latest finding is so important when it comes to better understanding Etruscan culture.
The new text is actually in the form of a massive stone slab that weighs about 500 pounds, and is about four feet tall and more than two feet wide. The slab contains about 70 legible letters and punctuation marks, which means that once translated it could tell researchers quite a bit about what it was meant for.
The text itself was first found in the foundations of a massive temple. It could have been buried for as long as 2,500 years, but was probably once on display inside or outside of the temple.
"This is probably going to be a sacred text, and will be remarkable for telling us about the early belief system of a lost culture that is fundamental to western traditions," said Gregory Warden, co-director and principal investigator of the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project.
Currently, the researchers are hoping to learn a bit more about the language on the slab in order to properly translate it. The Etruscan culture itself once ruled Rome and influenced Romans. This means that the slab may be able to give researchers a closer look at how this ancient culture was structured.
"We hope to make inroads into the Etruscan language," Warden said. "Long inscriptions are rare, especially one this long, so there will be new words that we have never seen before, since it is not a funerary text."
Currently, the researchers are focusing on preserving the tablet and also are using laser scanning to document it. With that said, it will take some times before researchers manage to fully translate this ancient text.
The tablet, known as a stele, was officially presented at an exhibit of the Tuscan Archaeological Superintendency on March 19 in Italy.
