What have the Etruscans ever done for us?

They taught us to read and write (well, kind of)

Long before the Romans came to dominate the ancient world – before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Claudius invaded Britain and Vesuvius buried Pompeii – another civilisation dominated the Italian peninsula: the Etruscans. You may have heard of them, or that name may mean nothing to you. Either way, there’s little doubting their influence, continuing through the long hegemony of the Romans (who occupied Etruscan settlements) and the medieval period all the way to the modern age.

The Etruscans, whose name is echoed in the modern region of Tuscany, emerged in central Italy around 900 BC. Their heartland, Etruria, lay between the rivers Tiber and Arno, and their cities were often perched on imposing plateaus with views across the fertile fields and metal-bearing soils that made their fortune. Their ports sent vessels out into the Tyrrhenian Sea (which bears their Greek name), trading as far afield as Spain and the near east.

If you know the Etruscans at all, you might identify them as the villains of many a Roman tale or Greek myth. But who were these people? How did they live? And what impact do they have on our lives today?

Well, a good place to start is with the words you’re reading on this page. Without the Etruscan alphabet, the Latin characters we use in modern English writing could have developed totally differently. Etruscan letters are clearly influenced by Greek and Phoenician scripts, but you’ll find you can read them with relative ease because the letter forms are so familiar.

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Helpfully, a miniature ivory writing tablet dating from the seventh century BC has been discovered in a burial site at Marsiliana d’Albegna in southern Tuscany. Running along the top edge is the Etruscan alphabet, its letters inscribed in order from right to left – the Etruscan way of doing things. Some of the letter forms had not yet reached the shapes with which we’re familiar today – H, I and M look quite different, for example – but the origins of our modern Latin alphabet are plain to see.

There is, though, a catch: linguists are still working to fully understand Etruscan. Though it’s easy to read many of the words, we aren’t always sure what all of them mean. We do know, though, that Etruscan wasn’t an Indo-European language – so it wasn’t related to Latin, Umbrian or most other tongues spoken in ancient Italy.

There’s another problem: Etruscan texts are in short supply. We know that Etruscan people commonly wrote and read texts – from initials on weaving tools to detailed legal contracts – but, because the majority of their written works were on linen, few have survived.

There are extraordinary exceptions – an incredible Etruscan religious book that was slashed to make mummy bandages, for example, and golden plaques boasting about a local politician’s gifts to a temple – but, as yet, no Etruscan poetry or history. Perhaps the Etruscan version of Herodotus is out there, waiting to be discovered. In the meantime, we have views of this people only from its enemies – all to be taken with a hearty pinch of salt.

They were innovative pioneers of urban design

The Etruscans were exceptional town planners – and that very success is one reason why our knowledge of their culture is so limited. Archaeological research has shown that some Etruscan settlements occupied the same sites for centuries, stretching back into the early Iron Age. Many of these places were so popular that they remained continually occupied through the Middle Ages and into the modern day. As a result, much evidence of Etruscan life lies buried beneath the winding streets of photogenic Italian towns and cities.

Fortunately, thanks to some extraordinary surviving remains, we know a great deal about how Etruscan people organised their lives in towns. The site now called Marzabotto, near Bologna, seems to have been constructed as a new town in the sixth century BC. It’s built on a neat grid pattern or orthogonal plan, with a careful designation of what looks like public spaces as well as domestic buildings. There’s written evidence for a zilath, or magistrate, responsible for maintaining roads, and for another role responsible for managing weights and measures. Destroyed by invading Gauls in the fourth century AD, the site epitomises the peak of Etruscan expansion.

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The Etruscans’ complex urban communities influenced those who came after. The neat patterns of Roman forts and the iconic insulae (apartment blocks) at Pompeii and elsewhere have much in common with Etruscan town-planning ideals. In fact, we know that the Etruscans occupied Pompeii, and it was during their rule that the first forum and the Temple of Apollo were built.

From Marzabotto to Milton Keynes, the orthogonal or grid plan continues to influence town planning today.

They created the concept of combat as entertainment

It’s arguably the most iconic scene at the climax of surely the most iconic film of 2000, Ridley Scott’s multi-Oscar-winning Gladiator. Maximus (played so memorably by Russell Crowe) wanders through a wheat field into the afterlife. That episode was filmed in the Val d’Orcia in Tuscany, at the heart of the Etruscans’ ancient homeland. Coincidence? Probably. Yet, given the Etruscans’ role in the inception of gladiatorial combat, it’s rather fitting.

Though gladiators will forever be synonymous with ancient Rome – thanks in no small part to Spartacus and Maximus himself – we have the Etruscans to thank for the rise of this brutal form of entertainment.

There’s plenty of evidence for this – notably in a network of painted tombs at Tarquinia, about 45 miles north-west of Rome. This amazing necropolis contains numerous burial chambers decorated with images of Etruscan life and imaginings of the afterlife. Some are inspiring, drawn from sharply poignant observations of the natural world. Others are disturbing, showing the extent of human cruelty.

Take the late sixth-century BC Tomb of the Augurs. This features depictions of funerary games – exhibitions of strength and athleticism in honour of the dead. You can see two nude wrestlers grappling in front of a series of three piled bowls (clearly the prizes). There’s also a referee holding the lituus, or ceremonial staff.

So far, so jovial. But on another wall is a more disturbing image. A masked man holds a long leash restraining a creature who is viciously biting the legs of another man, armed with a club but hopelessly entangled. The creature may be a dog or, perhaps, a black leopard – its long tail and raking claws suggest the latter.

This cruel contest between man and beast is a clear predecessor of the celebrated Roman games, for which thousands of animals were imported. The Roman names for some of the officials at these contests were derived from Etruscan, and the dreaded figure of Charon, who finished off wounded gladiators with his massive hammer, was derived from the Etruscan death demon Charun.

The Romans may have refined and supercharged the concept of armed combat as entertainment. Yet they clearly didn’t invent it.

They've scared us witless

In 1972, horror fans immersed themselves in a ghoulish tale of intrigue and death set in central Italy, L’etrusco uccide ancora (The Etruscan Kills Again). The film tells the story of a spate of murders by a killer who gets his (or her) kicks out of dispatching young couples and leaving their corpses posed in recreations of Etruscan art. A strange conceit, you may think – but that didn’t stop The Etruscan Kills Again becoming something of a cult classic.

The Etruscans and their homeland have proved to be a rich source of inspiration for modern writers and film-makers. Scenes in the astronomically successful book/film saga Twilight were set in the Etruscan hill town of Volterra. And the award-winning 2023 film La Chimera follows grave-robbers led by a down-at-heel British archaeologist attempting to steal artefacts from an Etruscan dig.

The terrifying figures on the tomb paintings at Tarquinia have had a particularly long cultural afterlife, perhaps influencing modern depictions of werewolves. One fearsome character among them is a man wearing a wolfskin over his head, representing Aita, Etruscan god of the underworld. There are also more menacing werewolf-type Etruscan demons, including Calu who is depicted on reliefs from urns at Perugia and Volterra, often popping out of a sunken container or well and taking on a group of gathered heroes.

This myth is very old: one eighth-century BC bronze situla (container) from Bisenzio seems to show a group of armed men battling a monstrous canine. This scary figure survived in Etruscan culture for 500 years, and its descendant still terrifies us today.

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Also at Tarquinia, the late fifth-century BC Tomb of the Blue Demons features terrifying figures with blue skin who are shown wielding snakes. And on a wall in the Tomb of the Infernal Chariot at Sarteano rears a three-headed serpent that will haunt your nightmares.

They inspired the Renaissance

What’s the connection between the Etruscans and Michelangelo, Raphael and Botticelli? This may appear to be an odd question, given that the more-ancient civilisation had been absorbed into Roman society at least a millennium before those Renaissance greats were in their pomp. But visit the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, and it might not appear quite such a preposterous proposition after all.

This chapel is home to one of the great masterpieces of western art: a fresco cycle painted by the Florentine artist Giotto between 1303 and 1305. These frescoes depict scenes from the lives of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. But it is the artist’s portrayal of the Last Judgment – and particularly the horrendous figure of Satan – that features suspicious hints of Etruscan influence.

Giotto’s prince of darkness is azure-skinned – the same colour as the eponymous entities in Tarquinia’s Tomb of the Blue Demons, created by Etruscan artists 1,700 years earlier. The infernal figure is also flanked by adders in a pose almost identical to that depicted in the Etruscan tomb. Could Giotto have been aware of his ancient predecessors’ work?

Etruscan art may also have influenced Renaissance culture in less hellish forms. In his Comedy of the Nymphs of Florence, penned c1341–42, the writer Giovanni Boccaccio called his Tuscan arcadia “Etruria”. Meanwhile, the philosopher Leonardo Bruni proudly recounts the Etruscan history of Florence in his History of the Florentine People, begun in 1415.

It seems unlikely to be a coincidence that the first reported discovery of Etruscan pottery comes from Bruni’s hometown of Arezzo, describing artefacts found during building work on the city wall and diligently recorded by the monk Ristoro d’Arezzo in 1282.

The Renaissance was clearly inspired by medieval Europeans’ engagements with the entire span of classical art. Yet we can speculate with some confidence that the Florentine Renaissance was influenced more specifically by that city’s own Etruscan heritage.

They helped kindle our love affair with the ancient Greeks

Nothing says ancient Greece quite like the Attic black and red-figure vase. In fact, it’s safe to say that such pieces – decorated with depictions of everything from ancient battles to erotic scenes – have become icons of the Greek world.

But why are we talking about them in an article about the Etruscans? The answer is that the vast majority of the complete examples of Attic vases that survive today were excavated from Etruscan tombs in the late 18th and early 19th centuries – in fact, they were known then as ‘Etruscan vases’. Collectors in northern Europe, fresh from their Grand Tour shopping trips, displayed these vessels in dedicated Etruscan rooms. The potter Josiah Wedgwood was so inspired that he named his factory Etruria, and produced a range of pots imitating these ‘Etruscan’ vessels.

When art historians finally recognised that the vases were Greek, their Etruscan connection was unceremoniously pushed to one side. But why did the Etruscans so value Greek vases that they chose to be buried with them? This can’t be explained simply by notions of Greek cultural superiority – especially now evidence shows that certain pottery shapes developed in Etruria were later produced in Athens.

In fact, we still don’t have a comprehensive explanation for the Etruscans’ Greek addiction. All we can be certain of is that, without Etruscan collectors, thousands of these vessels would have been lost forever, along with their enduring influence on 19th and 20th-century pottery.

Lucy Shipley is an archaeologist and researcher. She is the author of The Etruscans: Lost Civilisations (Reaktion, 2017)

This article was first published in the September 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine