Etruscans and Their Environment:

A Landscape Divine

The Etruscans made their home in a land of poisonous gases, etherealvapors, earthquakes, volcanoes, radiation, thermal waters, magneticanomalies and thermodynamic effects. Long considered an enigmaticpopulation, they were actually, along with the Greeks and Romans, one ofthe principal peoples of the classical world. Their earliest settlements,dating to 900 B.C., were in Etruria, an area lying between the Arno andTiber rivers in what are now the regions of Tuscany and Lazio. Here, asmysterious and frightening as they found the land, it was also fascinating;with lava solidified into strange forms, deep gorges slicing the earth andboiling waters gushing from springs.To understand the Etruscans’ outlook on religion, it is worth examiningtheir rituals in light of the special geological, geophysical and geomagneticproperties unique to this landscape. For what sets the Etruscans apart fromother early peoples of the Italian peninsula is the manner in which theypartook of their environment, not only for architecture and agriculture, but forhealing and ritual, viewing the totality of this dynamic and volatilelandscape as a device for divination and a means to live in harmony withnature.

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Ann Pizzorusso