The Etruscans are one of the great mysteries of the ancient Mediterranean world. Culturally dominant in central Italy from roughly 800-400 BC, they were Rome's immediate predecessors in many aspects of urban and religious life, yet they left fewer textual sources than almost any other major ancient civilization in their region.

The language is the main puzzle: Etruscan is not Indo-European. It doesn't relate to any neighboring language family. We can read it — the script derives from a Greek alphabet — but we understand only a portion of the vocabulary, mostly from bilingual inscriptions and identifiable proper names.

What Roman civilization inherited from Etruria is considerable: the toga, the fasces, chariot racing, the augural practices of divination, architectural traditions including the arch. The archaeological record shows sophisticated urban planning, extraordinary metalwork, and vibrant artistic production.

The 'mystery' framing often obscures that we know a great deal about Etruscan material culture from archaeology. What we lack is the internal literary tradition that would give us Etruscan political and intellectual history in their own voice.