Thank you so much for this, it’s fascinating and very succinctly put. A few questions and comments, using your numbering from the post (for all questions, I realize the most likely answer is “we just don’t know”):
2. Was there one or more college per city-state, or did they draw from multiple cities, or some mix?
3. So, were the Etruscan early kings of Rome (like Tarquin the Proud and such) lucumones?
5. Do we have any idea to what Being(s) they attributed their revealed texts? Was there a small body of ancient, authoritative texts, or an ongoing tradition of recording things that came through prophets?
6. I’ve heard Pennick is the go-to source on the grossly under-understood European traditions of subtle energy in the landscape and in building - I wouldn’t have thought to look to the Etruscans for that, but now that you say it, it seems pretty obvious, since I knew neo-classical public buildings derive directly from Etruscan layouts and proportions.
8. I knew about some of the Etruscan syncretism/borrowing of other deities, which I had put in the same category as most ancient polytheists, but this suggests something a bit more extensive. Do you happen to know if they maintained separate temples/cults/priesthoods/rituals for the different pantheons? It would be pretty typical to be like “okay, here’s how the Greeks worship Herakles, so we’re gonna follow their lead for his rituals” but if they were like “here’s the Greek priesthood, here’s the IE proto-Roman priesthood, and here’s the indigenous priesthood”, that would be much weirder.
9. Ever since reading JMG’s Monsters finally, I’m primed to see echoes of the Mound Tradition that led to Vampires everywhere (I need to read Secret of the Temple and Ceremony of the Grail for more related stuff). I wonder if Gladiatorial funeral games were originally about the etheric energy they could impart to newly entombed kings/priests.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2023-06-21 04:33 pm (UTC)2. Was there one or more college per city-state, or did they draw from multiple cities, or some mix?
3. So, were the Etruscan early kings of Rome (like Tarquin the Proud and such) lucumones?
5. Do we have any idea to what Being(s) they attributed their revealed texts? Was there a small body of ancient, authoritative texts, or an ongoing tradition of recording things that came through prophets?
6. I’ve heard Pennick is the go-to source on the grossly under-understood European traditions of subtle energy in the landscape and in building - I wouldn’t have thought to look to the Etruscans for that, but now that you say it, it seems pretty obvious, since I knew neo-classical public buildings derive directly from Etruscan layouts and proportions.
8. I knew about some of the Etruscan syncretism/borrowing of other deities, which I had put in the same category as most ancient polytheists, but this suggests something a bit more extensive. Do you happen to know if they maintained separate temples/cults/priesthoods/rituals for the different pantheons? It would be pretty typical to be like “okay, here’s how the Greeks worship Herakles, so we’re gonna follow their lead for his rituals” but if they were like “here’s the Greek priesthood, here’s the IE proto-Roman priesthood, and here’s the indigenous priesthood”, that would be much weirder.
9. Ever since reading JMG’s Monsters finally, I’m primed to see echoes of the Mound Tradition that led to Vampires everywhere (I need to read Secret of the Temple and Ceremony of the Grail for more related stuff). I wonder if Gladiatorial funeral games were originally about the etheric energy they could impart to newly entombed kings/priests.