Page:Early Man in Britain and His Place in the Tertiary Period.djvu/491

] Ægean and on the coasts of Asia Minor. They probably entered Italy by way of the valley of the Danube, and over the Alpine passes. To them Castellani refers the beautiful work in gold and silver as yet unrivalled by the jeweller of modern times.

The second element in the Etruskan population is that known to foreigners as the Tyrrheni, or Tyrrseni, Etruski, Tusci, to themselves as the Rasena, who established themselves in Italy, according to Otfried Müller, about 290 years before the foundation of Rome, or in B.C. 1044. Their date is carried by Niebuhr as far back as B.C. 1188. Long before this, however, they are proved to have been a naval and a military power in the Mediterranean, by their invasion of Egypt in the fifteenth century. They are universally considered to have come from Asia Minor, most probably from Lydia, and their Asiatic origin is proved by their manners and customs, their religion and their art. According to Niebuhr and Mommsen, they arrived in Italy from the direction of Rhætia, according to Dennis they occupied southern Italy first, and gradually pushed their way northwards. The precise relation of the Pelasgi to the Rasena and to the Umbrians is uncertain, and at this distance of time it is impossible to define with accuracy all the ethnical elements in the Etruskan people.

The Etruskan civilisation was largely influenced by the art of Egypt and Assyria. Sphinxes, gryphons, chimæras, scarabæi, four-winged demons, and the like, show its eastern lineage. The tombs cut in the rock, and the habit of depicting various scenes in them, reminds us of the banks of the Nile, and the rock-hewn sepulchres of Lykia; and the Egyptian influence is felt in such minute details as the dressing of the hair in curls,