"One of the sarcophagi, made from stone, bears a long inscription". Given that these sorts of inscriptions are usually very stereotypical and therefore not very revealing linguistically, this sound intriguing, is it too much to hope that it will advance our knowledge of the language ?
A video (in Italian) at http://corrieredellumbria.corr.it/video/203001/Citta-della-P...
Interesting parts from 0:20 to 0:50 and after 1:15. That pike scares me a little but hopefully they know what they are doing. The man being interviewed says that they're not using heavy machinery because it would destroy all the chances of doing a stratigraphy analysis.
The Etruscans are fascinating; they're so close in time to the early Roman and middle-kingdom Egyptian civilisations that we know so much about, and they were demonstrably very familiar to both of those civilisations, yet we know so very little about them for certain.
There is a theory that Romans destroyed many records and artifacts of it. They were subject to the Etruscan kings early in its history and were not very fond of that aspect of their hostory.
I'm always suspicious of Etruscan finds. Some original 'tombs' were empty when first recorded, then mysteriously full of artifacts decades later. Something fishy going on.
And the finds are always so 'pat'. The museum I visited had amphorae with amusing graffiti, toys and knickknacks, even a 'pencil cup' with the Etruscan and Greek alphabets written around the top. So convenient! So that everything else could be instantly translated, this 'Rosetta stone' was included no extra charge.
And now a complete tomb found, with just the right sort of cool stuff to get the tourists coming back for another 10 years. Ok.
This is the first I've heard of counterfeit Etruscan sites, but it's not entirely dismissable. Early archaeology was a mix of wholesale grave looting and falsifying finds to generate interest in the site and give glory to the discoverer. Egyptian mummies floating around Europe during "Egyptomania" (after Napolean's visit) were often much, MUCH younger than ancient Egypt.
It seems unlikely to me that any modern sites are actually digging up planted relics, but inflating the finds at tourist sites by importing from one site to another, or creating replicas to make up for assumed grave robbery? Almost harder to believe that doesn't happen.
