 Back in 1985, Nancy Jenkins wrote an intriguing article for the New York Times titled Exploring the Etruscan Mystery, and the world was captivated by one of the most enduring and intriguing mysteries for the past 3,000 years. Very few stories still have the power to captivate us more than the ones that remain unsolved. The mystery in the detail and the intrigue of who they might have been often opens up our mystical attraction in the hope that we might just find answers unwittingly at any turn as to who we are as a collective people and indeed with this culture. Cryptographers are yet to decipher exactly who they were, but stunning conclusions are being drawn and the results are echoing across the world as a new age of understanding sweeps across our entire civilization as a whole. The culture known as the Etruscan civilization existed in the Italian region of Tuscany and Lazio for over a thousand years before vanishing into the mystical lines of time in the historical context. The fascination of these people not only lies in who they were, where they came from, and what exactly happened to them, but also in the stuff they have left behind. Earlier this year French archaeologists unearthed an Etruscan tomb containing a skeleton and dozens of artifacts in Corsica, a rare discovery that could shed new light on the wealthy civilization. The Etruscans are remembered for their striking features, this attracted trade and curiosity from far and wide, including trade of precious metals with the Greeks, and it is possible that these peoples were quietly assimilated into the Roman Empire at some point. Later we see an influence in the Roman Empire that is seen in this culture, though no clear consensus exists on the matter. This civilization have left an enormity of funerary artifacts that are being discovered all the time. They also had a complex written language that is still mostly undeciphered to this day, though this language is very sparsely found and they also left behind engineering marvels that were later adopted by the Romans and in fact in Turkey. The Romans replicated the engineering achievements of these people. This shows signs that the brilliant engineering marvels of the Roman Empire may have been born here with this lost civilization of the Etruscans. New discoveries and developments in the last 30 years or so have done much to change our ignorance, yet the popular image of the mysterious and primitive Etruscans persist. In 1985 when Nancy Jenkins wrote her popular article, it was the year of this civilization and in the Tuscany region of Italy, many events were organized as a celebration of this people's cultural heritage and in this year we saw projects launch that are still remembered fondly to this day. D.H. Lawrence reports in letters from his travels to the region in 1926 when he writes, I saw 6,000 tombs cut into the rock, 200 of which are painted, the oldest dating back to the 7th century BC. It is as if the current of some strong different life swept through them, different from our shallow current today. Lawrence wrote, as if they drew their vitality from different depths that we are denied. Their tombs were often elaborate structures, many chambered and decorated with terracotta reliefs and vibrant wall paintings of balls and banquets, athletic contests and mythological scenes. Along with the large terracotta sarcophagus and other valuable grave goods, these might include simple bronze votive figurines or extravagant gold jewelry or ceramics in a variety of shapes and styles. They gave us the word person and invented a symbol of iron rule which would later be adopted by the fascist and some even argue it was they who really molded Roman civilization. Yet the Etruscans have long been among the great enigmas of antiquity. In a recent study it proves that DNA passed down from mother's two daughters, pointed to a direct genetic input from western Asia and in 2004 a team of researchers from Italy and Spain used samples taken from Etruscan burial chambers to establish that the Etruscans were more genetically akin to each other than to contemporary Italians. The findings confirm what was said about the matter almost 2500 years ago by the Greek historian Herodotus. The first traces of Etruscan civilization in Italy date from about 1200 BC. About seven and a half centuries later Herodotus wrote that after the Lydians had undergone a period of severe deprivation in western Anatolia, their king divided the people into two groups and made them draw lots so that the one group should remain and the other leave the country. He himself was to be the head of those who drew the lot to remain there and his son was one of those who departed. In 2008 a local resident named Salvatore Foskey rediscovered a monumental pyramid shape altar in the region. The enormous peperino rock was hidden by vegetation on the slopes of a deep canyon and was only discovered for the first time in the 1990s by two local archaeologists who didn't go on to excavate the site, only mentioning it existed and would later be found by the local resident. The pyramid is believed to be an altar dating back to the 7th century BC. Thought to have been used by the Etruscan soothsayers who practiced divination by inspecting the entrails of sacrificed animals. The art of divination was a key element to the Etrusca disciplina, Etruscan religious scriptures which had a significant influence later on in Roman culture. According to Columbia University's Advanced American Studies on Italian Culture, Daniela Maras, an Italian Academy Fellow, addresses the mystery of the Etruscans which rests on three major issues attached to their perception by ancient authors, their inscrutable origins, their unparalleled language, and their peculiar religion. While he shows interest from ancient Greek sources and modern scholars, the features of Etruscan religious practices are a reoccurring motif of Latin literature. In fact, in the Roman world, the Etruscans enjoyed a long lasting fame as clever seers, especially regarding their ability as horospices. That is to say, priests able to read future events within the entrails of sacrifice. The foundation of this ancient religious tradition was the so-called Etrusca disciplina, a collection of original knowledge and perceptions which had been revealed, according to tradition by the mythical child genie Tejas at the very beginning of Etruscan history. For generation after generation, the horospices handed down by the disciplina, writing new texts in order to modernize its contents, applications, and rituals to meet current cultural conditions. There is ample evidence that this steady scholarly work was still being carried on in the late republican and early imperial periods, supplementing the corpus of Etruscan books than in Latin translation. The increasing information on the activity of Etrusco-Roman horospices and the high interest on the part of emperors and public institutions in their prophecies demonstrates the constant penetration of the foreign disciplina into the Roman mass majorum. In the last centuries of paganism, the so-called Etruscan horospices were among the most vigorous opponents of new religions, as in the case of early Christianity. This caused a reaction on the part of the Fathers of Church, who blame Etruscan superstition with special regard to divination. Therefore, the last remains of independent Etruscan culture were eventually destined to vanish. The altar, which by the way echoes the Mayans in many fashionable details, is positioned toward the Northwest. Facing the direction of the Etruscan underworld gods in the heyday of this civilization, it must have represented a very important sacred site, though very little is known about it. And in fact, this lost civilization in general is a big mystery that is only now being uncovered and indeed their history rediscovered. The Etruscan pyramid at Bormatzel is the largest rock altar in Europe. According to several scholars, it could be used with an astronomical calendar. Astroarchaeology studies say the pyramid is linked to stars Sirius and Antares. When the discoverer of this place met this rock for the first time, he must have felt like those explorers who discovered temples and houses in the jungle. From his words, he merges the story of an object hidden by large roots and vegetation that had to be removed with great care to permit the extraction of the rock with much love and respect for the place. It has a magical charm which also fueled by the mystery that still surrounds this people and all those who today come close to their artifacts, do so with great respect. What do you guys think of this lost and great civilization? Comments below and as always, thank you for watching.