a city,' which we find in Marco Polo's Kan-balu 'the city of the Khan.'

We also find this root val in Romanized Etruscan names. The earliest site of habitation at Rome was the Palatine. This was the original Etruscan fortress, and formed the germ of the Roman city. With the name of the Palatine we may connect the Pal-ilia, which was the name given to the Festival celebrated at Rome on April 21st, the day assigned by tradition as the anniversary of the founding of Rome. Nor is it impossible that the name of the Palladium, the tutelary image round which so many legends cluster, may be explained from the same source.

Another root very commonly found in the names of Etruscan cities is Cor- or Cur-. We have Care, Cora, Cures, Coreoli, Cortona, and Corythus. These towns seem to have been hill fortresses rather than dwellings on the plain. Those who have once seen it can hardly forget the commanding site on which Cortona is perched. Cures, we know, was built high among the mountains, and Virgil speaks of the ancient rock on which Care was built-saxo fundata vetusto.

The root kar or kur seems to correspond in meaning to the British dun, which is applied to hill fortresses. The Accadian gives us this precise sense, kur meaning 'a mountain,' and the differentiated forms kir and kar designating 'a fortress' or 'town.' In Elamite, also, kuras or karas means a mountain.' We may connect the word with the Wotiak and Zyrianian kar 'a town,' as well as with the Wotiak gures and the Wogul keras, which mean 'lofty,' 'high.'

The suffix in the name of the Etruscan city of Cap-ua may be compared with the Susian ua a house,' which is the same word as the Accadian éa a house.'

The Elamite danas 'people,' may perhaps be discovered in the word Volcen-tani, the name given to the inhabitants of the town of Volci.

The Basque ura water,' is from a wide-spread Turanian root, which we may trace to the Accadian aria 'water.' Hence is derived the Accadian aria-da a river.' The change of the post-position (na 'of,' instead of da 'from') gives us the modern Tatar ar-na ‘a channel for irrigation,' 'an old river bed.' Hence we may explain the name of the great Etruscan river, the Arno.

A considerable number of Latin words appear to have no affinities in any of the Aryan languages. We may suppose, with great pro

bability, that these isolated words were borrowed from the Etruscan. Their affinities will therefore be with the Turanian languages, and their primitive forms will have to be sought in the Accadian tablets. The very word 'tablet' is one of these. In Accadian the clay tablets which were used for writing were called dib, duppa, or dibbu. In Elamite a tablet is dipi. In Etruscan inscriptions we have the words tip-anu and zip-na, which designate 'engraved mirrors,' and the Latin word tab-ula is possibly of Etruscan origin.

The Etruscans were the teachers of the Romans in the art of building, more especially in the art of building cyclopean walls, as is shown by those huge substructures of the Palatine which have been recently unearthed. Hence we may believe that Latin words connected with building may have been derived from the Etruscan language. It is especially noteworthy that many words of this class have no satisfactory Aryan etymology.

Thus neither Fick nor Curtius have any Aryan etymology to propound for the word turris, while it is easily explained by means of the Accadian dur a fortress,' and id-dur 'a dwelling.' This root may probably be at the bottom of the names by which the Etruscans were known to surrounding nations-Tyrrhenoi and Tursci.

In like manner, the Latin mania and murus may have been Etruscan loan-words connected with the Accadian words mun and mur, which both mean 'brick,' and we may compare the word casa with the Elamite kusi 'to build.'

Again, we know that the Roman chariot races were introduced from Etruria. Chariots and horses are depicted on some of the earliest Etruscan monuments. The Latin words currus and curro have no clear connexion with any Aryan roots, while they curiously resemble the Accadian kurra, and the Elamite karra, both of which mean a 'horse.' 1

Again, there can be no doubt that the Romans derived their knowledge of metallurgic art from the Etruscans, more especially the art of working in copper and bronze. It is therefore not improbable that the Latin cuprium 'copper,' may be an Etruscan loan-word. If so, we might refer it to the Accadian kupar 'silver.' Such a change of meaning in the names of metals is not uncommon. Thus the

1 cf. the Finnic words karo 'a sheep,' kaura 'a cow,' and karu 'a bear.' The root meaning seems to be 'the hairy one.'

Accadian urud 'copper,' is undoubtedly the source of the Finnic rauta 'iron,' while the Sanskrit ayas 'iron,' is the same word as the Latin as 'bronze.'

In like manner the Latin pilum may be connected with the Accadian pal 'a sword,' a word which reappears in the Magyar pallos.

Burrus, burra, and buris, the root-meaning of which was 'nose,' must have been loan-words from the Etruscan, as we gather from Hesychius. They may be referred to the Accadian bur head,' bar 'top,' and barra 'high.' In several Turkic languages we have burun a nose.'

Lastly, I would suggest the possibility of a connexion between the Latin ac, a word whose Aryan affinities are by no means clear, and the Etruscan enclitic -c, which means 'and.' With these conjunctions we may compare the Tatar enclitic -ok 'and,' and the word aak, which means 'and' both in Elamite and Susian.

In several remarkable ethnic characteristics the Accadians resembled the Etruscans. The custom by which the Etruscans differed most conspicuously from the surrounding Aryan nations was the practice of tracing descent, not through the father, but through the mother, and of paying to her superior honour. A fragment of the Accadian laws has come down to us, by which it appears that the mother was held in higher honour than the father, and a much heavier penalty was exacted for breach of filial duty to her than to him.

On the Etruscan monuments the worship of serpent gods and of catachthonian deities is so manifestly depicted as to strike the most superficial observer. The same worships prevailed also among the Turanian peoples of the Euphrates. The Accadians made the serpent one of the attributes of the god Êa; and the Proto-Medes, a Turanian race, worshipped one of their chief gods under the figure of a serpent. The practice of magic conspicuously distinguished both the Accadians and the Etruscans from surrounding nations. This has been brought out so fully by M. Lenormant, that I need not enlarge upon it. One point is especially curious, and can hardly be accidental. Among the Accadian Magi the power of the magician was supposed to reside in his staff. In the Kalevala the same powers belong to the magician's wand which the Etruscan augurs attached to the lituus.

1 ef. Lapp rude iron,' Sclavonic ruda 'iron.'

Lastly, according to Baron d'Eckstein and M. Lenormant, a chief characteristic of the ancient Turanian races of Central Asia was their proficiency in the arts of metallurgy. They supplied all the surrounding nations of the East with bronze, copper, and iron. The Etruscans, in like manner, were the metal-workers of ancient Europe. The Etruscan iron foundries in Elba, as we are informed by Diodorus, at one time supplied almost the whole civilized world; and the huge heaps of scoria which the Etruscans have left at Campiglia and Gherardesca testify eloquently to the enormous development attained by their manufactures of bronze and copper.

The hypothesis that the mysterious Etruscan people were an Altaic race from Central Asia, closely akin to the Accadians, the Elamites, the Susians, and the Proto-Medes, seems to me to be in harmony with all the available evidence-philological, mythological, and ethnological; while there is no argument of any weight, so far as I am aware, that has been brought forward to disprove it. Till some rival hypothesis equally probable is produced, I think I may at least claim the provisional acceptance of my theory as a working hypothesis in the attempt to decipher the Etruscan records.

177

THE ARYAN SECTION.

ADDRESS

BY

PROFESSOR MAX MÜLLER, PRESIDENT.

NO ONE likes to be asked, what business he has to exist, and yet, whatever we do, whether singly or in concert with others, the first question which the world never fails to address to us, is Dic cur hic? Why are you here? or to put it into French, What is your raison d'étre? We have had to submit to this examination even before we existed, and many a time have I been asked the question, both by friend and foe, What is the good of an International Congress of Orientalists?

I shall endeavour, as shortly as possible, to answer that question, and show that our Congress is not a mere fortuitous congeries of barren atoms or molecules, but that we are at least Leibnizian monads, each with his own self, and force, and will, and each determined, within the limits of some pre-established harmony, to help in working out some common purpose, and to achieve some real and lasting good.

It is generally thought that the chief object of a scientific Congress is social, and I am not one of those who are incapable of appreciating the delights and benefits of social intercourse with hard-working and honest-thinking men. Much as I detest what is commonly called society, I willingly give up glaciers and waterfalls, cathedrals and picture galleries, for one half hour of real society, of free, frank, fresh, and friendly intercourse, face to face, and mind to mind, with