Blogger (where I write) and blogspot (where you read) are strange. My archived posts disappear and I can't find them. So I go and ask uncle Google and he finds me my old post on Perugia from 2017 with my wonderful photos. Here is a nostalgic look at the Etruscans and wonderful Perugia.
Rome and Exciting Etruscans
As I said in my previous post, I just discovered that Rome has Etruscan ruins. I'd never understood who the Etruscans were, nor cared about them, until I went to Perugia and saw the giant cliffside gateway which is the entrance to the city.
The gateway looks like tunnelling into the cliffside, but huge! In addition to the impressive gateway, in Perugia there's an atmospheric underground city. The underground tunnels were filled with rubble for many years, only in recent times restored and now you can walk around the area, which has an escalator down to the lower level, and shops in the nooks and crannies, with high arched ceilings overhead.
The Etruscans are the natives who fought the encroaching Romans. Either the Romans were more ruthless or better organized or both. Anyway, modern Rome also has underground catacombs, like Paris, as well as Etruscan remains.
But what did the Etruscans look like? A long time ago I wondered what the Philistines looked like. You read so much about the Philistines in the Bible, called the Old Testament by Christians after they introduced the New Testament. I looked up the Philistines and found that they had receding chins, which would not be considered beautiful today. Ideas of beauty are different in each era and to each group. Titian painted buxom women who were considered cuddly and voluptuous, whilst thin models are favoured on the catwalk in the late 20th century and early 21st century.
Let's go back to the Etruscans. What did they look like?
Umbria and its Capital City Perugia
Just a reminder about Umbria and one of my favourite cities, Perugia. The links are
@UmbriaTourism and #loveUmbriastianity to their battles to overcome the Etruscans.
Websites and links:
@UmbriaTourism and #loveUmbria
See my other travel website:
www.luxurytravelforless.co.uk
Author
Angela Lansbury
Please share your favourite posts.
Wednesday, November 8, 2017
Etruscans in Paris, Perugia and Rome - and Christmas via Etruscan Perugia and Francis's Assisi
Rome and Exciting Etruscans
As I said in my previous post, I just discovered that Rome has Etruscan ruins. I'd never understood who the Etruscans were, nor cared about them, until I went to Perugia and saw the giant cliffside gateway which is the entrance to the city.
The gateway looks like tunnelling into the cliffside, but huge! In addition to the impressive gateway, in Perugia there's an atmospheric underground city. The underground tunnels were filled with rubble for many years, only in recent times restored and now you can walk around the area, which has an escalator down to the lower level, and shops in the nooks and crannies, with high arched ceilings overhead.
The Etruscans are the natives who fought the encroaching Romans. Either the Romans were more ruthless or better organized or both. Anyway, modern Rome also has underground catacombs, like Paris, as well as Etruscan remains.
But what did the Etruscans look like? A long time ago I wondered what the Philistines looked like. You read so much about the Philistines in the Bible, called the Old Testament by Christians after they introduced the New Testament. I looked up the Philistines and found that they had receding chins, which would not be considered beautiful today. Ideas of beauty are different in each era and to each group. Titian painted buxom women who were considered cuddly and voluptuous, whilst thin models are favoured on the catwalk in the late 20th century and early 21st century.
Let's go back to the Etruscans. What did they look like?
Etruscan mother and child. From Wikipedia article on the Etruscans.
Etruscan couple. From Wikipedia article on the Etruscans.
If these are typical Etruscans, they had square or oval jaws, heavy faces with large lips, noses and eyes, with large eyebrows, and were well-built or well-fed. I shall look out for the Etruscans in statues and paintings on trips to the Louvre in Paris, to Rome and Perugia.
In Perugia, one of the guides told me that her ancestors were Etruscan. I thought that was very exciting, as I had assumed the Etruscans had been wiped out massacred by the Romans, completely disappeared with no descendants.
Alas, she did not look particularly Etruscan, more like typically Italian. She explained that she resembled the other side of her family, the Italian, Roman side.
The Etruscans were the link between the Greeks and the Romans. The Etruscans gave Rome its name.
The Etruscan legacy to the Romans, what the Romans kept or copied, included polytheism, slavery, human sacrifice of prisoners of war, reading omens from scarified animals' body parts, and gladiator fights of the captured. (I am beginning to go off the Etruscans. Not that our era with terrorism is going to look much more civilised to people in future eras. Let's just look at the Etruscan art and sculpture.)
Umbria and its Capital City Perugia
Just a reminder about Umbria and one of my favourite cities, Perugia. The links are
@UmbriaTourism and #loveUmbriastianity to their battles to overcome the Etruscans.
Etruscan gateway in Perugia. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Websites and links:
@UmbriaTourism and #loveUmbria
See my other travel website:
www.luxurytravelforless.co.uk
Angela Lansbury
Please share your favourite posts.
Update 2020 May 28
Please come to a Toastmasters International Club where the English clubs have a langauge evaluator or grammarian. We also have French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and clubs based in Singapore and many more online around the world which because of Covid-19 are now meeting online.
I am President of Braddell Heights Advanced, meeting every Wednesday, on zoom the first Wednesday of the month but the other wednesdays are workshops on app learncool.sg
Useful website
About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
I and my family have lived in the UK, Spain, the USA and Singapore. I am a trave writer and phtographer and teacher of English A level and English as a foreign language.
Please come to a Toastmasters International Club where the English clubs have a langauge evaluator or grammarian. We also have French, German, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and clubs based in Singapore and many more online around the world which because of Covid-19 are now meeting online.
I am President of Braddell Heights Advanced, meeting every Wednesday, on zoom the first Wednesday of the month but the other wednesdays are workshops on app learncool.sg
Or quicker, tinyurl.com/BHACOOL
In Singapore we are on the same time zone as Malaysia, Hong Kong, and China (Beijing and Shanghai).
Please share links to your favourite posts.
2 comments:
we have manage to see everythnig in Paris
with well organised day trips
https://daytrip4u.com/suggestions/france/paris/eiffel-louvre
and we will go again
thank you guys