Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine.

Lasting from the 9th century BC, right up until Roman conquests in the 1st century BC.

The Etruscans were a powerful ancient civilization who inhabited Etruria in ancient Italy and rubbed shoulders with the other iconic

ancient cultures of their day. Often painted as a mysterious people whose story is largely

vanished from our view, Researcher Lucy Shipley instead

presents us with a very different picture of the Etruscans. She speaks to Emily

Briffitt to reveal more. As with all of our everything you wanted to know episodes, we've had

a lot of questions from our listeners. Now, some people have heard of the Etruscans.

Other people have not.

Some people might be familiar, some might not.

Give us a 60 second brief introduction.

Who were they?

Who were we talking about?

In kind of just a minute style.

The Etruscans were a people who lived in central Italy

during the first millennium BC.

They're kind of neighbours and

rivals of the Romans and the Greeks and they pop up in ancient sources quite often. But we only

ever have accounts of them from that outside perspective because their own texts do not survive.

We know they were writing, something I'm sure we'll come on to later, but we do not have

any kind of own voices accounts of the Etruscans

that they've written for themselves. It's an amazing area, amazing landscapes, and the

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