Divining the Etruscan World

Jean MacIntosh Turfa is Rodney Young Fellow in the Mediterranean Section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Adjunct Professor of Classics and Ancient Studies at St Joseph's University, Philadelphia. She has published catalogues of collections of Etruscan antiquities as well as articles on Etruscan art, seafaring, votive offerings, and divination and medicine.

• Part I. Background: 1. The Brontoscopic Calendar and its transmission; 2. Etruscan religion in the classical world; 3. An ominous time: thunder, lightning, weather, and divination; Part II. The Brotoscopic Calendar: Greek Text and English Translation; Part III. Thematic Analysis of the Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar: 4. Analysis of the Brontoscopic Calendar; 5. 'Reptiles with trouble habitations' – weather, fauna, agriculture, pests; 6. 'Plague, but not exceptionally life-threatening' – health and disease; 7. 'The women and the slaves will carry out assassinations' – the society of the Brontoscopic Calendar; Part IV. Sources and Successors of the Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar: 8. Mesopotamian influences and Near Eastern predecessors of the Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar; 9. Other Brontoscopia in the classical tradition; 10. Conclusion: assessing the Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar and its heritage.

'Divining the Etruscan World is a stimulating and pioneering work of interest and value for all Etruscan researchers and to a wide spectrum of scholars of ancient religion in Etruria, Italy and the Mediterranean.' Nancy de Grummond, The Journal of Roman Studies