Etruscan Mythology


The Attic form of the name \Tinia\ is \Sinid-\ : 'descendant of a sieve' (from \sinion\ 'a sieve'); the term may allude to cosquino-manteia of Theokritos 3:31 (GDS, p. 218).

"a Bosnian will listen to his/her dream that he will have had after consulting a friend’s tomb or, an old lady will take a sieve, by a nail, invoking it to turn ... (this is classic Cosquinomancy) where the nail is simply replaced by pliers." ("DM&RTB")

"The magical mummers of the Hungarians ... went about ... with a sieve ... for divining" (HE&F"FWB").

"Divination by the sieve was long in high favour, for this was deemed to be the most certain of all methods. Hence, says Erasmus, the proverb 'To divine with the sieve'--to express the certainty of a thing. A sieve was suspended from a pair of scissors held by two assistants." (ERRPT, p. 365)

"The best sieve was the one which had been covered with snow which was then shaken off by moonlight ... . This form of divination was to be performed only by married women. An alternative was to tie a pair of scissors on top of the sieve and ... to hold the handles on ... middle fingers while questions were asked ... . ... Guthrie records a method in which the sieve was rotated on a fork ... ." (BMHS 4:6:2, p. 111)


Sinis is supposedly inventor (having epithet \Pituo-kamptes\ : GM @96.b) of the pine-tree "catapult" (DCM, s.v. "Sinis"). Etruscan godddess Thalna is depicted as (OGOD, s.v. "Thalna") "helping Tinia again "give birth", this time to Fufluns (Etruscan Dionysos) from His thigh." The name \FuFLuns\ is evidently sourced in \PaPHLa-gonia\ (etymologically derived from *\BHABHLA-\, the etymon of such names as \BABeL\ and \BiBLe\, a reduplicated form of *\BHLA\, the word for 'soul' in Bodish and in Kemetic). The name of its capital-city \Sin-ope\ may conceal the word \sinapi\ 'mustard', the herb designated "bread-of-heaven" in the Hellenistic-epoch GMRT (XIV.805-840), and fed to Kronos at instigation by (GM @7.d) goddess Me-tis (her name meaning 'do not [negative injunctive], whoever' : PK:R).


THALna ("sometimes called the wife or consort of Tinia" : OGOD, s.v. "Thalna") is likely identical with Sikelian THALeia who said to be the daughter of (DCM, s.v. "Palici") Hephaistos, although because Thaleia is the mother the Palici (who are "twin boys emerged from the ground"), and because the PALIci are likely identical with two males both named \PALaImon\, therefore this "Hephaistos" might be more proprely denominated \Heph-[W]aitolos\ (< *\Swabh-\ + *\Vaitolo-\), which is the name of the father of one of twain Palaimon (DCM, s.v. "Palaemon 2"). The Eddic name \Heim-dall\ ('home dale'; < *\S`yam- + *\DHAL\) might possibly imply a relationship.



"Cosquino-manteia" http://www.occultopedia.com/c/cosquinomancy.htm

GDS = W. R. Halliday : Greek Divination; A Study Of Its Methods And Principles. Macmillan & Co, London, 1913. https://archive.org/stream/cu31924058563259/cu31924058563259_djvu.txt 

"DM&RTB" "Divination, Magic And Religious Tattoos In Bosnia". https://sciencesvoyages.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/divination-magic-and-religious-tattoos-in-bosnia/

HE&F"FWB" = "Figures of the World of Beliefs". http://mek.oszk.hu/02700/02790/html/176.html

ERRPT = Charles Godfrey Leland : Etruscan Roman Remains in Popular Tradition. NY : C. Scribner's sons; London : T. F. Unwin, 1892. http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/err/err18.htm

MHS = William Francis Ryan : The Bathhouse at Midnight : An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia. PA State Univ Pr, University Park, 1999. https://books.google.com/books?id=S3qJMMYH6VYC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=

OGOD, s.v. "Thalna" http://www.thaliatook.com/OGOD/thalna.php

GM = Robert Graves : The Greek Myths. London : Penguin Bks, 1955.

DCM = Pierre Grimal (transl. by Maxwell-Hyslop) : The Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Blackwell Publ, Oxford (Oxon), 1986.

GMRT = Hans Dieter Betz: The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation. U. of Chicago Pr, 1986. http://www.texts.00.gs/Greek_Magical_Papyri.htm

PK:R = Peter Kingsley : Reality. Inverness, CA : The Golden Sufi Center, 2003. http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2004/2004-07-43.html