Here for translation one assumes that Etruscan, while not Indo-European in its roots, is an inflected language, where an _-s_ or _-l_ ending shows possession, and the enclitic _-c_, like the Latin _-que_, means “and.” Another example shows similar case-endings, uses vocabulary we have seen before, and adds a place-name: _Alethnas Arnth_ _Larisal_ _zilath Tarchnalthi amce_ “Alethna Arnth (son) of Laris praetor at Tarquinia was.” Altogether some 10,000 Etruscan inscriptions are known. Of these only three are of any length: the Zagreb mummy-wrapping, a tile from Capua, and the previously mentioned scroll from Tarquinia. The next seven taken together total less than 100 words. Given this material, there is some bitter truth in the statement that if we could unlock the secret of Etruscan, we would have the key to an empty room. But whole cities in Etruria remain to be dug; there is no knowing what new inscriptions excavations now in progress at Vulci, Roselle, or Santa Severa may turn up, including perhaps a bilingual, where identical texts in Etruscan and a known language like Latin may solve the puzzle, as the Greek of the Rosetta Stone made possible the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphics. Etruscan loan-words in Latin tell us something: _antemna_, “yard-arm”; _histrio_, “actor”; _atrium_, “patio”; _groma_, “plane-table” suggest Etruscan predominance on the sea and the stage, in domestic architecture and surveying. But we know more than loan-words: the known vocabulary in Etruscan amounts now to 122 words, in seven categories, including time-words (_e.g._, the names of several months), the limited political vocabulary already discussed, names for family relationships, some three dozen verbs and nouns, and the same number of words from the field of religion. * * * * * [Illustration: FIG. 2.10 Piacenza, Civic Museum. Bronze model of sheep’s liver, used in foretelling the future. (ENIT, _Italy’s Life_, p. 37)] [Illustration: FIG. 2.11 Piacenza liver, schematic representation. (M. Pallottino, _The Etruscans_, p. 165)]