Among the topics discussed at the workshop were matters of linguistics (names of folk groups, political terminology, the names of Etruscan cities), archaeological finds (“oriental” architecture, city plans, graves, the role of mining), religious studies (myths of the city’s origin) and political themes (characteristics of state communities, titles of civil
servants, public inscriptions, forms of aristocratic rule, political upheavals around 500 BC). Altogether the discussion lead to the consensus that despite the absorption of many cultural goods from the east or from Greece, the highly complex course of the development of the cities and state of Etruria (as in Greece) must be explained through the inhabitants themselves. For this broad task the publication offers a large number of facts and methodological starting points.