Lecture: Examining the Elusive Etruscans with Rene Dreyfus

The Etruscans were a pre-Roman civilization originating in central Italy, active from approximately 900 to 100 BC. Over time, they established autonomous city-states in regions now known as Tuscany, Lazio, and Umbria, yet never formed a unified nation. They significantly influenced Western culture, particularly in architecture, engineering, urban planning, and art. However, most knowledge of their society derives from material remains found in tombs, temples, and settlements, as well as from Greek and Roman accounts. Their own written records have largely not survived.

The exhibition The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy highlights Etruscan civilization by presenting recent archaeological discoveries, current scholarship, and advances in the understanding of the Etruscan language.

Renée Dreyfus is the George and Judy Marcus Distinguished Curator and Curator in Charge, Ancient Art, at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco—and co-founder of the Ancient Art Council (est. in 1997 with the help of the Elios Society) to support antiquities at the Museums. She has curated and organized over twenty exhibitions, including Treasures of Tutankhamun (1979) and Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs (2009). Her current projects include The Etruscans: From the Heart of Ancient Italy, which opened at the Legion of Honor, and Treasures of the Pharaohs at the de Young Museum