August 27th, 2018

Hello everyone
it was a busy year with a lot of travelling and then my son's wonderful wedding -- and now I'm on holiday again. This time I'm in a part of Italy called Tuscany.

This is not where I'm staying.
It's the entrance to an Etruscan tomb. Long ago, before the Romans, about two and a half to three thousand years ago, the Etruscans lived in this part of Italy. Nowadays the tombs are empty chambers - I know, because I shone a torch into all of them. .Objects from the tomb are in the local museum (in the town of Castellina in Chianti).

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You can just make out some strange looking Etruscan writing. Apparently there isn't much Etruscan writing left for scholars to study, but here is the alphabet they used. You will see it's a mixture of Greek and Roman (but written back to front).

Then I thought how useful it would be as a secret code. For instance, a few days into the start of term, you may want to write this message to a friend in class:

Can you see straight away what it says?
Sorry about the spelling. I had to be a bit creative.

(Hav u don the homework?)

It will be very bad luck if -which may well be the case - your teacher happens to have had the same idea.

Best wishes
​Rachel