The Etruscans started writing about -700 in a form of the Greek alphabet which is closest to the alphabet used in Cumae. Cumae (19 km west of Naples) is the oldest Greek colony in Italy, founded by people from Euboea about -750. Consequently, the Cumaean alphabet is identical to the Euboean form of the Greek alphabet.1 This, in turn, is distinct by the following features:
- The letter Zeta looks like I.
- The Phoenician letter Samekh, which the other Greeks reused as the letter Ksi in the form Ξ, here has the form Χ [like the Chi of the other Greeks].
- The letter Chi here has the form Ψ [like the Psi of the other Greeks].
- The letter Sigma, which otherwise has the form Σ, has the form ϟ (like a three-bar S) in Euboea and Athens.
1 In the literature, this is occasionally called a “West Greek” alphabet. In actual fact, the Euboean – and, thus, the Etruscan – alphabet combines forms of west and east Greek alphabets.