Searching for Etruscan Identity

At the 2007 Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Larissa Bonfante was awarded the Gold Medal for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement. This event was also marked by a session on Etruscan archaeology at the meeting that featured six prominent Etruscan scholars, five of whose papers are published in this issue of the AJA. Helen Nagy organized the session and sought to include scholars whose current work covers areas of Bonfante's research and who acknowledge her influence on their work. The five papers are by American scholars working in an international scholarly environment, reacting to work by American and foreign colleagues. This introduction provides the scholarly context within which Bonfante and the contributors to the colloquium have been working: the search for Etruscan identity. We hope that the presentation of these articles will spark additional work on this and other topics of interest to readers of the AJA.