Inscriptions: general, various
This paper argues that the inscription engraved in the Alphabet of Lugano in sinistrograde ductus at the so-called Mur d’Hannibal (Liddes, Valais, Switzerland) should be read as Poenino ❘ ieur{e}u ‘he dedicated to P.’ The first form is a thematic dative singular. The desinence may well be Latin, but a case is made that it could be a Celtic desinence that displays a regional phonological development. The fourth character of the second form is a reversed Roman open Я, well attested in Cisalpine and Transalpine Celtic epigraphy. This form also displays a token of dittography, a phenomenon attested elsewhere in the Continental Celtic epigraphic corpus
Website and blog for the research project OG[H]AM: harnessing digital technologies to transform understanding of ogham writing, from the 4th century to the 21st century (2021–2024). The team includes Katherine Forsyth and David Stifter (principal investigators), Deborah Hayden (co-investigator), Nora White and Megan Kasten (post-doctoral researchers), Luca Guarienti (digital officer) and Clara Scholz (student intern). The website features blogs by team members as well as guest blogs by other researchers, including Karen Murad and Chantal Kobel.
This data, being submitted in a number of stages, has not yet been completed. It is currently being presented as work in progress and therefore might still contain some inconsistencies. Suggestions for improvements and corrections are welcome.
This research project intends to collect and analyse all Celtic divine names that are preserved in Latin inscriptions of the Roman province Germania Inferior. These sources seem especially suitable as a basis for examining phenomena that emerge in religious contexts when different cultural influences collide. In this case, those influences are defined on the one hand by the use of the Celtic language, on the other hand by the Latin language and patterns from inside the Roman Empire that can be labelled as “Roman”. Our focus is not only on religious aspects but also on social issues and corresponding mentalities. A further aim is to contribute to a clearer overall picture of the provincial religion in Germania Inferior.
The first part of the project comprises a new edition of the relevant epigraphical sources, also considering the inscribed objects and their iconography. The second part analyses the sources edited this way.
The final publication complemented by a detailed linguistic commentary (by Patrizia de Bernardo Stempel) will appear in ‚Corpus - F.E.R.C.AN. (Fontes epigraphici religionum Celticarum antiquarum)‘.[EN] It is now over a century since the Coligny calendar was discovered, during which time the intricate, complex and interrelating patterns of the various terms that are layered over its months and years have to a large degree been defined, one exception being the triple marks which have so far only been defined in part. Here the patterns followed by the triple marks are further defined, along with the mark’s interactions with several related notations, including the special treatment of Day 21, the anomalous treatment of triplets that run over the end of a fortnight, and the EXO term. With the definition of the pattern that governs the years, the systematic pattern underlying the distribution of the triple marks can now be finalised with certainty, rather than filling in unknown days through conflation.
[EN] A Celtiberian inscribed dagger from Almaraz (Cáceres, Espagne).This is the first edition of a Celtiberian dagger that must probably come from Almaraz, in the Spanish province of Cáceres. Typologically, it can be classified into one of the most characteristic variants of the bi-discoidal model, the edge-hilt one. A certain number of daggers of this type are known to date and most of them go back to the end of the 2nd century or the 1st century BC. The dagger must have been found in illegal excavations at a necropolis that has provided a variety of materials of the late-Republican period, which allows to date it around the first quarter of the 1st century BC. An inscription has been carved on the guard and runs across its whole width. The inscription is in Celtiberian language and script, specifically in the Western variant of this script. It consists of two words that were not previously attested. The first one is the personal name loukiakinos, derived from a well-known Celtiberian onomastic stem. The second one is abe, which must probably be a loanword from Latin aue.
[EN] Fragments of an inscribed earthware found in Lezoux (Puy-de-Dôme).The fragments were found in a preventive excavation, in one of the Gallo-Roman areas of Lezoux dedicated to the production of pottery : the area “of Maringues road”. These are five sherds, matching one another into two groups, and belonging to the Dragendorff 37 type. Although found in two different places, they belong to one and the same bowl. The writing resembles that of “Plat de Lezoux” (L-70), which was found in a near-by field. The linguistic analysis shows a recurrence of inflected endings (-in, -tionin). The word abro could be a verb meaning “to give”, indicating then that this text tells of a donation. It would be possible to interpret nededin as the «possession» , and appissu as a cognate of Latin acquiro.
[EN] This paper examines how closely the lunar calendar months of the Coligny calendar track the individual lunations over the 62 months of the 5-year bronze plaque, and in doing so, discovers an extraordinary precision to within a day either side of the average lunation. This means that each calendar month always starts at the same point in the lunar phase and the calendar can remain in sync with the moon indefinitely. The question of the overall shape of the calendar is further defined by assigning 29 days to Intercalary One, which then shows the calendar to be a Metonic calendar through four successive cycles of the 5-year base, and that in the one 5-year plaque we have the complete and only needed part of the entire calendar. This Metonic calendar could also be embedded as part of a larger 30-year age of 6 successive cycles of the 5-year base, again without the necessity of re-shaping the 5-year base cycle.
[EN] On the value of marked s in the Celtiberian inscriptions in Latin alphabet.A striking epigraphic particularity has recently been found in the bronze of Novallas (Zaragoza), written in Celtiberian language and Latin alphabet : the s with a lower stroke, which the author transcribes as Ś. This character also appears in two inscriptions of Peñalba de Villastar (Teruel), but it had gone unnoticed. In Novallas, Ś is attested only in absolute final position after a vowel ([---]ṮICAŚ·TERGAŚ, VAMVŚ). There, the most likely phonetic value is [θ]<*-d. In Peñalba, apart from appearing in absolute final position after a vowel (TRECAIAŚ), it was used also in intervocalic position (ENIOROŚEI). The author thinks that Ś is used here as the sigma in the Paleohispanic writing. Although the phonetic value in final position would also be [θ]<*-d, it could have different values between vowels (fricative or affricate voiced/ unvoiced), depending on the etymology. In these cases, it would rather be [ð]<*vowel-d-vowel.
[EN] Kuitoi Lekatos. A new reading of the inscription of San Bernardino di Briona (Novara). The Gaulish inscription from San Bernardino di Briona (Novara) is often mentioned in order to illustrate the first steps of Romanisation in Cisalpine Gaul. Epigraphical scholarship has tended to consider that this inscription contains a list of nouns among which there is a Roman praenomen, belonging to a local legatus, which is an extremely rare phenomenon. It is argued that this kuitos lekatos received this honorific title for having provided services to Rome. This paper discusses the concept of legatus in the historical context of the inscription and proposes a new reading of the text, based on an autopsy, which changes substantially the traditional one and shows that there is not any syntactical link between the name and the presumed position.
[EN] A note on a concise inscription from Botorrita (Contrebia Belaisca).We propose in this article to revisit the reading of an inscription found in Contrebia Belaisca, engraved on a small conic piece of alabaster (AE, 1989, no 470). This new reading would allow to say that this is, according to all probability, written with Latin letters but in the Celtiberian language.
[EN] A votive inscription found in Jort (Calvados, France).Although widely known to the public, Toutatis is ultimately poorly attested by epigraphy. A bronze stylus with a dedication to the god, although discovered a long time ago at Jort (Calvados), had nevertheless remained unpublished. We offer here its publication with some brief comments.
[EN] Gallo-Roman Inscriptions.1. A fibula inscribed with «AVE ADIANTO», from Saint-Germain (Aube) : this inscription on a fibula with the shape of a sole presents the same bilingualism as the formula «AVE VIMPI». Adianto is probably a vocative singular of ad-iantu- «darling». 2. Graffito on a sherd «ANDAMORIX», from La Saulsotte (Aube) : this Personal Name means «the king of Hell» and must have a theonymic origin.
[EN] Inscription on a lead rod found in Reims.The archaeological description of the find informs us that it was found in Reims, boulevard de la Paix, in 2001, behind a Gaulish wall, near dwellings of the Ist century AD. This lead rod has been cast under this form, possibly for the use of metal workers. The two names inscribed on the rod (GNATOS TASGEDO) are equivalent to a trade mark. These two names however probably refer to two different persons, for one has a Gaulish ending and the other, a Latin one.
[EN] Luka Repanšek has worked on the basis of an independent decypherment of the inscriptions, and he proposes alternative readings, and another analysis of the onomastic formulae ; his conclusions are similar to those of other colleagues concerning the groups «Cornuti Toutisa» , and «u(id…) i felicx» . Duti(os) is considered as a complement to adgarios. Contextu would be a noun meaning «protection» . The author also proposes a tentative translation.