Raetica: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 20:02, 8 April 2020

Main chapters

Introduction

The term "Raetic" refers to a few hundred inscriptions found mainly in the Trentino and in South and North Tyrol, as well as sporadically in the Veneto, in Graubünden, and in Slovenia. These inscriptions, written with North Italic alphabets, are roughly dated between the 6^th and the 1^st centuries BC, and are the only documents of the Raetic language, a non-Indo-European language of the Alpine region.

The name Latin raeti / Greek ῥαιτοί goes back to ancient historiography, being attested as a designation for certain Alpine tribes (see Ancient sources). According to Livy, the language spoken by these raeti was similar to Etruscan. In the early 19^th century, Conte Benedetto Giovanelli, historian and mayor of Trento, applied the term "Raetic" to two inscription finds made in the Val di Cembra and Matrei am Brenner, whose language he judged to be similar to Etruscan (see Modern research on Raetic). This was a bit of a wild guess, but turned out to hit the right thing. The corpus of relevant inscriptions has since increased considerably (see Raetic epigraphy). It could be delimited in relation to the other script provinces of Northern Italy (see Script) and associated through its distribution area and find types with the archaeologically defined Fritzens-Sanzeno culture (see Archaeology in the Raetic area). The genetic relationship between the language of the inscriptions and Etruscan could be determined; together with Lemnian in the Aegean, Raetic and Etruscan forming the Tyrsenian language family (see The Raetic language).

Definitions and terminology

In the early phases of the research on Raetic and North Italic writing in general, inscriptions tended to be assigned to different corpora based on a mixture of epigraphic and linguistic arguments. In 1971, Prosdocimi proposed that the term "Raetic" should by defined exclusively epigraphically, i.e. with regard to the alphabet in which an inscription is written: the elusive "Raetic" should denominate inscriptions that are neither written in the Este alphabet (Venetic), nor in the Lugano alphabet (Lepontic), nor in the Sondrio alphabet (Camunic), all better identifiable. At the same time he left open the question whether the inscriptions thus subsumed under the term "Raetic" were linguistically homogeneous, and made it clear that a number of script variants were used in these inscriptions.

In the late 1990s, Rix and Schumacher demonstrated that the inscriptions commonly referred to as "Raetic" are in fact documents of one homogeneous language. This development made it more useful to put linguistic parameters at the basis of the definition. The Raetic language as a member of the Tyrsenian language family is isolated beyond the Po, being surrounded by the Indo-European languages Venetic in the south-east and Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish in the west. (The linguistic affiliation of Camunic remains obscure.) The alphabets which are associated with the Raetic epigraphic corpus, on the other hand, remain comparatively fuzzy entities. While we can identify features that are specifically "Raetic", there are no clear borders to the neighbouring alphabets; the North Italic alphabets are indistinguishable in absence of certain shibboleth letters. Regarding the archaeological aspect, the association of epigraphically and linguistically Raetic inscriptions with the archaeological Fritzens-Sanzeno culture is clear, but it is not a one-to-one-correlation which would allow for a clear-cut archaeological definition of "Raetic".

Today, the term "Raetic" is primarily defined linguistically: "Raetic inscriptions" are those which encode the Raetic language. On this basis, the term can be extended – with care – to areas where we find features which are significantly associated with the linguistically Raetic corpus of inscriptions. The "Raetic alphabets" are the alphabets typically used to write these inscriptions. "Raetic contexts" or "Raetic find types" refer to features of material culture which are common in the Raetic corpus.

Despite the overall surprisingly good fit between the various aspects of "Raeticity", these admissible extensions of the term must not mislead us to assume a one-to-one correspondence between the speakers of the Tyrsenian language we call "Raetic" and any archaeological groups, writers partaking of certain alphabetic traditions, and the uncertainly defined raeti as seen through the eyes of the classical authors. The origin of the ancient ethnonym is unknown; it may well be an exonym. We do not know whether or inhowfar "the Raetians" considered themselves to be an ethnos, and, if they or some of them did, whether such a community/communities was/were based on language, history, area of settlement, elements of material culture, or cult.

Some scholars use a form with initial rh ("Rhaetic", "Rhaetian", vel sim.) to refer to the language and epigraphic corpus, reflecting the Greek sources for the ethnonym. We do not know the name's etymology, but considering that the Latin form is almost certainly primary, the variant with simple r should in our opinion be preferred.

Scope of the corpus and database

The goal of Thesaurus Inscriptionum Raeticarum is to make available all the material relevant for the study of the Raetic inscriptions in all their aspects. The Raetic corpus proper follows the preliminary corpus CIRCE as presented by Schumacher 1992/2004, using the sigla groups and including all inscriptions collected there without exception to avoid mismatches with the older literature, where Schumacher’s sigla are used. (See Property:sigla group for details on the sigla system.)

In consequence, the corpus comprises not only such inscriptions as clearly represent script in the linguistical sense and can be linguistically or at least epigraphically identified as Raetic, but also a great number of dubious inscriptoids from geographically/archaeologically Raetic context. While these latter cases, though very interesting in themselves, are virtually impossible to securely assign to a specific North Italic corpus, and do (mostly) not provide data which contribute to the understanding of the Raetic language, the establishment of stringent rules for whether to consider an intentional mark an inscription or not has proved difficult. The principle of accepting only, but all such marks as contain shapes which can be clearly identified as letters (as listed on Category:Character) has turned out to be ineffectual, as it leads to the inclusion of an unmanageable host of one-character inscriptions which are highly improbable to represent script, or even obvious ornaments of the -type.

Regarding the inclusion of new inscriptions, the TIR staff has ended up making more or less informed estimations of the character of marks, while taking into account the types of marks which are already part of the established core corpus. In the first instance, only a subset of the new inscriptions provided by Mancini in LIR have been included, excluding those which consist in nothing but such characters as are filed as symbols in TIR. A handful of marks which are probably not script have been included by virtue of a similarity with marks in the core corpus (e.g., WE-7, VN-19). Similarly, scratchings on Sanzeno bowls were included in the beginning (e.g., SZ-85, SZ-86), despite the lack of a single such object bearing a proper inscription, with regard to the substantial number in the core corpus (going back to Mancini's IR) and the fact that the object type is a key form of the Fritzens-Sanzeno culture – this course had to be abandoned when the sheer mass of inscribed Sanzeno bowls transpired. Furthermore, considerations of dating may be relevant, e.g., in the case of Hallstatt age bronze axes, which are too old to be relevant to Raetic writing proper – though one had managed to creep into the corpus via PID, none of the many more specimens with marks were included. With regard to our attempt to furnish all interesting data, excluded material is collected together with the non- and para-script material in the corpus on Non-script notational systems.

The different aspects of the term "Raetic"

Loading map...

	Locations associated with "Raetic" tribes by the Ancients
	The eponymous find places of the Fritzens-Sanzeno culture
	Conte Giovanelli's first Raetic inscription finds
	Find places of inscriptions with linguistically Raetic content, written in a Raetic alphabet
	Find places of inscriptions (probably) written in a Raetic alphabet, but with unclear linguistic ascription

Bibliography

IR	Alberto Mancini, "Iscrizioni retiche", Studi Etruschi 43 (1975), 249–306.
LIR	Alberto Mancini, Le Iscrizioni Retiche [= Quaderni del dipartimento di linguistica, Università degli studi di Firenze Studi 8–9], Padova: Unipress 2009–10. (2 volumes)

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+== Main chapters ==
+*[[index::Ancient sources]]
+*[[index::Modern research on Raetic]]
+*[[index::Archaeology in the Raetic area]]
+*[[index::Raetic epigraphy]]
+*[[index::The Raetic language]]
+*[[index::Script]]
+*[[index::Non-script notational systems]]
 == Introduction ==
-The term ''Raetic'' refers to [[:Category:Inscription|some 300 inscriptions]] found in the Trentino and the Veneto, as well as in North and South Tyrol. These inscriptions are roughly dated between the 6<sup>th</sup> and the 1<sup>st</sup> centuries BC and are the only testimonies of a non-Indo-European language of the Alpine region.
+The term "Raetic" refers to [[:Category:Inscription|a few hundred inscriptions]] found mainly in the Trentino and in South and North Tyrol, as well as sporadically in the Veneto, in Graubünden, and in Slovenia. These inscriptions, written with North Italic alphabets, are roughly dated between the 6<sup>th</sup> and the 1<sup>st</sup> centuries BC, and are the only documents of the Raetic language, a non-Indo-European language of the Alpine region.
-The name Greek ''Rhaitoí'' / Latin ''Raeti'' goes back to ancient historiography, being attested in Pliny and Strabon, among others, as a designation for certain Alpine tribes. According to Livius, the language spoken by these Raeti was similar to Etruscan. In the early 19<sup>th</sup> century, Conte Benedetto Giovanelli, historian and mayor of Trento, applied the term ''Raetic'' to two inscription finds made in the [[index::Cembra|Val di Cembra]] and [[index::Matrei am Brenner]], whose language he judged to be similar to Etruscan. The corpus of relevant inscriptions has since increased considerably, and could be delimited in relation to the other script provinces of Transpadania. Archaeological research has shown that the distribution area and archaeological context of the inscriptions correlate with the area of the archaeologically defined Fritzens-Sanzeno culture. Furthermore, a genetic relationship between the language of the inscriptions and Etruscan could be determined. (For details, see [[index::Modern research on the Raeti and Raetic]].)
+The name Latin ''raeti'' / Greek ''ῥαιτοί'' goes back to ancient historiography, being attested as a designation for certain Alpine tribes (see [[index::Ancient sources]]). According to Livy, the language spoken by these ''raeti'' was similar to Etruscan. In the early 19<sup>th</sup> century, Conte Benedetto Giovanelli, historian and mayor of Trento, applied the term "Raetic" to two inscription finds made in the [[index::Cembra|Val di Cembra]] and [[index::Matrei am Brenner]], whose language he judged to be similar to Etruscan (see [[index::Modern research on Raetic]]). This was a bit of a wild guess, but turned out to hit the right thing. The corpus of relevant inscriptions has since increased considerably (see [[index::Raetic epigraphy]]). It could be delimited in relation to the other script provinces of Northern Italy (see [[index::Script]]) and associated through its distribution area and find types with the archaeologically defined Fritzens-Sanzeno culture (see [[index::Archaeology in the Raetic area]]). The genetic relationship between the language of the inscriptions and Etruscan could be determined; together with Lemnian in the Aegean, Raetic and Etruscan forming the Tyrsenian language family (see [[index::The Raetic language]]).
-== Definitions ==
+== Definitions and terminology ==
-According to what was said above, the term ''Raetic'' can today have a number of denotations, depending on what aspect of culture one is concerned with. In the early phases of the research on Raetic and Transpadanian writing in general, inscriptions tended to be assigned to different corpora based on a mixture of epigraphic and linguistic arguments. In 1971, {{bib|Prosdocimi 1971|Prosdocimi}} proposed that the term ''Raetic'' should by defined exclusively epigraphically, i.e. with regard to the alphabet in which an inscription is written. ''Raetic'' would then denominate inscriptions that are neither written in the Este alphabet (Venetic), nor in the Lugano alphabet (Lepontic), nor in the Sondrio / Val Camonica alphabet (Camunic). At the same time he left open the question whether the inscriptions thus subsumed under the term ''Raetic'' were linguistically homogeneous, and made it clear that a number of script variants were used in these inscriptions. Indeed, a purely epigraphical definition is made difficult by the similarity of the Transpadanian alphabets, especially in the contact areas in the South of the Raetic area. (For details, see [[index::Script]].)
+In the early phases of the research on Raetic and North Italic writing in general, inscriptions tended to be assigned to different corpora based on a mixture of epigraphic and linguistic arguments. In 1971, {{bib|Prosdocimi 1971|Prosdocimi}} proposed that the term "Raetic" should by defined exclusively epigraphically, i.e. with regard to the alphabet in which an inscription is written: the elusive "Raetic" should denominate inscriptions that are neither written in the Este alphabet (Venetic), nor in the Lugano alphabet (Lepontic), nor in the Sondrio alphabet (Camunic), all better identifiable. At the same time he left open the question whether the inscriptions thus subsumed under the term "Raetic" were linguistically homogeneous, and made it clear that a number of script variants were used in these inscriptions.
-In the late 1990s, {{bib|Rix 1998|Rix}} and – independently – {{bib|Schumacher 1998|Schumacher}} could demonstrate that the inscriptions defined as Raetic by Prosdocimi were actually documents of one homogeneous language and that this language is related to Etruscan; since then, considerable progress has been made in the analysis of this language. Therefore, it may be more useful to put linguistic parameters at the basis of the definition. While the Transpadanian alphabets or alphabet variants are often indistinguishable in absence of certain shibboleth letters, the Raetic language as a member of the Tyrsenic language family is isolated beyond the Po, being surrounded by the Indo-European languages Venetic in the Southeast and Lepontic in the West. (The linguistic affiliation of Camunic remains obscure.) (For details, see [[index::The Raetic language]].)
+In the late 1990s, {{bib|Rix 1998|Rix}} and {{bib|Schumacher 1998|Schumacher}} demonstrated that the inscriptions commonly referred to as "Raetic" are in fact documents of one homogeneous language. This development made it more useful to put linguistic parameters at the basis of the definition. The Raetic language as a member of the Tyrsenian language family is isolated beyond the Po, being surrounded by the Indo-European languages Venetic in the south-east and Lepontic and Cisalpine Gaulish in the west. (The linguistic affiliation of Camunic remains obscure.) The alphabets which are associated with the Raetic epigraphic corpus, on the other hand, remain comparatively fuzzy entities. While we can identify features that are specifically "Raetic", there are no clear borders to the neighbouring alphabets; the North Italic alphabets are indistinguishable in absence of certain shibboleth letters. Regarding the archaeological aspect, the association of epigraphically and linguistically Raetic inscriptions with the archaeological Fritzens-Sanzeno culture is clear, but it is not a one-to-one-correlation which would allow for a clear-cut archaeological definition of "Raetic".
-Finally, the undisputable correlation between both epigraphically and linguistically Raetic inscriptions and the Fritzens-Sanzeno cultural horizon allow for an extension of the term ''Raetic'' to the field of archaeology. It is admissible to talk about a typically Raetic context, find type, etc. To recap, ''Raetic'' indicates primarily an ancient language of the Alpine region, documented in a small corpus of inscriptions; secondarily, it also refers to the alphabets in which these inscriptions are written, and to their archaeological/cultural context.
+Today, the term "Raetic" is primarily defined linguistically: "Raetic inscriptions" are those which encode the Raetic language. On this basis, the term can be extended – with care – to areas where we find features which are significantly associated with the linguistically Raetic corpus of inscriptions. The "Raetic alphabets" are the alphabets typically used to write these inscriptions. "Raetic contexts" or "Raetic find types" refer to features of material culture which are common in the Raetic corpus.
+Despite the overall surprisingly good fit between the various aspects of "Raeticity", these admissible extensions of the term must not mislead us to assume a one-to-one correspondence between the speakers of the Tyrsenian language we call "Raetic" and any archaeological groups, writers partaking of certain alphabetic traditions, and the uncertainly defined ''raeti'' as seen through the eyes of the classical authors. The origin of the ancient ethnonym is unknown; it may well be an exonym. We do not know whether or inhowfar "the Raetians" considered themselves to be an ethnos, and, if they or some of them did, whether such a community/communities was/were based on language, history, area of settlement, elements of material culture, or cult.
+Some scholars use a form with initial ''rh'' ("Rhaetic", "Rhaetian", vel sim.) to refer to the language and epigraphic corpus, reflecting the Greek sources for the ethnonym. We do not know the name's etymology, but considering that the Latin form is almost certainly primary, the variant with simple ''r'' should in our opinion be preferred.
 == Scope of the corpus and database ==
-The goal of the ''Thesaurus Inscriptionum Raeticarum'' is to make available all the material relevant for the study of the Raetic inscriptions in all their aspects. The Raetic corpus proper follows the preliminary corpus CIRCE as presented by {{bib|Schumacher 2004}}, using the sigla groups and including all inscriptions collected there without exception to avoid mismatches with the older literature, where Schumacher’s sigla are used. (See [[index::Property:sigla group|here]] for details on the sigla system.) In consequence, the corpus comprises not only such inscriptions as clearly represent script in the linguistical sense and can be epigraphically or linguistically assigned to Raetic on these grounds, but also a great number of dubious or non-inscriptions from geographically/archaeologically Raetic context. While these latter cases, though very interesting in themselves, are virtually impossible to securely assign to a specific Transpadanian corpus, and do (mostly) not provide data which contributes to the knowledge of the Raetic language, the establishment of stringent rules for whether to consider an intentional mark an inscription or not has proved difficult. The principle of accepting only, but all such markings as contain shapes which can be clearly identified as letters (as listed [[index::Category:Character|here]]) has turned out to be ineffectual, as it leads to the inclusion of an unmanageable host of one-character inscriptions which are highly improbable to represent script, or even obvious ornaments of the {{c||I}}{{c||I}}{{c||Θ}}{{c||I}}{{c||I}}-type. Concerning the inclusion of new inscriptions, the [[:Category:Team Member|TIR staff]] has ended up making more or less informed estimations of the character of marks, while taking into account the types of marks which are already part of the core corpus. In the first instance, only a subset of the new inscriptions provided by Mancini in the {{bib|LIR}} have been included, excluding those which consist in nothing but such characters as are filed as [[index::Category:Character|symbols]] in the TIR. A couple of markings which are probably not script have been included by virtue of a similarity with markings in the core corpus. Similarly, scratchings on Sanzeno bowls were included in the beginning, despite the lack of a single such object bearing a proper inscription, with regard to the substantial number in the core corpus (going back to the {{bib|IR}}) and the fact that the object type is a key form of the Fritzens-Sanzeno culture – this course had to be abandoned when the sheer mass of inscribed Sanzeno bowls transpired. Furthermore, considerations of dating may be relevant, e.g. in the case of Hallstatt age bronze axes, which are too old to be relevant to Raetic writing proper. With regard to our attempt to furnish all interesting data, excluded material is collected on a special page dedicated to [[index::Non-script notational systems]].
+The goal of ''Thesaurus Inscriptionum Raeticarum'' is to make available all the material relevant for the study of the Raetic inscriptions in all their aspects. The Raetic corpus proper follows the preliminary corpus CIRCE as presented by {{bib|Schumacher 1992}}/{{bib|Schumacher 2004|2004}}, using the sigla groups and including all inscriptions collected there without exception to avoid mismatches with the older literature, where Schumacher’s sigla are used. (See [[index::Property:sigla group]] for details on the sigla system.)
-== Contents ==
+In consequence, the corpus comprises not only such inscriptions as clearly represent script in the linguistical sense and can be linguistically or at least epigraphically identified as Raetic, but also a great number of dubious inscriptoids from geographically/archaeologically Raetic context. While these latter cases, though very interesting in themselves, are virtually impossible to securely assign to a specific North Italic corpus, and do (mostly) not provide data which contribute to the understanding of the Raetic language, the establishment of stringent rules for whether to consider an intentional mark an inscription or not has proved difficult. The principle of accepting only, but all such marks as contain shapes which can be clearly identified as letters (as listed on [[index::Category:Character]]) has turned out to be ineffectual, as it leads to the inclusion of an unmanageable host of one-character inscriptions which are highly improbable to represent script, or even obvious ornaments of the {{c||I}}{{c||I}}{{c||Θ}}{{c||I}}{{c||I}}-type.
-*[[index::Modern research on the Raeti and Raetic]]
-*[[index::Raetic epigraphy]]
+Regarding the inclusion of new inscriptions, the [[:Category:Team Member|TIR staff]] has ended up making more or less informed estimations of the character of marks, while taking into account the types of marks which are already part of the established core corpus. In the first instance, only a subset of the new inscriptions provided by Mancini in {{bib|LIR}} have been included, excluding those which consist in nothing but such characters as are filed as [[index::Category:Character|symbols]] in TIR. A handful of marks which are probably not script have been included by virtue of a similarity with marks in the core corpus (e.g., [[index::WE-7]], [[index::VN-19]]). Similarly, scratchings on Sanzeno bowls were included in the beginning (e.g., [[index::SZ-85]], [[index::SZ-86]]), despite the lack of a single such object bearing a proper inscription, with regard to the substantial number in the core corpus (going back to Mancini's {{bib|IR}}) and the fact that the object type is a key form of the Fritzens-Sanzeno culture – this course had to be abandoned when the sheer mass of inscribed Sanzeno bowls transpired. Furthermore, considerations of dating may be relevant, e.g., in the case of Hallstatt age bronze axes, which are too old to be relevant to Raetic writing proper – though [[index::BZ-17|one]] had managed to creep into the corpus via {{bib|PID}}, none of the many more specimens with marks were included. With regard to our attempt to furnish all interesting data, excluded material is collected together with the non- and para-script material in the corpus on [[index::Non-script notational systems]].
-*[[index::The Raetic language]]
-*[[index::Script]]
-*[[index::Non-script notational systems]]
-== The different aspects of Raetic ==
+== The different aspects of the term "Raetic" ==
 {{#compound_query:
 [[Meran / Merano||Trento||Verona||Feltre||San Giorgio di Valpolicella]];?coordinate;icon=Marker_C_DarkRed.png;limit=1000
@@ Line 30: / Line 40: @@
 |[[St. Lorenzen / San Lorenzo di Sebato||Lothen / Campolino||Serso||Vače||Steinberg am Rofan||Trissino||Unterammergau||Schluderns / Sluderno||San Bricchio||Ca' dei Cavri||Castelrotto||San Giorgio di Valpolicella||Brixen / Bressanone||Mals / Malles Venosta||Tisens / Tesimo]];?coordinate;icon=Marker_C_OliveDrab.png;limit=1000
 |[[Ardez||Bozen / Bolzano||Castelcies||Klobenstein / Collalbo||Mellaun / Meluno||Montorio||Pfaffenhofen||Piovene Rochette||Seis am Schlern / Siusi allo Sciliar||Sterzing / Vipiteno||Tesero||Ženjak]];?coordinate;icon=Marker_C_YellowGreen.png;limit=1000
-|format=googlemaps|width=100%|height={{var|image_height}}|type=physical}}
+|format=map|width=100%|height={{var|image_height}}|type=physical}}
 {|table class="table_data" style="margin-top:20px;"
@@ Line 52: / Line 62: @@
 {{bibliography}}
 {{navigation|Main Chapter}}
+__NOTOC__

Raetica: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 20:02, 8 April 2020

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