IT-5

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Inscription
Transliteration:	? : / ]θ̣[ ]θ̣?kaịa[ ? / utiku : θaukịṣ / kleimunθeis / avaśuerasi : ihi
Original script:	][ ][]
Object:	IT-5 plaque (bronze)
Position:	front
Frame:	(straight, all, straight)
Script:	North Italic script (Sanzeno alphabet)
Direction of writing:	sinistroverse
Letter height:	1.1 cm – 1.7 cm
Number of letters:	38
Number of lines:	5
Craftsmanship:	embossed
Current condition:	fragmentary
Date of inscription:	end of the 6th–beginning of the 5th centuries BC [from object]
Date derived from:	palaeography [from object]
Language:	Raetic
Meaning:	unknown
Alternative sigla:	MLR 1

Images

Object IT-5 plaque with inscription IT-5.

Object IT-5 plaque with inscription IT-5.

Commentary

First published in Tomedi et al. 2006: 119. Autopsied by TIR in November 2013.

Images in Tomedi et al. 2006: Abb. 7 (photo), Marchesini 2013 (photos, one of which = MLR).

The letters are neatly and regularly embossed on the thin bronze sheet. The traces of nails around the holes left on fragments B and D (in the lower right and left corners) show that the reverse was the face side. The text is framed with rows of puncts, which also serve to separate lines and words, and mark the end of lines. Sections without letters of different size are consequently situated on the left side of the plaque. If, as Marchesini 2013: 45 assumes, the uppermost horizontal line of puncts represents not a line separator, but the line delimiting the inscribed area on top, less than half of the inscription is missing. Our reconstruction of the plaque differs from Marchesini's insofar as we think that fragment G fits with fragment D as shown in photo and drawing above. Fragments G and E do not fit together, they merely both have breaking lines along straight hastae. Fragment E, unless it fits in right above the left-hand lacuna in line 3, must be part of line 1. Detailed measurements in Marchesini 2013.

Line 1: Only a single letter is left, broken along its left hasta and followed by a row of puncts. It's identification is problematic, as it can be nothing else but , yet Upsilon is Sanzeno (fitting with and ) in all five other instances on the plaque.
Line 2: The initial letter can only be – the entire breaking edge is bent, indicating a line ; a crack runs along what is left of the other hasta. Then a lacuna of one, maybe two letters, and another , partly preserved on fragment G. Also on G, the bent breaking edge on the left indicates either a hasta or a row of puncts. The next letter after the lacuna, on fragment B, is Kappa broken along the hasta, followed by Alpha and another bent edge, either a row of puncts (Marchesini) or Iota. Next, fragment F shows another Alpha broken off along both hastae. Then a long lacuna (3 or four letters); of the last letter in line 2, only the bent edge of a bar is left: , , or turned Sigma as in line 5 (as opposed to 3 and 4). The reading can feasibly be θ[ ]θika : a[ , θ[ ]θ : kaia[ , or possibly θ[ ]θi : kaia[.
Line 3: The sheet is broken along both hastae of second Upsilon, but the reading is clear. Toward the end of the line, a piece is missing in the upper area. The reading is not Epsilon (Marchesini) but , the middle bar of Sigma being clearly visible along the bent breaking edge.
Lines 4 and 5 are undamaged apart from minor cracks along a few hastae.
Fragment E, broken along all available lines, shows either San as in line 5, or .

The interpretation given in De Simone 2013 ('gift donated by the present Kleimun to the Avaśu*') must in part be disregarded due to the misreading of θaukis for θauke, which was consequently interpreted as the verbal form of the text (preterite in -ke). The deverbal form utiku must be assumed to name the votive act, as indeed it does, unaccompanied by a finite verbal form, in numerous inscriptions. Following de Simone, avaśuerasi is a pertinentive plural, kleimunθeis is an ablative. θaukis may be a genitive, or an ablative in agreement with kleimunθeis. According to de Simone, the ablative marks the sponsor of the votive gift, while the pertinentive form marks the beneficiary. Otherwise in Raetic inscriptions, it is the two-partite Raetic names of the donors which appear in the pertinentive, while the beneficiary appears in the genitive. Without the complete set of endings in the text, it is hardly possible to determine the function of the attested ones, esp. as the ablative in Raetic is extremely sparsely documented. Just as well as the sponsor of the gift, it might, as usual in Etruscan, indicate a source or affiliation – maybe a place of origin, not entirely unlikely in a sanctuary with a large catchment area. For the fragmentary sequences in line 2, cp. θiuθis and kaial.

The inscription IT-5 is notable for a number of features. It is the only inscription on a bronze plaque, comparable not to Raetic, but to Venetic and Etruscan finds (Marchesini 2013: 45 ff.). The only other inscription which has so far been found on the Demlfeld is Venetic (*It 5, see Schumacher 2009). The alphabet used is notably not one of the Venetoid variants found in other inscriptions from the Inn valley (IT-2, IT-4, IT-8) or the petrographs, but the Sanzeno alphabet. An epigraphical dating would therefore place the inscription in the 5^th–4^th c.

Bibliography

De Simone 2013	Carlo de Simone, "Analisi linguistica", in: Carlo de Simone, Simona Marchesini (Eds), La lamina di Demlfeld [= Mediterranea. Quaderni annuali dell'Istituto di Studi sulle Civiltà italiche e del Mediterraneo antico del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. Supplemento 8], Pisa – Roma: 2013, 55–71.
Eichner 2013	Heiner Eichner, "Neues zur Sprache der Stele von Lemnos. (Zweiter Teil)", Journal of Language Relationship 10 (2013), 1–42.
Marchesini 2013	Simona Marchesini, "Descrizione epigrafica della lamina", in: Carlo de Simone, Simona Marchesini (Eds), La lamina di Demlfeld [= Mediterranea. Quaderni annuali dell'Istituto di Studi sulle Civiltà italiche e del Mediterraneo antico del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche. Supplemento 8], Pisa – Roma: 2013, 45–53.