MA-21

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Inscription
Transliteration:	pịθ̣[
Original script:	]
Object:	MA-21 antler (antler)
Position:	front
Script:	North Italic script (Magrè alphabet)
Direction of writing:	sinistroverse
Letter height:	1.8 cm
Number of letters:	3
Number of lines:	1
Craftsmanship:	engraved
Current condition:	fragmentary
Date of inscription:	3rd–2nd centuries BC [from object]
Date derived from:	archaeological context [from object]
Language:	unknown
Meaning:	unknown
Alternative sigla:	PID 241 LIR MA-12 MLR 50
Sources:	Schumacher 2004: 166

Commentary

First published in Pellegrini 1918: 186 f. (no. 16).

Images in Pellegrini 1918: 186, fig. 23 (drawing), LIR (photo and drawing). The photos in MLR are erroneously of MA-22.

Length of the remains 1.1 cm. The lines are thin, but tidy and well visible. The first letter is not (with shortened second hasta, as frequent in the Magrè inscriptions), as assumed by Whatmough, but (Pellegrini). The second letter is a hasta with two very clear short bars in the bottom. The possible reading as Khi is probably the reason for Whatmough's reading Alpha before it. Of the third letter, damaged by the break, only the tips of two oblique lines are left – suggests itself.

A sequence pχθ[ is highly unlikely (assuming that the inscription is language-encoding). Pellegrini's reading piθ[ is altogether more plausible. He attributed the two little bars to "tentennamenti" on the writer's part; Mancini interprets them as punctuation marks, but neither are syllabic puncts of this kind attested, nor would they be expected in a perfectly normal CV-syllable. piθ[ may well be the beginning of a Raetic name (formula), cp. piθie / piθam(n)e etc.

No marks on the back of the fragment.

Further references: Tibiletti Bruno 1967: 1 ff., Tibiletti Bruno 1978: 237.

Bibliography

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)