SZ-32 antler

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Object
Classification:	handle
Material:	antler
Size:	length: 7.8 cm, width: 2.6 cm, height: 1.5 cm
Condition:	incomplete, restored, damaged
Archaeological culture:	Late Iron Age
Date:	5th–1st centuries BC
Date derived from:	cultural context
Site:	Sanzeno (Trento, Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy)
Coordinates (approx.):	46° 21' 57.60" N, 11° 4' 30.00" E [from site]
Find date:	26. 02. 1900
Find circumstances:	old finding
Current location:	Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum (on exhibition)
Inventory Nr.:	13.443
Inscription:	SZ-32 (]þipupi)
Sources:	IR: 270–271 [No. 31], pl. XLII, fig. b Nothdurfter 2002: 1150 [list 3, No. 8]

Images

Object SZ-32 antler with inscription SZ-32.

Commentary

Antler fragment.
Probably handle of a knife or another tool.
Broken in two pieces, but restored these days. From beige to brown coloured; semi-circular cross section; smoothed surface; on end broken, the other partly damaged.
The above-mentioned dimensions result of the autopsy by the Thesaurus Inscriptionum Raeticarum. Mancini notes: "Dimensioni: lunghezza mm. 78, larghezza 27–22" (cp. IR: 270); Marchesini indicates: "Lungh max con 7,3 cm; spess max cons 2,5 cm" (cp. MLR: 176).
On one longside a decoration in form of a dice eye.
On the other longside an inscription.
Mancini notes that the antler handle was found the 26 February 1900 in Sanzeno without giving further information (cp. IR: 270 [No. 31]; and again in LIR: 121 [SA-65]). But it can be assumed that the antler piece presents one of the old findings from Sanzeno which were found by the local inhabitants at the turn of the 19th century to the 20th cneutry in Sanzeno. The major part of these findings were acquired by the Tyrolean State Museum in the course of the turn of the century, hence the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century.
The dating to the Late Iron Age is reasoned by the appearance of the inscription and the general valuation of the findings made in Sanzeno to the 5th to the 1st centuries BC (cp. Fogolari 1960: 304).
Doubts in matters of the material: Mancini notes "frammento di osso (o di corno?)" (cp. IR: 270 [No. 31]; and again in LIR: 121 [SA-65]). In succession Nothdurfter mentions the two possibilities: antler or bone (cp. Nothdurfter 2002: 1150). Marchesini notes: "probabile immanicatura di corno di cervo" (cp. MLR: 176). In the museum the object is described as made of bone.
In the recently released study about the Raetic inscriptions by Marchesini the antler handle is listed with "MLR 169", an autopsy was effected (cp. MLR: 176 [MLR 169]).
Autopsied by the Thesaurus Inscriptionum Raeticarum in November 2013.

S.K.

Bibliography

Fogolari 1960	Giulia Fogolari, "Sanzeno nell'Anaunia", in: Deputazione di Storia Patria per le Province di Romagna (Eds), Civiltà del Ferro. Studi pubblicati nella ricorrenza centenaria della scoperta di Villanova [= Documenti e studi VI], Bologna: Forni 1960, 265–321.
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)