MA-21

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Inscription
Transliteration: pịθ̣[
Original script: ]Θ sline d 0001 sI sline d 0002 sP s

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 A7 s (with shortened second hasta, as frequent in the Magrè inscriptions), as assumed by Whatmough, but P s (Pellegrini). The second letter is a hasta with two very clear short bars in the bottom. The possible reading as Khi Χ2 s 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 – Θ s 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)