MA-5

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Inscription
Transliteration:	piθieikuniiþu
Original script:
Object:	MA-5 antler (antler)
Position:	front
Script:	North Italic script (Magrè alphabet)
Direction of writing:	dextroverse
Letter height:	0.60.6 cm <br /> – 1.9 cm
Number of letters:	12 – 13
Number of lines:	1
Craftsmanship:	engraved
Current condition:	complete
Date of inscription:	3rd–2nd centuries BC [from object]
Date derived from:	archaeological context [from object]
Language:	Raetic
Meaning:	'Piθie ?'
Alternative sigla:	PID 224 IR 8 LIR MA-9 MLR 63 TM 218478
Sources:	Schumacher 2004: 162, 339

Commentary

First published in Pellegrini 1918: 185 f. (no. 14).

Images in Pellegrini 1918: 185, fig. 21 (drawing), IR (photo tav. XXXIX d = LIR), LIR (drawings), MLR (photos).

Length 5.7 cm, starting at the broader end of the antler piece. The letters are aligned along the upper edge and deeply and tidily engraved. The Magrè special character is executed with two instead of three angles. The only dubious point is the two vertical lines between and : They are just as clearly engraved as the other lines, at slightly over 1 mm distance from each other, and cannot well be argued to represent just one sloppily carved (but cp. Nu in MA-6). Repetition of letters does not usually occur in Raetic inscriptions, and the phonetic context is not one where a semi-vocalic element might have been marked by the writer. Whatmough consequently read śi instead of nii, but the first vertical is too far removed from to be a hasta of .

The individual name piθie can be identified, the rest of the inscription is obscure. -þu appears to be a suffix or inflectional ending, reoccurring in MA-2 and MA-23.

On the back, at about 4 cm from the broader end, an arrangement of lines (length 2.8 cm), executed with single lines unlike the marks on most other antler votives from Magrè.

Further references: Kretschmer 1932: 138, Battisti 1936: 496 ff., Vetter 1943: 80, Kretschmer 1943: 179, Vetter 1954: 73 f., Pellegrini & Prosdocimi 1967: 158, Pisani 1964: 318 (no. 134c), Tibiletti Bruno 1967: 1 ff., Tibiletti Bruno 1978: 237 f.

Bibliography

Battisti 1936	Carlo Battisti, "Rivista Linguistica Etrusca 1932-35 (Prima puntata)", Studi Etruschi 10 (1936), 488–517.
IR	Alberto Mancini, "Iscrizioni retiche", Studi Etruschi 43 (1975), 249–306.
Kretschmer 1932	Paul Kretschmer, "Die Etruskerfrage und die Inschriften von Magrè", in: Axel Nelson (Ed.), Symbolae philologicae O.A. Danielsson Octogenario dicatae, Uppsala: 1932, 134–142.
Kretschmer 1943	Paul Kretschmer, "Die vorgriechischen Sprach- und Volksschichten (Fortsetzung)", Glotta 30 (1943), 84–218.
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)