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Section VI.

Inscriptions.

The three great finds, Villanova, the Certosa, and Marzabotto, have made but one real addition to the inscriptive literature of the Etruscans. Whilst the central and the Campanian Federations proved rich, the Circumpadan has shown itself exceptionally poor in this point, much resembling the Phoenicians, whom Professor Calori assigns to the Etruscans as ancestry. The citizens of Sidon and Tyre were probably great writers of ledgers, invoices, and such matters, but how few are the important epigraphs which they have left us! In this point they offer a curious contrast with their immediate neighbours, the Egyptians and the Assyrians.

At Villanova no engraved record was found beyond the broad arrow, the phaeon of heraldry, possibly representing the letter Ch in two shapes -- (La Necropoli di Vill., page 52), (La Necropoli di Vill., page 56). As a maker's mark (?) it has been detected, not

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only in the other two diggings, but also at Adria, Mantua, Modena, and Reggio.

It is otherwise at the Certosa, and happily so, as the single important inscription (see page 240) is able to remove all doubts about the Etruscanicity of the noble discoveries. The accompanying illustration is borrowed from a facsimile in lithograph (plate IX) by Professor Calori, who, after Fabretti, translates it (page 4): ‑‑ I am the sepulchre of Tanaquil (TANKhE) wife ofTitullius.

[Jeff Hill's footnote: MI ∙ SUTI ∙ ThANChVILUSh : TITLALUSh -- I (am the) tomb of Mrs. Thanchvili (Tanaquil), (wife) of Mr. Titlale. Below on page 240 Mr. Burton describes this inscription (TESTIMONIORVM LINGVAE ETRVSCAE 700) but more correctly prints SUTI as SUTI, although the letters SU have been supplied in the illustration.]

This feminine name bean to appear at Chiusi, and it thoroughly

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establishes the Etruscan character of Old FELSINA.

Cav. Zannoni (Sugli Scavi della Certosa, pages 27, 54) tells us that a rough STELA showed the letters IAN, perhaps to be read, as at Monte Alcino, from right to left, NAI; a similar CIPPVS bore the letters ITU and NISh, [Jeff Hill's footnote: here it is unclear if Mr. Burton is printing the transcribed Etruscan or the actual letters; I have assumed the latter possibility, bearing in mind retrograde NAKAI two lines down, and corrected accordingly] the latter in red paint, whilst the largest and most perfect specimen of these noble headstones had NAKAI inscribed under the horses' hoofs. The SIGLI or marks upon pottery found at the Certosa are about fifty, and they have been sent for publication to the celebrated Professor Ariodante Fabretti, who proposes to publish them in the Aggiunta, or sequel to his CORPVS INSCRIPTIONVM ITALICARVM ANTIQVI AEVI. Many fictiles are also inscribed. The familiar ΚΑΛΕ and (ΗΟ ΠΑΙΣ?) ΚΑΛΟΣ often occurs; it is repeated six times upon the largest tazza, suggesting nuptial gifts to women, or presents to the beautiful boy.

Cav. Zanetti (Sugli Scavi della Certosa, page 39) offers the following scatter of SIGLI (marks) and graffiti: ‑‑

then

At the base of vases:

finally

Upon a tazza were

and upon the kelebe of the two QVADRIGAE, one face shows before the charioteer

between the horses' hoofs are

and fronting the same appear

The other side offers also facing the charioteer

and between the horses' hoofs

with

in front of them.

The circle, it will be remarked, concludes every line. The following two words are of pure Etruscan type.

appears

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upon a pot cover of brown clay, and

upon a red fragment.

The Etruscan alphabet is still a debated subject, especially in the matter of the two sibilants. Mr. Murray believes that the fact of their being double (M and Σ) points to an age when the Greeks had not abandoned the Samech (ם) as well as the Shin (ש = ﺱ or ﺵ). The Etruscan alphabet of Bomarzo (Dennis, I, 225; compare with the Pelasgic or archaic Greek graffiti; and with the primers II, 54, and II, 158) begins, like all the Semitics, with Alif (Alpha). The next three do not follow the Hebrew form retained by the Arabs in their chronological Abjad (A, B, J, D), and by the Greeks with certain modifications. The three following are regular, Hutti (H, Th, the Etruscan and archaic Greek , the Arabic ﻁ, and I or Y), and the L, M, N, are the Arabic Kalaman, omitting only, while the old Greek and the Lycian (Fellows) retain, the first. Then Sa'afas (S, Oin or Ayn, P or F, and S = ﺹ, in Hebrew Tzaddi צ) is preserved only in two Etruscan letters P and S (), and the eighth word Karashat (K, R, SH, and T) is likewise reduced to R, S (Sh? Σ) and T. This certainly

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suggests that the second sibilant was aspirated (= Sh), while the absence of O is distinctly Arabic.

At Marzabotto, besides the pottery marks, we have the following three specimens: ‑‑

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The other four Bologna inscriptions, given in the Secondo supplemento alla raccolta delle antichissime iscrizioni italiche (per cura di Ariodante Fabretti, Roma‑Torino‑Firenze presso i Fratelli Bocca, Librai di S. M. 1847) are the following: ‑‑

1.

VELThUR = Velthur

circularly inscribed upon the bottom of a red clay pot found at the Certosa. Velthur is an Etruscan praenomen in the inscriptions of Tarquinii; and, as the letters are evidently traced with the tool before the vase was burnt, it would appear to be the name of the maker. [Jeff Hill's footnote: the orthography is obviously VELTUR and Veltur rather than VELThUR and Velthur.]

2.

NRU = Nru,

was forwarded, like the rest, by Cav. Zannoni to Professor Fabretti in December 1872. It is inscribed upon a fragment of a great DOLIVM, found on the Arnoaldi property, near the Certosa; the letters are eight centimetres long, and are held to be part of the

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name of the Bolognese artificer at Marzabotto, which Fabretti (CORPVS INSCRIPTIONVM ITALICARVM, number 46) reads NRUSh, and not UMRUS, for example,

3.

[Jeff Hill's footnote: MI ∙ SUTI ∙ ThANChVILUSh : TITLALUSh -- I (am the) tomb of Mrs. Thanchvili (Tanaquil), (wife) of Mr. Titlale.]

MI (SU) TI ThANChVILUSh TITLALUS, appeared copied from a clay model in Primo suppl. to the Corpo delle antichissime iscrizioni italiche, page 2, note I; then reduced to one third natural size in the Atti della R. Accademia delle Scienze, VII, 894, and lastly lithographed in the second supplement (plate number 3). It is remarkable for the squarcd form of the A. [Footnote 1: The facsimile is given in page 228.]

4.

VEIPIKARMUNISh

[Jeff Hill's footnote: = either Mrs. or Ms. Veipi Karmuni's (tomb), or, just as possible in these ambiguous funeral inscriptions, Mrs. Veipi, (wife) of Mr. Karmune; in Latin, either VIBIA(E) CARMONIAE (SEPVLCRVM) or VIBIA CARMONII (VXOR)]

is inscribed above the two human figures, feminine on the right and masculine to the left, upon a great sepulchral STELA from the Scavi Arnoaldi. Evidently the sculptor had no space for the letter (V), as if he had begun from left to right, whereas the reading is the reverse. Here we may understand VIBIA, CARMONII VXOR.

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5.

ThIThIS

[Jeff Hill's footnote: To be transcribed ThIThISh rather than ThIThIS = Mrs. Titi's or Mr. Tite's.]

V LUChMA LU

[Jeff Hill's footnote: it is possible that VLUChMALU should be separated as Mr. Burton suggests into V LUChMA LU, the common abbreviation, V, of which would stand for the forename VEL (or VELCh or similar). LUChMA might be another spelling of the variously spelled LAUChUM, LVCVMO, king, or it could simply be a family name. LU could be an abbreviation for a forename LUChU, as recommended by Mr. Burton, or, more likely, LUChUAL or similar, since a name (patronymic or matronymic) in the genitive is expected here.]

is inscribed on a figured STELA at the Certosa cemetery. The upper line, which contained some twenty letters cut into a band, is much injured; the lower, which separates the two human figures, is read easily enough. LUChMA, probably an archaic form, like LUChUMES and LUCUMU, is not without interest to those who study the relations between upper and central Etruria, which are daily developing themselves. The final syllable (LU) recalls to mind the praenomen (LUChU) read upon a fictile urn at Chiusi (CORPVS INSCRIPTIONVM ITALICARVM, number 597 bis r).