NO·20 Cureggio

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Object
Classification:	stela
Material:	stone
Size:	max. height 105 cm, max. width 72 cm, thickness 16 cm (of fragment)
Condition:	broken, fragmentary, repaired
Autopsy by:	Corinna Salomon
Date of autopsy:	Apr 24 2024
Archaeological culture:	unknown
Date:	1st c. BC
Date derived from:	palaeography
Site:	Cureggio (Novara, Piemonte, Italy)
Coordinates (approx.):	45° 40' 31.07" N, 8° 27' 42.12" E
Find date:	1983
Find circumstances:	survey
Current location:	Musei Reali – Museo di Antichità (Torino)
Inventory no.:	none
Inscription:	NO·20 (]?ọ[/]ṭọ[]ịkṇọṣ/ṃatopokios/sola/nimoniknạ)
Alternative sigla:	Solinas 1995: 123 Morandi 2004: 96
Sources:	Morandi 2004: 564 no. 96

Images

Fragment NO·20 Cureggio with inscription NO·20 from Morandi 2004

Fragment NO·20 Cureggio with inscription NO·20

Commentary

Images in Gambari 1984: tav. LXXXV A (photo of two fragments), Gambari 1991: 231, fig. 2 (photo), Morandi 2004: tav. XII.96 (photo)

The roughly rectangular orthogneiss slab which is preserved represents the remains of what must have been a stela of considerable size, viz. well over 1 m in width (1.2 m and weighing up to a tonne according to Gambari 1991: 228). It is broken into four adjacent fragments, which were found during a survey of the church S. Maria Assunta among a heap of slabs beside an outside wall; only two fragments were published initially (Gambari 1984), but the ensuing search for the rest of the stela yielded two more soon afterward. Remains of plaster, which were removed during the restauration and repair of the slab in the 1980s, show that the slab was used as building material for the church, and was cast aside during a renovation. The round recess on the right of the upper corner is thought to have been created intentionally when the slab was incorporated into the wall; the disintegration into four pieces was caused by a hammer blow in the upper area (today covered with filling material), conceivably when the slab was removed from the wall. The stone comes from the Pennidico inferiore of the Monte Rosa or Ossola region, probably transported to the Agogna valley by a glacier. The surface bearing the inscription was smoothed. See Gambari 1991: 227–229.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

Gambari 1984	Filippo M. Gambari, "Cureggio. Stele di reimpiego con iscrizione preromana", Quaderni della Soprintendenza Archeologica del Piemonte 3 (1984), 263.
Gambari 1991	Filippo M. Gambari, "La stele di Cureggio: una nuova iscrizione epicorica preromana dal Novarese", Sibrium 21 (1990–1991), 227–237.