PV·4

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Inscription
Reading in transliteration:	eripoχios
Reading in original script:
Object:	PV·4 Gropello Cairoli (bowl)
Position:	foot, outside
Direction of writing:	sinistroverse
Script:	North Italic script (Lepontic alphabet)
Letter height:	0.5–2.5 cm0.197 in <br />0.984 in <br />
Number of letters:	9
Number of words:	1
Number of lines:	1
Workmanship:	scratched into leather-hard clay
Condition:	complete
Archaeological culture:	La Tène D 1 [from object]
Date of inscription:	late 2nd c. BC [from object]
Type:	unknown
Language:	Celtic
Meaning:	'Eripoχios'
Alternative sigla:	Tibiletti Bruno 1981: 31 RIG: E-3 Solinas 1995: 112 Morandi 2004: 104
Sources:	Morandi 2004: 592

Images

Tibiletti Bruno's drawing of inscription PV·4 from Morandi 1999

Inscription PV·4 on the mould of PV·4 Gropello Cairoli from Morandi 1999

Drawing of inscription PV·4 from Morandi 2004

Commentary

First published in Mirabella Roberti & Pirani 1959: 21.

Images in Tibiletti Bruno 1965b: 560 (photo = RIG II.1: 39, fig. 16 [detail]) and 561 (drawing = RIG II.1: 39, fig. 17 = Morandi 1999: 186, fig. 7), Morandi 1999: 203, tav. XVI.3 (photo of a mould in the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnica "Leonardo da Vinci", Milano), Morandi 2004: 563, fig. 15.104 (drawing).

Inscribed on the foot of the patera around the rim. As already observed in Mirabella Roberti & Pirani 1959: 21, who read ericofios, the ductus is almost cursive. The execution of the letters is imprecise, but practised, and seems to have been done on leather-hard clay – Tibiletti Bruno 1965b: 561 argues that, despite the smooth edges of the lines, the inscription must be written after firing because no displacement of clay is visible, but the fluid execution of such fairly deep lines seems hardly possible to achieve by scratching a hard surface (cf. Morandi 1999: 185–187, no. 34). Reading eripoχios from Tibiletti Bruno 1965b with discussion of the letter shapes p. 562–564; the hasta of rho is prolonged like that of epsilon and decidedly curved, but omicron, which appears twice as an angular, but closed circle, can be excluded. The two bars of rare chi are executed in one as a curved, lopsided chevron; the right-hand side bar is connected to the top of the hasta, which was applied after the bars, in a loop, as the writer did not lift the instrument enough and grazed the inside of the rim; the similarity with the modern cursive lower-case Greek phi ⟨φ⟩ is coincidental.

/g/ – possibly allophonic [γ] between vowel and glide – is spelled with chi, which does not agree with the letter's archaic sound value and may be due to influence from Venetic orthography. Cf. VR·21, VC·1.2, NM·6, TI·13, TV·1, PD·2; see Lejeune 1971: 20 f., RIG II.1: 38 f., and North Italic Script.