BI·3
| Inscription | |
|---|---|
| Reading in transliteration: | ]ọṭụḳịos |
| Reading in original script: | ]     
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| Object: | BI·3 Cerrione (stela) |
| Position: | front |
| Direction of writing: | dextroverse |
| Script: | North Italic script (Lepontic alphabet) |
| Letter height: | 4.5–8.5 cm1.772 in <br />3.346 in <br /> |
| Number of letters: | 7 |
| Number of words: | 1 |
| Number of lines: | 1 |
| Workmanship: | carved |
| Condition: | damaged, incomplete |
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| Archaeological culture: | Roman republican period [from object] |
| Date of inscription: | 70–40 BC [from object] |
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| Type: | funerary |
| Language: | Celtic |
| Meaning: | '(son) of °otuk(i)os' (?) |
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| Alternative sigla: | none |
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| Sources: | Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013: 37–39 no. 4 |
Images
 Stela BI·3 Cerrione with inscription BI·3 from Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013
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 Stela BI·3 Cerrione with inscription BI·3 from Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013
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Commentary
First published in Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2011: 103.
Images in Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013: 38 (photo and drawing).
Part of a single vertical line remains of the inscription; the dextroverse ductus is inferred from upsilon, assumed to be the standard non-inverted form . Solinas (p. 38) considers it possible that a line was lost, but does not specify on which side this line would have been, nor whether the inscription runs upward (as implied by the photo) or downward. Before the first omicron, the surface has chipped off; according to Solinas, the remains of a hasta can be made out in the space between (not shown in the drawing). All letters are damaged by various breaks; only final omicron and sigma are preserved completely. The reading of the fourth letter as kappa, which cannot be seen in either photo or drawing, follows Solinas; if the letter is indeed kappa, or any letter other than iota, there is no space left for another letter between it and iota.
If the reading as above is correct, the most plausible assumption is that the remaining section represents the patronym in -ii̯os of a binominal formula as attested in most other vernacular inscriptions from the Cerrione necropolis, the individual name, written in a separate line, being lost – °otukii̯os '(son) of °otuk(i)os'. The handful of potential comparanda includes botuca, cotuco and motuc(i)us (see Delamarre 2007: X). Solinas also considers the possibilities that a) the third-to-last letter is not in fact iota, but – with regard to the comparatively large distance to following omicron – lambda, in which case the sequence would not be a patronym, but an individual name, or b) that °otu is the individual name and the rest (much to short of course) the patronym.
Bibliography
| Brecciaroli Taborelli 2011 | Luisa Brecciaroli Taborelli (ed.), Oro, pane e scrittura. Memorie di una comunità "inter Vercellas et Eporediam" [= Studi e ricerche sulla Gallia Cisalpina 24], Roma: Edizioni Quasar 2011. |
|---|---|
| Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2011 | Giovannella Cresci Marrone, Patrizia Solinas, "Il messaggio epigrafico: Riconoscimento del sepolcro e strategia della memoria", in: Luisa Brecciaroli Taborelli (ed.), Oro, pane e scrittura. Memorie di una comunità "inter Vercellas et Eporediam" [= Studi e ricerche sulla Gallia Cisalpina 24], Roma: Edizioni Quasar 2011, 89–106. |
| Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013 | Giovannella Cresci Marrone, Patrizia Solinas, Microstorie di romanizzazione. Le iscrizioni del sepolcreto rurale di Cerrione, Venezia: Edizioni Ca' Foscari 2013. |
| Delamarre 2007 | Xavier Delamarre, Noms de personnes celtiques dans l'épigraphie classique. Nomina Celtica Antiqua Selecta Inscriptionum, Paris: Errance 2007. |
