VB·24

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Inscription
Reading in transliteration:	exobna / diuconis / f
Reading in original script:
Object:	VB·24 Stresa (stela)
Position:	top, front
Orientation:	0°
Direction of writing:	dextroverse
Script:	Latin script
adapted to:	North Italic script
Letter height:	7.5–8.5 cm2.953 in <br />3.346 in <br />
Number of letters:	15
Number of words:	3
Number of lines:	3
Workmanship:	carved
Condition:	complete
Archaeological culture:	Augustan, Tiberian [from object]
Date of inscription:	late 1st c. BC–early 1st c. AD [from object]
Type:	funerary
Language:	Latin
Meaning:	'Exobna daughter of Diuco'
Alternative sigla:	Tibiletti Bruno 1981: 15a Morandi 2004: 67
Sources:	Morandi 2004: 564 f. no. 67

Images

Gravestone from Bee with Latin inscription

Inscription VB·24 from De Giuli 1979

Stela VB·24 Stresa with inscription VB·24 from De Giuli 1979

Stela VB·24 Stresa with inscription VB·24

Commentary

First published in De Giuli 1979: 248. Examined for LexLep on 20^th April 2024.

Images in De Giuli 1979: 248 (photo fig. 3 = Mainardis 2009: 337, fig. 5, and drawing).

Inscribed in three neatly centered lines in the upper area of the stela (length line 1 46 cm, line 2 48 cm; distance from top 42 cm). The script is Latin and some of the letters feature serifs, but nu is Lepontic. Eks appears in an unusual form which may have been made up by the writer to avoid the homography with Lepontic . Mainardis 2009: 344 suggests that the for filius is written in a third line because it was felt to be a novel addition to the traditionally two-word name formulae.

The text is a Latinised name formula with individual name and filiation; both names are etymologically Celtic (see the word pages). The individual name diuco is also attested in a Latin inscription diuco atloucis·f on a gravestone from Bee near Verbania (Lanza & Poletti Ecclesia 2021). Cf. Tibiletti Bruno 1979: 260–262, Tibiletti Bruno 1981: 168, no. 15a, De Giuli 1979: 245, 251.

See the object page on the dating. Morandi 2004: 565 dates the inscription to the first half of the 1^st century BC based on the use of ⟨x⟩ rather than ⟨xs⟩, but this seems too early. Based on the stela shape and absence of a frame beside remnants of Lepontic influence in the letter forms and possibly layout, VB·24 is likely to be one of the later, though not among the very latest of the attested Verbano gravestones.

See also AE 1982, no. 413, Epigraphische Datenbank Heidelberg HD001987.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

AE	Various authors, L'année épigraphique, Paris: 1888–.
Caramella & De Giuli 1993	Pierangelo Caramella, Alberto De Giuli, Archeologia dell'Alto Novarese, Mergozzo: Antiquarium Mergozzo 1993.
De Giuli 1978	Alberto De Giuli, "Le stele funerarie di Brisino", Bollettino Storico per la Provincia di Novara 69/1 (1978), 13–20.
De Giuli 1979	Alberto De Giuli, "Le stele funerarie di Brisino", Sibrium 14 (1978–1979), 245–252.