VA·1.1

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Inscription
Reading in transliteration:	kasiuos
Reading in original script:
Object:	VA·1 Ardena (bottle) (Inscriptions: VA·1.1, VA·1.2)
Position:	foot, outside
Direction of writing:	sinistroverse
Script:	North Italic script (Lepontic alphabet)
Number of letters:	7
Number of words:	1
Number of lines:	1
Workmanship:	scratched after firing
Condition:	complete
Archaeological culture:	La Tène C 2 [from object]
Date of inscription:	first half of 2nd c. BC [from object]
Type:	unknown
Language:	Celtic
Meaning:	'Kasiuos'
Alternative sigla:	Tibiletti Bruno 1981: 21 Solinas 1995: 113 2 Morandi 2004: 41 A
Sources:	Morandi 2004: 544 f. no. 41 A

Images

Inscription VA·1.1 from Morandi 1999	Inscription VA·1.1 from Morandi 2004	Inscription VA·1.1 from Morandi 2004	Inscription VA·1.1 from Tibiletti Bruno 1966	Bottle VA·1 Ardena with inscription VA·1.1
Inscription VA·1.1

Commentary

First published in Bertolone 1941: 27 f. Examined for LexLep on 27^th January 2022.

Images in Bertolone 1941: 28, fig. 5 (drawing), Tibiletti Bruno 1966: 16 (photo and drawing), Morandi 1999: 173 (drawing) and pl. X.2 (photo = Morandi 2004: tav. IX.41), Morandi 2004: 548, fig. 11.41 (drawing), Rapi 2009b: 213, fig. 1 (photo) and 214, fig. 2 (drawing).

Inscribed on the foot of the bottle, using the rim (top) and a prominent concentric groove (bottom) as guidelines. The inscription is impeded by a small pebble which is baked into the clay and must have been there when the letters were applied. Upon reaching the pebble in the lower part of their line, the writer inscribed upsilon and omicron above it, then finished with full-height sigma. Final sigma is only slightly curved, somewhat more prominently in the upper area; the reading is supported by the similarly executed first sigma, but see S on inscriptions in which the reading of similar letters as sigma or iota is uncertain.

Bertolone read the fifth letter not as small upsilon, but as kappa . The linguistically attractive reading kasikos (kass-ikos, as in Gaul. cassic(i)us/-a, Delamarre 2007: 59) is repeated by Tibiletti Bruno 1966: 15–21, Lejeune 1971: 50, 62, Tibiletti Bruno 1978: 148 f., Solinas 1995: 368 f., no. 113,2, Morandi 1999: 173 f., no. 19, Morandi 2004: 545, Rapi 2009b: 214. However, while small damages below the pebble may suggests the lower tip of a hasta, there is smooth surface between the tip of upsilon and the pebble, without trace of a hasta or lower bar to form kappa.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

Bertolone 1941	Mario Bertolone, "Nuove scoperte archeologiche della provincia di Varese", Rivista Archeologica dell'Antica Provincia e Diocesi di Como 123–124 (1940 [1941]), 21–36.