TI·38

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Inscription
Reading in transliteration:	]??i : uosiu[
Reading in original script:	]?[
Object:	TI·38 Pregassona (stela)
Position:	front
Frame:	??  (left: unknown, middle: top and bottom, right: unknown)
Direction of writing:	ambiguous
Script:	North Italic script (Lepontic alphabet)
Number of letters:	8
Number of words:	2
Number of lines:	1
Workmanship:	carved
Condition:	fragmentary
Archaeological culture:	Golasecca III A, La Tène B, La Tène C
Date of inscription:	5th–mid-2nd c. BC
Type:	prob. funerary
Language:	prob. Celtic
Meaning:	unknown
Alternative sigla:	Morandi 2004: 279
Sources:	Morandi 2004: 706-707

Images

Inscription TI·38 from Morandi

Stela TI·38 Pregassona with inscription TI·38 from Morandi

Stela TI·38 Pregassona with inscription TI·38

Commentary

First published in Morandi 2004: 706 f., no. 279.

Images in Morandi 2004: 707, fig. 33 (photo and drawing), Dell'Era 2020: 217, fig. 1 (photo and drawing).

The fragment preserves part of an inscription between frame lines; the letters are damaged and badly legible. The letter to the right of the separator in the photo above is a slightly wiggly line which could be iota (Crivelli, Dell'Era 2020: 218) or four-bar sigma (Morandi), the other sigma, also with four bars, being also quite flat. The letter next to it is read as rho by Crivelli, omicron by Morandi, and considered illegible by Dell'Era.

According to Piana Agostinetti 2004: 162 and Dell'Era 2020: 218, one of the frame lines curves outward on the left side. Agostinetti, interpreting it as a stylised foot, considers this the lower end and beginning of the inscription. Morandi's reading accordingly assumes dextroverse writing: ]uisou:ṣo?[ (or indeed uisou:ṣo?[), which yields a linguistically unattractive (on-stem nominative?) ending °ou (cf. uerkou, prikou, anatikou). As pointed out by Dell'Era, the curve could as well represent the beginning of the head, in which case this would be the inscription's end. The writing direction being ambiguous in terms of letter forms, he suggests a sinistroverse reading ]??i:uosiu[ (the end of the inscription), with )i a likely dative ending and another dative in emended uosiui. This would agree better with our expectations regarding the text formula of a Ticino gravestone (binominal formula in the dative); irregularities are constituted by the absence of the formula word pala and the formation of the assumed second name uosiu( without -al-.

If the fragment shows the frame's head, the frame can be classified as type B, if it shows the feet, as type C according to the system of De Marinis & Motta 1991: 206; hence the non-committal dating above.

Already mentioned (without readings) in Tatarinoff 1924: 125, PID Add.: 629, Lejeune 1971: 5, no. 10.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

Dell’Era 2020	Romeo Dell'Era, "uisou o uosiu[i]? Cambiando senso, il senso cambia. Nuova lettura di un'iscrizione celtica da Pregassona (Lugano)", in: Michel Aberson, Francesca Dell'Oro, Michiel de Vaan, Antoine Viredaz (eds), [vøːrtər]. Mélanges de linguistique, de philologie et d'histoire ancienne offerts à Rudolf Wachter [= Cahiers de l'ILSL 60], Lausanne: 2020, 215–220.
De Marinis & Motta 1991	Raffaele C. De Marinis, Filippo Motta, "Una nuova iscrizione lepontica su pietra da Mezzovico (Lugano)", Sibrium 21 (1990–1991), 201–225.