BI·2

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Inscription
Reading in transliteration:	]aki??ịos : matikios
Reading in original script:	??[
Object:	BI·2 Cerrione (stela)
Position:	front
Orientation:	270°
Direction of writing:	sinistroverse
Script:	North Italic script (Lepontic alphabet)
Letter height:	2.5–6 cm0.984 in <br />2.362 in <br />
Number of letters:	14–16
Number of words:	2
Number of lines:	1
Workmanship:	carved
Condition:	damaged
Archaeological culture:	Roman republican period [from object]
Date of inscription:	100–40 BC [from object]
Type:	funerary
Language:	Celtic
Meaning:	'°aki?ios the Matikian'
Alternative sigla:	none
Sources:	Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013: 31–33 no. 2

Images

Stela BI·2 Cerrione with inscription BI·2 from Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013

Commentary

First published in Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2011: 92.

Images in Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2011: 93, fig. 88 (photo = Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013: 32 [in colour]), Brecciaroli Taborelli 2011: 387, tav. 6 (drawing = Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013: 32).

Inscribed in a single sinistroverse line running upward; the only sinistroverse inscription from the Cerrione necropolis and possibly the only one running upward (see BI·3). The inscription is abraded and disturbed by a break and missing piece of the stone's surface in the lower area, in which no more than two letters should be missing. Our reading follows the original publication. Before alpha, a section of stone is left, on which no letters can be made out, but the reading by Solinas implies uncertainty as to whether letters may be lost. Solinas (Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013: 32) notes that the bars of four-stroke sigma as well as mu are executed as curved lines.

The grammar and form of the onomastic formula, with o-stem individual name in -os and patronym in -(i)i̯-, are Celtic, as is the name underlying the patronym matik(i)os. The damaged personal name also finds potential comparanda in Gaulish inscriptions – Solinas (Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013: 32) points out akitu in BI·4 and akisios in VC·1.2, but notes herself that more than one letter is missing in the gap. Fitting options with Gaulish comparanda include e.g. akianios; the gap is hardly large enough for three letters, but at a stretch one could consider suffixed variants of the base agis-/acis- (see aged-), with slender sigma, such as agisilios, akisilios, akisinios (see Delamarre 2007: 10, 15). If the name is incomplete in the beginning, cf. e.g. mag/cianus, magionus, mag/ciatus, dagionius (see Delamarre 2007: 81, 122 f.).

Corinna Salomon

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.