MI·6
| Inscription | |
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| Reading in transliteration: | setupk |
| Reading in original script: |      
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| Object: | MI·6 Milano (unknown) |
| Position: | unknown |
| Direction of writing: | sinistroverse |
| Script: | North Italic script (Lepontic alphabet) |
| Number of letters: | 6 |
| Number of words: | 1 |
| Number of lines: | 1 |
| Workmanship: | scratched |
| Condition: | unknown |
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| Archaeological culture: | unknown [from object] |
| Date of inscription: | unknown [from object] |
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| Type: | unknown |
| Language: | Celtic |
| Meaning: | abbreviation |
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| Alternative sigla: | Whatmough 1933 (PID): 335 Tibiletti Bruno 1981: 30 RIG: E-6 Solinas 1995: 100 Morandi 2004: 135 |
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| Sources: | Morandi 2004: 612 no. 135 |
Images
 Inscription MI·6 from Mommsen
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Commentary
First published in Mommsen 1853: 217 f.
Image in Mommsen 1853: Taf. III, no. 44 (drawing).
The authenticity of the inscription was doubted by the only person who ever saw it and had his opinion published – the vessel's owner Bernardino Biondelli, who wrote to Mommsen "i caratteri e la graffitura mi sembrano affatto moderni". Biondelli was inclined to epigraphic scepticism (see VA·5); Mommsen argued that the letter forms are too plausible to be a forgery, and read ietupk (see also CII no. 11, Poggi 1879: 315). The reading setupk goes back to Pauli 1885: 11, no. 24, who, based on Mommsen's drawing, argued that sigma is frequently only slightly curved in the Lepontic alphabet (see S); see also Giussani 1902: 52, Rhŷs 1913: 45, Whatmough 1933 no. 335.
The inscription is generally assumed to be an abbreviation of the compound name setupokios (Rhŷs 1913: 45, Whatmough 1933 no. 335, Lejeune 1971: 51, 70, Tibiletti Bruno 1975b: 54, Tibiletti Bruno 1978: 148, Tibiletti Bruno 1981: 185 f., no. 30, RIG E-6, Solinas 1995: 364, no. 100, Motta 2000: 214, Morandi 2004: 612, no. 135); see the word page for details.
The document is one of the six included as Gaulish in the RIG (E-6). Lejeune, who writes that sigma consists of six strokes (although Biondelli/Mommsen's squiggle shows only four), speculates whether the inscription – if it is from the immediate environs of Milano rather than from nearer the Lake region – may be the oldest Cisalpine Gaulish inscription.
Bibliography
| CII | Ariodante Fabretti, Corpus inscriptionum italicarum antiquioris aevi. Ordine geographico digestum et glossarium italicum, in quo omnia vocabula continentur ex umbricis, sabinis, oscis, volscis, etruscis aliisque monumentis quae supersunt, Augusta Taurinorum: 1867. |
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