NO·18

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Inscription
Reading in transliteration:	metelui : maeśilalui : uenia : metelikna : aśmina : krasanikna
Reading in original script:
Object:	NO·18 Miasino (bottle)
Position:	shoulder, outside
Orientation:	0°
Direction of writing:	dextroverse
Script:	North Italic script
Number of letters:	47
Number of words:	6
Number of lines:	1
Workmanship:	scratched after firing
Condition:	complete
Archaeological culture:	La Tène D 1 [from object]
Date of inscription:	second half of 2nd century BC [from object]
Type:	unknown
Language:	Celtic
Meaning:	'for Metelos son of Maeśilos Uenia daughter of Metelos, Aśmina daughter of Krasanos' (?)
Alternative sigla:	Whatmough 1933 (PID): 321 Tibiletti Bruno 1981: 20 Solinas 1995: 122 Morandi 2004: 94
Sources:	Morandi 2004: 582 no. 94

Commentary

First published in Lattes 1904.

Images in Lattes 1904: 449 (drawings of the letters) and tav. (photos = Rhŷs 1913: tav. VII), Gambari 2019: 95, fig. 1 (photos of sections) and 97, fig. 2 (photo).

Applied in a spiral around the shoulder of the small flask; conceivably intended as a neat circle, the last word had to be placed below the first for lack of space. The alphabet is Lepontic, but mu has a Latinised form: both hastae are slightly oblique, but the point of the angle does not reach the bottom of the line (cf. VB·3.1 at Ornavasso). This letter form indicates a lower dating than the mid-3^rd c. BC suggested by Gambari 2019: 94 f. (see M); the alphabet of the inscription is similar to that of VB·3.1 and NO·20. The separator has the shape of a single dot, which may also be due to Latin influence (cf. VB·3.2). We therefore prefer the traditional dating to at least the second half of the 2^nd c. BC (cf. Morandi 2004). Lambda is executed in all instances with a slightly oblique hasta.

The reading was established by Lattes based on the drawing of the letters provided by Curioni, the only point of uncertainty being the first letter of the third word, which looked more like kappa in Curioni's, more like upsilon in Ferrero's drawing; upsilon was confirmed by Rhŷs 1913: 57 in autopsy. Rhŷs 1914: 25, after a second autopsy, noted that the chevron which appears in the photograph after the sixth letter in the fourth word, making it look like nu rather than iota , is a chimera (which did not keep Whatmough PID: 121 from claiming, based on the photograph, that the sixth letter in the fourth word was "imperfect" alpha ). Rhŷs ibid. also reported that a faint small was written under the bars of the first nu in krasanikna, which he suggested to be a correction; the traces in question are visible in the photo in Gambari 2019: 97, fig. 2, but seem unlikely to be intentional.

The inscription was cited as the main piece of evidence for the ending -ūi̯ being a dative by Danielsson 1909: 18 f. (following a hesitant Herbig 1906: 197, n. 2). uenia metelikna and aśmina krasanikna are taken to be the names of two women, respectively Metelos' daughter and wife ('for M. M. U. M. [and] A. K.'), in asyndeton by most scholars (Lattes, Herbig, Danielsson, Rhŷs, Pedersen 1921: 40 f., Tibiletti Bruno, Prosdocimi 1991: 160, n. 24, Solinas, Morandi, Gambari 2019: 96). Vetter 1927: 12 f. instead proposed that, since the conjunction is missing (cf. -pe in VB·3.1), uenia was a lexeme 'wife', the last four words naming a single person 'wife of M., A., daughter of K.' (thus also Pisani 1964: 285 f., no. 122). As argued by Lejeune 1971: 73 f., this interpretation does not work for multiple reasons. It is syntactically unlikely, as the individual name aśmina should be expected to precede the affiliations, and also implausible with regard to the generally patronymic function of the suffix -ikn-; the derivation of uenia from *g^u̯enih₂ disagrees with *g^u̯ > b in Lepontic and Gaulish (see also Hamp 1974: 194). Lejeune did, however, note that the relationship of Aśmina to Metelos is not evident. McCone 1993: 243–245 observes that the name of Metelos' wife would be expected to stand before that of their daughter; he interprets uenia as a lexeme 'offspring': 'for M. M. the descendants of M. and A., daughter of K.'. While this interpretation is possible, the attestation of a name uenu at Giubiasco supports the analysis of uenia as a personal name. See further Eska 1995b: 131–134 on the preferability of the interpretation as a personal name – as Eska notes, Aśmina may be a granddaughter, daughter- in-law, niece, or other female relative. Tibiletti Bruno 1975: 55 f. notes the difference between the patronymic suffixes in the names of Metelos – -al- as on the pala-stelae from the Lugano area – and those of his daughter and putative wife – Gaulish -ikn- –, concluding that the familiy was in the process of Gallicisation (also Tibiletti Bruno 1978: 149 f., 165 f., Tibiletti Bruno 1981: 175, Meid 1999: 15). See the word pages about the classification and etymologies of the individual names.

See also Jacobsohn 1927: 30, no. 187, Untermann 1960: 307, Pulgram 1978: 37 f.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

Danielsson 1909	Olof August Danielsson, Zu den venetischen und lepontischen Inschriften [= Skrifter utgivna av Kungliga Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundet i Uppsala 13.1], Uppsala – Leipzig: 1909.
Eska 1995b	Joseph F. Eska, "Another look at Lepontic uenia", Beiträge zur Namenforschung 29/30 (1994/1995), 129–136.
Gambari 2019	Filippo Maria Gambari, "De transitu Gallorum haec accepimus. Cronologia, fonti e modelli narrativi dei passi liviani sull'arrivo dei Galli, alla luce dell'archeologia", Preistoria Alpina 49bis (2019), 55–63.