TI·31 Aranno

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Object
Classification:	slab
Material:	stone
Size:	length 32 cm, width 25 cm, thickness 7,5 cm
Condition:	fragmentary
Autopsy by:	Corinna Salomon
Date of autopsy:	Oct 18 2023
Archaeological culture:	La Tène B, La Tène C
Date:	4th–mid-2nd c. BC
Date derived from:	typology
Site:	Aranno (Ticino, Switzerland)
Archaeological context:	tomb (Objects: TI·29 Aranno, TI·30 Aranno, TI·31 Aranno, TI·32 Aranno)
Coordinates (approx.):	46° 1' 2.81" N, 8° 52' 27.14" E
Find date:	1841
Current location:	Museo del Malcantone (Curio)
Inventory no.:	6.1818.2
Inscription:	TI·31 (]aḷạ[)
Alternative sigla:	Whatmough 1933 (PID): 272 b Solinas 1995: 1 D Motta 2000: 8 b Morandi 2004: 29
Sources:	Morandi 2004: 535–537 no. 29

Commentary

Images in Mommsen 1853: Taf. I.5b (drawings by Pelli = CII: tab. I.1B a and b), CII: tab. LVIII.1B (drawing of a cast by Serafino Balestra ~ Pauli 1885: Taf. I.1b), Tibiletti Bruno 1965: 113 and 118 (photos) and 119 (drawing). Photo of a plaster cast, probably from the Museo Civico Lugano, in Motta & Ricci 1908: tav. II; while this cast must be assumed to be lost, two more are thought to be kept at the Ufficio Cantonale dei Beni Culturali (Bellinzona) and at the Rätisches Museum (Chur). In great detail on the history of the documentation Tibiletti Bruno 1965: 103–105 with footnotes.

Fragment of a mica schist stela or slab, found in March 1841 a quarter of a mile from Aranno near the old street which leads from there via the Monte d'Iseo to Neggio, on the property of one Vittore Corti, at a depth of somewhat over half a metre, together with three other stone fragments. According to the first owner of the finds, Vittore Pelli from Aranno, they are the remains of a grave chamber (of uncertain age), destroyed by the finders (Mommsen 1853: 202 f., no. 5). Differently Crivelli 1940: 333, who gives the find year as 1818 and locates Corti's property in the locality Màrtera. See Tibiletti Bruno 1965: 105–109 for a discussion of the find circumstances. Built into a wall of Pelli's house (no. 26, later the Osteria della Posta; photo and drawing in Tibiletti Bruno 1965: 106 f.) until May 2000, they were removed on occasion of the I Leponti exhibition.

The four fragments from Aranno were originally thought to be parts of the same stela despite not fitting together. Tibiletti Bruno 1965: 109–114 (already Lavizzari 1863, also Tibiletti Bruno 1968c: 356) based on micro- and macroscopic petrographic analyses concluded that they are fragments of at least three different stelae which had been reused for the Aranno tomb, the present fragment and TI·29 Aranno being possibly part of the same stela. We are inclined to think that the latter two fragments do indeed belong together; apart from the observations concerning the composition of the stone by Tibiletti Bruno, our examination of the now unobstructed fragments has confirmed that the thickness of TI·29 Aranno and TI·31 Aranno is equivalent. See the inscription page for further discussion and the typological/palaeographical dating.

Corinna Salomon

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.
Crivelli 1940	Aldo Crivelli, "La iscrizione nord-etruscha di Aranno", Rivista Storica Ticinese 3 (1940), 333.