TI·34.1

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Inscription
Reading in transliteration:	aui : pala :
Reading in original script:
Object:	TI·34 Capriasca (stela) (Inscriptions: TI·34.1, TI·34.2, TI·34.3)
Position:	back
Orientation:	270°
Frame:	(left: round, middle: top and bottom, right: feet)
Direction of writing:	sinistroverse
Script:	North Italic script (Lepontic alphabet)
Letter height:	13.5–17 cm5.315 in <br />6.693 in <br />
Number of letters:	7
Number of words:	2
Number of lines:	1
Workmanship:	carved
Condition:	complete, damaged
Archaeological culture:	La Tène B, La Tène C
Date of inscription:	4th–mid-2nd c. BC (?)
Type:	funerary
Language:	Celtic
Meaning:	'pala for Auos'
Alternative sigla:	Whatmough 1933 (PID): 268 a Solinas 1995: 27 Aa Motta 2000: 5 A1 Morandi 2004: 32 Aa
Sources:	Morandi 2004: 538 no. 32 Aa

Images

Inscriptions TI·34.3 (above), TI·34.1 (centre) and TI·34.2 (below) from Giussani

Inscriptions TI·34.1 (above) and TI·34.2 (below) from Morandi

Commentary

First published in Giussani 1902: 25–31.

Images in Giussani 1902: 26, fig. 1 (drawing), Rhŷs 1914: tav. Ia (photo), Crivelli 1943: 33, fig. 52 (photo = Tibiletti Bruno 1997: fig. 4), Tibiletti Bruno 1990b: 81 (drawing), De Marinis & Motta 1991: 208, fig. 4 (drawing).

Inscribed inside an anthropomorphic frame with simple round head and stylised feet, which shares one line with the frame of TI·34.2. The letters are well legible. Upsilon is inverted, but epigraphically and linguistically more plausible than alpha without a bar, as read in the older literature and by Solinas 1995. An additional letter, possibly kappa, before initial alpha was only seen by Morandi 2004. The end of the inscription is marked by an additional separator.

Tibiletti Bruno 1970: 374 f. (also 1978: 137 f., 1990b: 89 f., 1997: 1005 f.) argues convincingly that this inscription and TI·34.2 are younger than TI·34.3 on the opposite side, since they and their frames are complete and appear to have been applied when the stone was already fragmentary (also Piana Agostinetti 2004: 157; the opposite position in De Marinis & Motta 1991: 218, Motta 2000: 200, no. 5 and Morandi 2004). The frame of the present inscription gives the impression of a rough imitation of the more elaborate anthropomorphic frames associated with type C of De Marinis & Motta 1991; 206, of which Tibiletti Bruno expects TI·34.3 to have been a representative – unless the rounded head is a more archaic feature related to type B? Since the two inscriptions were not applied by the same engraver, TI·34.1 is also likely somewhat older than TI·34.2, which is applied in an even simpler frame below it/to its left.

The inscription names the deceased only by his individual name (see aui), cf. the other inscriptions on this stone and possibly some of the inscriptions from Aranno.

See also Motta & Ricci 1908: 28 f., Rhŷs 1913: 14, no. 1, Jacobsohn 1927: 31, no. 197b, Tibiletti Bruno 1975: 53.

Corinna Salomon

Bibliography

Crivelli 1943	Aldo Crivelli, Atlante preistorico e storico della Svizzera Italiana. Vol. 1: Dalle origini alla civiltà romana, Bellinzona: Istituto Editoriale Ticinese 1943.
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.
Giussani 1902	A[ntonio] Giussani, "L' iscrizione nord-etrusca di Tesserete e le altre iscrizioni pre-romane del nostro territorio", Rivista Archeologica della Provincia e Antica Diocesi di Como 46 (1902), 25–67.