BI·3

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Inscription
Reading in transliteration:	]ọṭụḳịos
Reading in original script:	]
Object:	BI·3 Cerrione (stela)
Position:	front
Direction of writing:	dextroverse
Script:	North Italic script (Lepontic alphabet)
Letter height:	4.5–8.5 cm1.772 in <br />3.346 in <br />
Number of letters:	7
Number of words:	1
Number of lines:	1
Workmanship:	carved
Condition:	damaged, incomplete
Archaeological culture:	Roman republican period [from object]
Date of inscription:	70–40 BC [from object]
Type:	funerary
Language:	Celtic
Meaning:	'the °otukian' (?)
Alternative sigla:	none
Sources:	Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013: 37–39 no. 4

Images

Stela BI·3 Cerrione with inscription BI·3 from Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013

Commentary

First published in Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2011: 103.

Images in Brecciaroli Taborelli 2011: 387, tav. 6 (drawing = Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013: 38), Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013 (photo).

Part of a single vertical line remains of the inscription; the dextroverse ductus is inferred from upsilon, assumed to be the standard non-inverted form . Solinas (Cresci Marrone & Solinas 2013: 38) considers it possible that a line was lost, but does not specify on which side this line would have been, nor whether the inscription runs upward (as implied by the photo) or downward (as all other dextroverse alphabetically Lepontic inscriptions from the necropolis, the only inscription with a different orientation being BI·2). Before the first omicron, the surface has chipped off; according to Solinas, the remains of a hasta can be made out in the space between (not shown in the drawing). All letters are damaged by various breaks; only final omicron and sigma are preserved completely. The reading of the fourth letter as kappa, which cannot be seen in either photo or drawing, follows Solinas; if the letter is indeed kappa, or any letter other than iota, there is no space left for another letter between it and iota.

If the reading as above is correct, the most plausible assumption is that the preserved section of the inscriptions represents the patronym in -(i)i̯os of a binominal formula as attested in most other vernacular inscriptions from the Cerrione necropolis, the individual name, written in a separate line, being lost – °otuk(i)i̯os 'the °otukian'. The handful of potential comparanda includes botuca, cotuco and motuc(i)us (see Delamarre 2007: 46, 76, 136). Solinas also considers the possibilities that a) the third-to-last letter is not in fact iota, but – with regard to the comparatively large distance to following omicron – lambda, in which case the sequence would not be a patronym, but an individual name, or b) that °otu is the individual name and the rest (much too short of course) the patronym.

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.